Page 114 - In Five Years

A young male nurse or doctor’s assistant wearing wire-rimmed glasses
appears in front of a glass door.
Bella shifts the paperwork nervously in her lap. “I didn’t finish,” she says.
Brenda at the desk smiles. “It’s okay. We can get to it after.” She looks from

me to Aaron. “Are both of you headed back?”
“Yes,” Aaron answers.

The nurse, Benji, chats happily to us as we move down the hallway. Again,
with the cheer. You would think we were walking to an ice cream parlor or
waiting in line for the Ferris wheel.
“Right this way.”

He holds his arm across a doorway to a white room, and the three of us enter
in the same formation: me, Bella, Aaron. There are two seats in the corner and

an examining chair. I stand.
“We’ll just do some quick stats while we wait for Dr. Finky.”
Benji takes Bella’s vitals—her pulse, her temperature—and looks inside her

throat and ears. He has her get on the scale and takes her weight and height.
Aaron doesn’t sit either and. with the two chairs and us standing, the room seems
small, almost claustrophobic. I’m not sure how we’re going to fit another person

in there.
Finally, the door opens.
“Bella, I haven’t seen you since you were ten years old. Hello.”

Dr. Finky is a short man—round and plump—who moves with a precise and
almost dart-like speed.
“Hi,” Bella says. She extends her hand, and he takes it.

“Who are these people?”
“This is my boyfriend, Greg.” Aaron extends his hand. Finky shakes it. “And
my best friend, Dannie.” We do the same.

“You have a good support system; that’s nice,” he says. I feel my stomach
clench and release. He shouldn’t have said that. I don’t like it.
“So you came to the doctor thinking you were pregnant? How about you

explain how you arrived in my office today?”
Finky puts on his glasses, takes out his notebook, and starts nodding and
writing. Bella explains it all, again: The missed period. The bloating. The false