and lonely. My only consolation, as I drifted off into a troubled sleep, was knowing I, like my child, had been conceived in love. Granted, a weird, fucked-up kind of love—but love nonetheless.
Chapter 23
“How did you sleep, dear?” my mother asked, as she spread marmalade on her English muffin.
“Okay, I guess,” I replied, as I eyed the plate of bacon and eggs Clarence set before me. “I’m afraid I’m not used to the sound of traffic in the streets anymore. It’s going to take some readjusting.”
“Have you seen an obstetrician? Or were you simply relying on witch doctors for your prenatal care?”
Despite my mother’s recent decision to treat me as an adult, I didn’t see any point in testing her resolution by revealing that I’d left Golgotham because Hexe had stolen money I needed for a prenatal exam. “Well, I have a friend who practices traditional Chinese medicine. . . .”
“I suspected as much,” she said, setting down her knife. “So I took the liberty of booking you an appointment with my gyno, Dr. Blumlein—he’s also an obstetrician. You’ll love him—he warms his hands before he does his exam.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” I said, the image of my mother with her feet in gyno stirrups now seared into my mind’s eye. So much for breakfast . . .
Dr. Blumlein’s practice was in a state-of-the-art office building on East Seventy-second Street, within easy reach of Prada, Frederic Malle, and Swifty’s. When my mother and I arrived, we entered a tastefully appointed reception room with nicer furniture than most people have in their homes and were greeted by a pleasantly smiling woman who only glanced at my tattoos and eyebrow piercing once as she entered my information into a computer. After that was taken care of, I was handed over to a second, equally pleasant woman dressed in nurse’s whites, who escorted me to an examination room, leaving my mother to her own devices.
I changed out of my street clothes into a smocklike garment, and the nurse took my medical history and drew a blood sample. She then handed me a little plastic cup with a screw-on lid and pointed me to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Once that was taken care of, I was returned to the examination room, where I sat on the paper-wrapped exam table, staring at a laminated poster depicting cutaway views of a gestating womb during the various stages of pregnancy.
There was a polite rap on the door as the nurse reappeared, this time in the company of a dapper middle- aged man dressed in a white lab coat with a stethoscope looped about his neck. He had a nice smile and kind eyes, and seemed exactly the sort of man my mother and her high-society friends would trust to look at their hoo-has on a regular basis.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Eresby,” he said, flashing me a welcoming smile. “My name is Dr. Blumlein. I’ll be looking after you and your baby from here on.” As the nurse busied herself with preparing the room for my pelvic exam, he glanced down at the clipboard he was carrying. “It says here that you are in your eighteenth week.”
“That’s correct.”
He gave me a dubious look. “Are you certain?”
“I might be off a week in either direction,” I admitted. “But I’m in the general ballpark.”
“I see,” he grunted, jotting something down on the clipboard. “I understand that this is your first prenatal exam? I realize you’re young, but there are risk factors in all pregnancies. You don’t want to gamble with your baby’s health, do you?” he chided. “I see that you’re twenty-six. And the father? He’s—?”
“Kymeran.”
The gynecologist’s smile abruptly blinked off. “I was asking his age.”
“Sorry, my mistake. He’s thirty,” I replied.
The pelvic exam and pap smear proved to be as awkward, uncomfortable, and tedious as all such exams tend to be, landing somewhere between a getting-my-teeth-cleaned and changing-the-oil-in-my-car on the Necessary Evil scale.
“I’m going to leave you with Nurse Riggins here,” Dr. Blumlein announced as he shed his gloves. “She’ll conduct the ultrasound, so we can check on the development of your baby and triangulate your due date. Once that’s finished, I’ll be conferring with you in my office.”
“Just stay on your back and uncover your tummy, Ms. Eresby,” Nurse Riggins said as she rolled over the portable ultrasound machine. Once my abdomen was exposed, she slathered it with a clear gel and then turned on the machine.
“What, exactly, are you looking for when you do this?” I asked as she placed the transducer against my swollen belly.
“Right now I’m monitoring the baby’s heartbeat and seeing if your placenta is in the right place,” the nurse replied, keeping one eye on the monitor as she slowly moved the transducer across the expanse of my bared belly. “I’m also looking for fetal abnormalities. So far everything is checking out just fine.” She turned the computer screen about so that it was facing me. “Do you want to say hello?”
I stared at the black-and-white image on the screen—although it looked like a cross between a smudged Xerox and an X-ray, there was no mistaking what I held within me was a very well-developed fetus, with its legs folded up like landing gear and its tiny hands held before its face like a boxer. The first thing I did was laugh in delight at the sight of my child—so close, and yet so far from me. And then I began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I said as the nurse paused in her duties long enough to hand me a tissue. “I didn’t mean to lose control like that.”
“It happens all the time.” She smiled. “I’m used to it.”
“I just wish my boyfriend was here to see it,” I said as I blew my nose. “Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Oh, yes,” Nurse Riggins replied, nodding her head. “He’s definitely a boy.”
I nodded my head. So Lafo’s dessert was right, after all.
“And is he—is he—?” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence for fear of saying what I dreaded would somehow make it so.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Ms. Eresby,” the nurse said reassuringly. “Your little boy is perfectly normal. . . .”
A big, stupid smile split my face as I heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing the news.
“He’s got all ten fingers and toes.”
Dr. Blumlein’s private office was every bit as tastefully appointed as his waiting room, with diplomas from a prestigious university and medical school hanging on the walls, alongside framed photographs of famous women whose vaginas he had looked at over the years—including my own mother.
“Nice to see you, again, Millicent,” the doctor said, motioning for my mother and me to take a seat. “I must say it’s a good thing you brought your daughter in when you did.”
“Is there a problem?” I frowned, protectively crossing my arms over my stomach.
“Although your general health is excellent, Ms. Eresby, and the baby’s fetal heartbeat is very strong, it appears there has been a
“That’s impossible!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “There is no way I’m almost eight months pregnant!”
“I don’t know how else to explain it, Ms. Eresby, save that it might have something to do with the baby’s mixed parentage. I admit I know practically nothing about Kymeran biology, save that their gestation period is
“I see,” my mother said stiffly, gathering up her purse. “Why don’t you just come out and say that your malpractice insurance doesn’t cover hybrid pregnancies, Daniel?”
“Now, Millicent, you’re not being fair—!” he objected.
