On the bus, perhaps as a subconscious act of rebellion, I sit in the seat reserved for people with mobility issues and pregnant women. It will be the one time, I figure, that I’ll qualify for this seat. It is peak hour and raining, so it’s not long before the seats fill up around me. After a few stops, another pregnant woman gets on, this one at least seven or eight months along. I find myself staring at the woman’s round belly.
‘Excuse me,’ the woman says, holding her belly. ‘Do you mind?’
I look at her. ‘Do I mind what?’
She gestures to her belly. ‘Um . . . it’s just . . . could I . . .?’
‘She wants to sit down,’ a man calls from a few rows back.
I turn to look at the man, who I notice is making no move to leave his own seat.
‘Get up, for Christ’s sake,’ he barks. ‘That seat is for pregnant ladies!’
‘I’m pregnant too,’ I say when I turn back to the girl, but so quietly I can barely hear myself.
‘Get up!’ someone else calls. ‘What is the matter with you?’
The driver pulls over and turns around to see what the commotion is all about. ‘This woman won’t get up for the pregnant lady,’ the man from the back of the bus says.
The driver looks at me, then at the visibly pregnant woman. ‘Those seats are reserved for pregnant or disabled passengers, love,’ he says gently.
‘I’m pregnant too,’ I say louder, standing. My voice sounds funny, as if something has caught in my throat. To my horror, I realise I am crying. I lower my chin and press the button for the next stop.
I alight from the bus, even though we are several stops before my destination, and walk the rest of the way to the clinic in the rain.
I am soaking wet when I arrive at the clinic. The clinic is behind an innocuous shopfront alongside an optometrist and a barber. I’ve walked fourteen blocks, during which time the rain has not relented for a single second. Still, despite the unexpected bus trip and the walk, I still arrive five minutes early for the appointment.
Rose does not. When I fail to see her standing out the front, I feel a distinct note of disappointment. Subconsciously, I’d already handed over the responsibility of announcing my arrival at the desk and filling out any forms to Rose. Instead, I let myself inside, into a small waiting room.
‘May I help you?’ the receptionist says to me. She’s a grandmotherly sort, probably in her mid-sixties, with greying brown hair and lime-green eyeglasses on a chain. I ignore her and take a seat. The woman’s eyes follow me, but she leaves me be, her eyes returning to her computer after a second or two.
The room is about half full. I notice a pair of teenage girls, seemingly without a guardian; a girl of around eighteen years of age with her mother; and a couple who look to be in their mid-thirties, both weepy-eyed and silent. All of them leaf through magazines, perhaps to distract themselves or to blend in. I don’t reach for a magazine. It’s never seemed wise to touch communal property at a doctor’s office, given the fact that they are little more than conduits for germs. Then again, this doctor’s office is a little different from most, and the patients are no more likely to be carrying germs than anyone in an office building. They, like me, are here for a different reason. It’s funny how awareness of this slides in and out of focus. One minute, I’m fine, and the next, it hits like a sudden, sombre surprise.
As the clock ticks over to 10.01 am, Rose comes bursting through the door, wearing a plum-coloured mohair jumper that makes me itchy just to look at. Though she is carrying an umbrella, her hair is soaking wet. She looks like a different person. ‘Fern! There you are!’
She is surprisingly loud, and everyone in the waiting room looks up from their magazines. The woman behind the desk peers at us over the top of her glasses. ‘Fern Castle?’ she says.
Rose looks at me. ‘You haven’t told them your name yet?’
‘No,’ I say, much quieter. It’s not like Rose to make a spectacle.
Rose kneels on the floor in front of me. Everyone else in the waiting room looks back at their magazines, pretending not to pay attention to us.
‘Good,’ she says. ‘Because . . . I had a thought this morning. It might sound crazy. Okay, it is crazy.’
‘What is crazy?’ I ask. I look at the pieces of hair stuck to her face and wonder if it is Rose herself.
‘It’s just . . . this morning I realised I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t ask . . .’
One of the teenage girls isn’t even pretending to read her magazine anymore. Instead, she outright stares at us. I stare right back at her, and I am rewarded when she finally looks away.
‘Ask me what?’
Rose looks around, as if only now noticing the other people in our immediate proximity. ‘Uh . . . maybe we should talk somewhere more private?’
‘But what about–’ I start to say, but it’s too late. Rose is already on her feet on the way to the reception desk to tell the receptionist that we won’t be requiring our appointment today.
Rose takes me to a café not far away from the clinic and
