Kitty and the Silver Bullet

'Kitty.' He bowed his head. 'Never mind, do what you think is best.'

'You think I should go to a doctor.'

'Can you even sit up right now?'

I didn't want to think about sitting up, I hurt that much. Which meant maybe he was right.

'I don't have health insurance. Werewolves don't need health insurance.' I reached for his hand; he took it, held it. He gave me that exasperated look he always did when I was being stubborn.

'One checkup won't break the bank.'

'But what if something's really wrong?'

'You said it yourself—werewolves don't get sick.'

“Then I don't have to go to the doctor.'

We glared. He looked away first—deferring to the more experienced. A submissive wolf. He dug my clothes out of the hole we'd stashed them in and threw them at me.

'Let's get moving, then see how you feel.'

'Ben?'

'Hm?'

I held his arm, pulled on it, drew him close. Kissed him, and was happy when he smiled. 'Let's go.'

Back at home, I returned my mother's weekly Sunday phone call. Every Sunday she called, like clockwork. She'd known I was out for the full moon, but she'd left a message anyway. 'Call back when you can, let me know everything's okay.' She tried to be supportive in her own way. She'd convinced herself that my being a werewolf was like joining a club that did some vaguely dangerous and thrilling activity, like rock climbing.

'Hi, Mom.'

'Hi, Kitty. How was your weekend?'

Oh, I turned into a wolf, killed something, woke up naked in the middle of the woods, went home, and brushed my teeth a half-dozen times to get the taste of blood out of my mouth. 'It was okay. I haven't been feeling too great, I think something's stressing me out.'

'Any idea what?'

'Maybe it's the book coming out. I'm worried how it's going to do.'

'It'll be fine—I've read it, it's a really good book. People will love it.'

'You're my mother, you're supposed to say that.'

'Of course I am,' she said happily.

And who could argue with that? 'Ben thinks I should go to the doctor.'

'It certainly couldn't hurt. It might make you feel better if they can tell you that nothing's wrong.'

And if something was wrong? What was the local general practitioner going to know about lycanthropy anyway?

'Nothing's wrong,' I insisted.

'Of course not,' she said. 'Nothing's ever wrong until it is.' Her tone had become serious.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

She paused, like she was trying to decide what to say. Then she sighed. 'It means it's better to be safe than sorry.'

'Mom, is something wrong?' The conversation had gone a bit weird.

'Oh, no, not really. I just think Ben's right is all.'

I couldn't win. I was besieged. 'Okay. I'll think about it.'

She changed the subject. 'When are we going to meet this Ben character of yours?'

She knew I was living with Ben; I couldn't keep him a secret. She'd expressed a great deal of worry that, out of the blue, I'd apparently shacked up with my lawyer. I didn't tell her he'd become a werewolf in the meantime.

'I don't know, Mom. Maybe Christmas?'

'Kitty. That's months off. That's most of the year off.'

'You aren't even ecstatic that I'm bringing up the possibility of coming home for Christmas this year?'

'I'll admit, that would be nice.'

'I'll talk it over with Ben. Maybe we can work something out for this summer.'

She seemed to be happy with the compromise, because she changed the subject, moving on to the topic of family, Dad and my sister and her brood, like our typical calls. The whole thing was comforting. No matter what I did or what happened to me, Mom was always there with her phone calls.

After I'd hung up Ben said, 'I'm still not ready to meet your family.'

'You'll notice I didn't commit us to anything.'

'I'm just saying.'

I almost argued. I could have said all sorts of things, needled him, picked at that sore spot until it festered: why not, what's wrong with my family, you just don't want to admit that we're in a relationship, and so on. I started to say these things, just to see what his reaction would be.

But I let it go, because I wasn't ready for that argument any more than Ben was ready to meet my family.

I started bleeding that afternoon. I should have been relieved—my period, that's all it was. But it was late, there was too much, and something about it wasn't right. So I went to the doctor on Monday.

The nurse drew blood. The doctor wanted a urine sample. She wanted me to strip and sit on the examination table in a flimsy paper shirt. Then she poked, prodded, all the rest of it. In the five or so years since the last time I'd been in a doctor's office, I hadn't missed it, not once, not at all. The place had a weird smell. Everything was disinfected to within an inch of its life, but the antiseptic only covered up an underlying odor of illness telling me that sick people passed through here all day long.

I sat there for an hour, waiting. When the nurse poked her head in and said I could get dressed, I nearly sprang off the table.

'Is Dr. Luce coming back? Did she say anything?'

'She'll be with you in just a minute.'

The door closed, and I dressed quickly. A knock came a moment later. It cracked open before I said anything, and Dr. Luce, a busy middle-aged woman, short, with graying hair and a fancy multicolored patterned lab coat, hustled in.

'Good, you're dressed. If you'd take a seat there?'

She took the chair at the desk, I sat in the one right next to it. My stomach was jumping with anxiety. She wasn't smiling. If nothing was wrong, she'd be smiling. She glanced at my hands, which were kneading the fabric of my jeans, then met my gaze.

'Kitty, did you know you were pregnant?'

I froze, mouth open. That wasn't what I thought she would say. In retrospect, I should have expected it. All the signs were there: the exhaustion, the nausea, which was how everyone said it started. But that didn't apply to me, apparently. For some reason I couldn't process the question. She waited patiently, but my mouth was too dry to speak. I had to swallow a couple of times.

'No. I mean—no. Were? Were pregnant?'

'You've had a miscarriage. I'm very sorry.'

'Oh,' was all I could manage.

She launched into the prognosis. 'You're fine. You're going to be fine, I'll say that first off. I'm not surprised you didn't know, you were probably only three or four weeks along based on the hormone levels. You'll experience cramping for a few more days; I can give you a prescription for that. This is actually fairly common…' And so on. I wished Ben were here. I very much wished Ben were here to hold my hand.

'I recommend waiting several months before trying again.'

'I wasn't trying this time,' I blurted.

She pursed her lips. 'Then I recommend taking extra care with protection for the next few months.'

Protection, hah. Mornings after a full moon, with the Wolf still so close to the surface, filling me, curled up with Ben, protection wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind. In fact, that was probably when it had happened—last full moon. I was embarrassed to admit that I didn't know enough about my own cycle, my own plumbing, and the whole process to know if that was when it could have happened.

'Doctor, you saw my record. My…' Um, what should I call it? 'My preexisting condition. What impact does that have on any of this?'

'Yes, the lycanthropy. I'm afraid I have no experience with that—it hasn't made its way to the literature yet. I don't even know where to go to find out. Do you have any contacts? Anyone you could ask?'

'Yeah, I think I do. Thanks.'

I accepted all her advice and the prescription form in a daze. She kept asking if I had any questions, and I couldn't think of any. I should have had questions, lots of questions. But the whole world had gone fuzzy, like I was looking at it through a filter.

I made it to my car and found my cell phone.

After two rings I heard, 'Hello, Dr. Shumacher.'

Dr. Elizabeth Shumacher was the new head of the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology, the government research branch that really ought to start sending out bulletins to people like Dr. Luce. But really, how often did any doctor expect to see someone like me show up in their waiting room?

'Hi, Doctor, it's Kitty Norville.'

'Oh! Hi, Kitty, how are you?' She sounded cheerful and genuinely happy to hear from me—unlike her predecessor, who had always acted like he was starring in a spy drama.

'Okay. I have a question: What do you know about lycanthropes and pregnancy?'