“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Booking.”
“Right. And then?”
“Honey, just keep thinking about putting one foot in front of the other. It’ll be easier that way, trust me.”
She walks me down a hallway. I keep my chin up. I don’t know why. There’s no one here to put on a face for. But four years of training are hard to shake.
In booking, a man takes my mugshot. “Look at the line. Now to your left. Now to your right.”Click-click,boom—just like that, I’m in the system.
A second officer rolls each of my fingers in turn across a glass scanner. The pads of my fingers are still dark with whatever they put on me for the GSR swab, and I notice that the scanner has trouble with the right index, the trigger finger, so much so that he has to do it twice. I watch the screen flash green on the second try and feel something turn over inside me, a slow, awful flop, like a fish on a dock.
After fingerprints, there’s a clipboard. After the clipboard, there’s another clipboard. After the second clipboard, there’s a third, and by then, I’ve signedCassandra Snyderso many times that the scrawl has started to look unfamiliar to me.
My body kinda feels unfamiliar to me, too. I don’t feelfunnyanymore. Humor has gotten me through a lot of horrible things in this life, but when I need it most, it’s failing me.
The world just looks dull and gray.
So, I imagine, do I.
Then I’m shepherded once more through a metal door that locks behind me, down another hallway, and into a small room with a desk and a folding chair. In there waits a woman in scrubs and a cardigan. Her name tag saysPHILLIPS, RN.
“Sit,” she orders without looking up. “We’re gonna do a quick health intake. Won’t take long if you don’t lie to me.”
I sit. My cuffs clink against the chair leg.
“Allergies?”
“Penicillin.”
“Current medications?”
“Um… None.”
“Last menstrual period?” When I hesitate, she glances up at me. “Well?”
“I’m… I’m actually pregnant,” I say.
If she cares, she shows no sign of it. “How far along?”
“Um. Eight—” I do the math in my head, badly. “Eight weeks? Almost nine. I think.”
“Prenatal care established?”
“Yes.”
“With whom.”
“Dr. Todd. Upper East Side. I— I can’t remember the address.”
“That’s fine. We can pull it.” She scribbles some more things down. “Any complications? Spotting, cramping, hyperemesis?”
“What’s hyper?—”
“Throwing up enough that you can’t keep food down.”
“No. I mean, some nausea. Not— not bad. Yet.”
