AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I guess so.” I finish the second muffin and toss the wrapper in the trash.
“We should get going,” I say.
Joseph and I grab our coats. I stuff my feet into a pair of combat boots. Joseph drives us to the doctor. Luckily, it’s only a couple of miles away. I watch the brilliant canopy of fall leaves from the passenger seat; every shade of orange, ochre, and vermillion coats the streets of Weatherby Island.
Joseph pulls into the parking lot of a large, dilapidated red wooden building with white shutters and a flowerbed in the window.
The sign above the door reads, “WEATHERBY HEALTH AND WELLNESS.”
“The island is too small to have separate buildings for separate practices. Everyone just sort of cram in here. Apparently, it used to be,”
“The old livestock barn,” I finish. I recognize the large archway at the front of the building from some of the architectural plans I’ve been digitizing at the library.
“I should’ve known you would know,” Joseph says.
“I was looking at the initial sketches the other day.”
“Well, now you get to see what it looks like inside.”
Joseph exited the car and opened the door for me, always a gentleman. We walk up to the front door hand-in-hand.
“Do you think it’s bad luck?” I blurt.
“Having a doctor’s office in an old barn? It’s a little strange if you think about it philosophically, but no. I don’t think it’s unlucky.”
“No, I mean. Our first appointment on Devil’s Night.”
Joseph laughs. “I think the island is getting to you. If anything, I’m glad we made the appointment today so you can see that we’ll have a perfectly healthy baby.”
Joseph yanks open the door, and we walk inside.
The office is warmly lit with a variety of lamps, and there’s a train table in the corner for kids to play with. Polished oak floorboards glisten beneath a colorful area rug. There’s a smattering of magazines on an oblong coffee table in the middle of the room and a reception desk to the left of the door.
I walk up to the desk and grab a clipboard.
The receptionist is a woman in her early forties, wearing an orange cardigan covered in little knit pieces of candy.
“Joseph! How have you been? It’s good to see you!” she exclaims.
“Hey, Katelyn,” Joseph says. He studies the carpet. There’s nothing he hates more than running into locals. He turns stiff and answers Katelyn’s questions in monosyllables. When Katelyn hands me a clipboard full of paperwork, we make a break for it.
“We went to high school together,” Joseph explains. “Yet another reason why I dislike running errands here: I run into half my high school class.”
“That would be annoying,” I say as I struggle to remember my family medical history on my mother’s side.
I finish filling out the paperwork and return the clipboard to Katelyn. Twenty minutes later, an older woman with a long silver braid swinging down the back of her lab coat calls my name.
She leads me and Joseph into an exam room. The wallpaper is decorated with tiny sailboats.
“I’m Dr. Wilson,” she says warmly. Her brown eyes sparkle.
“Now, let’s get a urine sample so we can confirm you’re pregnant.” I go to the bathroom return with my urine in a tote and hand it off to the doctor. The test lights up quickly and confirms that I’m pregnant.
“Congratulations,” Dr. Wilson exclaims when she returns to the room with the results. “I’ll have Emily, our ultrasound tech, come by and get you all set with your first ultrasound. Go ahead and change into this gown for me, no underwear or anything. Then lie down here and put your feet in these stirrups.” She nods toward an exam table with burgundy vinyl stirrups that look straight out of the seventies.
“Before Emily gets here, do you have any questions?” she asks.
“Um,” Joseph and I share a look, both silently asking if ‘family curses’ are truly hereditary.
