The Shadow Wife

“No, I don’t either.” Rebecca helped Joelle lie down. She pulled off the remaining leg of her panty hose, setting them on the chair in the corner, before picking up the receiver of the phone on the wall.

“I need to get a CBC on a patient, stat,” she said into the phone. Then she was back at Joelle’s side, pressing her fingers on her belly, and Joelle tightened her abdominal muscles to keep her from pushing too hard.

“Extend this leg out,” Rebecca said. “That’s it, all the way.”

“It hurts,” Joelle said. “Oh my God, Rebecca!” She tried to sit up. “I just realized I haven’t felt the baby move yet this morning!”

“I think the baby’s okay,” Rebecca said. “She or he is probably just giving you a break, since you have so much else to deal with right now.” Rebecca took her temperature, but Joelle didn’t need a thermometer to know she had a fever.

“I’m going to do a sonogram,” Rebecca said as Gale Firestone, a nurse Joelle knew well, walked into the room. Joelle saw the sharp look of astonishment on Gale’s face at the sight of her rounded belly, but the nurse got her surprise quickly under control.

“Sorry you’re not feeling well, Joelle,” she said as she set up the phlebotomy tray on the counter.

“I think you’ve got a case of appendicitis,” Rebecca said. She turned on the ultrasound monitor. “But I’d like to rule out a cyst and a few other things just to be sure.”

Joelle closed her eyes as Gale drew blood from her arm, but opened them again to watch the screen while Rebecca moved the transducer over her belly.

“I don’t see a cyst,” Rebecca said. “But I do see a healthy baby. Not too sure of the sex yet, though.”

“It’s okay?” Joelle asked. “It’s moving and—”

“There’s the heart,” Rebecca said, leaning back so Joelle could see the screen, and she spotted once again that reassuring flutter of life inside her.

“Thank God,” she said, lying back again.

“I’ll call you with this,” Gale said to Rebecca as she carried the tube of Joelle’s blood out of the room.

“Make it fast,” Rebecca said, and Joelle could feel her urgency.

Rebecca gently wiped the gel from Joelle’s stomach, then lowered her dress back over her thighs.

“Do you want to sit up or stay like that?” she asked.

“I don’t want to move any more than I have to,” Joelle said. She looked at Rebecca. “Now what?” she asked.

Rebecca’s gaze settled on the small, shaded window of the room, and Joelle recognized that look on the obstetrician’s face: she was thinking through her options.

“I’d really like to get an MRI,” Rebecca said, “but I’m concerned about wasting time. I’m ninety-five percent sure it’s your appendix, and we don’t want it to rupture. That’s not something we need, with you pregnant.”

“Is that serious?”

“It could be quite serious,” Rebecca said. “Let’s see what your white blood count tells us and go from there.” She moved toward the door. “Do you need a blanket?” she asked, her hand on the doorknob. “It’s cold in this part of the building.”

“No,” Joelle said. “Just hurry back, please.”

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, Rebecca was telling her to sit up.

“What’s happening?” Joelle tried to sit up with Rebecca’s help and let out a yelp as the pain cut into her side again. “Did the blood work come back?”

“Yes, and it confirms my suspicions. I’m sending you upstairs for an emergency laparotomy. Dr. Glazer will perform it. You know him, don’t you?”

Joelle nodded as she carefully lowered herself from the table onto the step. “What about the baby?” she asked. “What about the anesthesia? How will that—”

“It will be fine,” Rebecca said. “And I’ll be there, keeping an eye on the baby the whole time.”

Joelle suddenly realized that Gale was in the room, moving a wheelchair close to the step she was on. With Rebecca’s help, Joelle lowered herself into the chair, nearly doubled over with pain.

“I’ll take her up,” Rebecca said to Gale, and the nurse held the door open while Joelle was pushed out into the hallway of the office. When they neared the door to the corridor of the Women’s Wing, which they would have to pass through to reach the elevators, Rebecca leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“This means the end of your secret, you know that, don’t you?”

Joelle nodded. “Not important,” she said, and it wasn’t. Not anymore. She just wanted to get through this crisis with both herself and her baby intact.

Rebecca wheeled her through the Women’s Wing, which passed by her in a blur. She could hear the word pregnant following her down the hall, being spoken in surprise and disbelief, and she knew she would be the subject of that day’s gossip in the hospital.

It wasn’t until she was on the operating table, the IV in her vein, a sedative fog washing over her, that she suddenly remembered walking out of the room of her patient. She tried to sit up. “I need to—”

“Lie down, Joelle,” someone said.

“But the patient I was seeing. Someone needs to see her. I ran—”

“We’ll take care of it,” someone else said.