Of Another Kind Altogether—Part 2

Dr. Tilden was puzzled by Marilyn’s ultrasound. The uterus was a size compatible with a 12-week gestation, but it looked empty. Normally, this would be termed a failed pregnancy, a “blighted ovum,” or an “empty sac,” doomed as an inevitable miscarriage. Yet Marilyn’s serial blood tests demonstrated rising hCG hormones, indicating a healthy pregnancy.

Dr. Tilden was a radiologist, so she seldom got directly involved with patients; instead, she kept the practice of her specialty in a separate wing of the hospital and, tasked with only reading imaging studies and suggesting a diagnosis, came and went each day without any actual patient contact. But this was a young woman, twenty-two years old, with a failed pregnancy. Worse, it was someone who had media notoriety for having disappeared for an entire week under suspicious circumstances, likely a kidnapping.

She knew a specialist had been consulted, but she knew the on-call OBGYN there and didn’t like him. She had heard about his lack of empathy and casual dismissal of women’s concerns. Therefore, she would get involved. Since she had been selected to read the ultrasound, an official consult had been established and she had every right to do it. And what was happening clinically wasn’t normal. This young woman needed to be told the truth—and in a way that would let her down easy to the harsh reality. The radiologist didn’t know if Marilyn’s pregnancy was a wanted pregnancy, a planned one, or even a mistake, but she would assess the situation and act accordingly—with the sensitivity she knew the patient wouldn’t have gotten from the OBGYN assigned.

Dr. Tilden was disappointed, then, when the nurse at the station reported that Marilyn Mayer had been discharged.

“Hello,” the tentative voice said when Dr. Tilden called her.

“Hello. Marilyn Mayer?”

“Speaking,” Marilyn answered.

“I’m Dr. Tilden, a radiologist at St. Luke’s.”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to discuss your ultrasound results.”

“I know what the results are,” Marilyn responded.

“You do?”

“Yes. Detective Porter said—”

“The detective investigating your disappearance, your kidnapping?”

“Yes, Doctor. And I thought it had been a kidnapping, too, until I remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

“Communion.”

“Communion? Are you Catholic?”

Marilyn laughed. “That’s funny,” she said. “No. Raised Catholic but quite retired now. I mean communion in a different way.”

“How’s that?”

“I can’t explain. I just feel it. I just am it.”

“Sure,” Dr. Tilden humored her. “So, as we were saying, you know the results? Really?”

“Yes,” Marilyn responded, “really.”

“And what did he tell you about them? Was it the same thing your OB told you?”

“My OB didn’t tell me anything.”

“Oh.”

“But Detective Porter told me my results were…he said, ‘puzzling.’”

“Well, then, what do you know of these puzzling results results, exactly?”

“Just that. That they’re puzzling.”

“Well, that’s not really knowing the results, Miss Mayer.”

“It’s good enough for me,” Marilyn explained.

There was silence. Dr. Tilden didn’t know how to respond to what Marilyn said. How could that be “good enough”? she wondered.

“Doctor? Are you still there?” Marilyn finally asked.

“Um, yes…I’m just a little confused. You knew you were pregnant."

“Yes.”

“Forgive me, Miss Mayer, but that’s usually a big deal.”

“You have no idea,” Marilyn told her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You must have heard I was abducted by aliens, right, Doctor?”

“Well, I had heard something like that but, had you really meant that, I don’t think you would have been discharged.”

“Except to the loony bin, yes?”

“That’s one way to put it—it wouldn’t be my way. I would have suggested some more intervention and exploration.”

“Same thing,” Marilyn said.

“Regardless, Miss Mayer, as your radiologist of record, I have to ask you if your OB told you your pregnancy’s in danger.”

“No. He just told me to call him if I started bleeding.”

Again, there was silence. Dr. Tilden wasn’t surprised. The other obstetricians on staff had complained about this man before.

“Doctor?”

“Sorry. I’m just a little taken aback. He should have told you more than that. I can’t see a fetus, and I should with your hormone levels what they are and your uterus the size it is.”

“So what? It’s quite a different thing with me. I really don’t think they taught you about what has happened to me in the medical school you went to.”

“In what respect?”

“Aliens. I’m a virgin, human-wise anyway.”

“Miss Mayer, really! Let me refer you to a colleague of mine. You need some therapy for this delusion, especially since your pregnancy is in danger. Mental health is so important for a woman who’s pregnant.”

“My pregnancy’s in danger?” Marilyn laughed. “No, Doctor, I would say that my pregnancy is just fine—the way it should be—and, if you really wanna know, it’s everyone else who’s in danger.”

“How so, Miss Mayer?” Dr. Tilden asked, but Marilyn had already hung up.

Marilyn remembered again about the probing and the light that had been made a part of her. Her communion. And she knew she was taking the expression of having a glow about her to a whole new level.

When you’re living as two and the other is a multidimensional being, Marilyn now knew, some prismatic cubism keeps you thinking outside the box. In her case, that box was her uterus; and her uterus was a tesseract.

Dr. Tilden wondered what Marilyn Mayer meant by everyone else being in danger. Surely this poor woman needed professional help as soon as possible. She feared for which would go first, the pregnancy or her mind. But she needn’t have worried about either, as it would turn out.

______________

On to Part 3: https://vocal.media/fiction/of-another-kind-altogether-part-3