Of Another Kind Altogether—Part 4

Marilyn sat in her OBGYN’s office for her first prenatal visit since being discharged from the hospital. The doctor was very late. She stood up in the crowded waiting room and approached the desk. There, a receptionist who couldn’t be any older than 18, looked up with a scripted smile.

“Yes, Ma’am?” the girl asked.

“It’s been over an hour,” Marilyn said. “Have you forgotten about me perhaps?”

“Oh, not at all, Mrs.—”

“Miss,” Marilyn instructed her. This was the type of office where unmarried mothers-to-be, Marilyn could tell, were unusual. “Mayer. Miss Marilyn Mayer.”

“Sorry, Ms.—”

“Miss,” Marilyn insisted. Some of the other women raised eyebrows. Some of the men—doting husbands involved in first pregnancies—leaned over to their wives to whisper things. Marilyn didn’t care. But she did wonder if anyone knew she was that woman who had been kidnapped recently. Probably not, since the media had shown discretion in not showing her face.

But the young receptionist knew, including what served well as lunchtime entertainment chatter in the lunch room at the back of the office, where HIPAA went to die.

“Sorry. Sorry. Miss Mayer,” she apologized, stressing the ‘Miss.’ The doctor is tied up in a delivery at the hospital. I understand he’ll be finished soon, and since the office is adjacent, it won’t take him long.”

“Thank you,” Marilyn leaned over to see the girl’s name tag. “Thank you, Melissa.”

“Missy,” Melissa instructed her in the same tone Marilyn had used.

“Ah, yes, Missy. “Thank you.” Marilyn put her hand on the receptionist’s hand as a friendly gesture and then locked eyes with the girl. The phone began to ring.

“Excuse me,” Missy said, reaching for the phone. Marilyn’s eyes glazed over. She glowed, but outside of any visible spectrum.

“Don’t answer that, Missy,” Marilyn said. “Let one of the nurses in the back answer it.”

“Why?” Missy asked by the second ring.

“Because if you answer it, yours will not be an easy death. You wouldn’t want that.”

“I’m gonna die?” Missy laughed.

As an 18-year-old with neither appreciation nor expectation of mortality whatsoever, it was the type of nervous laugh that is reflexic when the brain cannot process something. The phone rang a third time. Marilyn increased the pressure on Missy’s hand to hold it fast. The phone rang a fourth time, but Missy didn’t fight. There was no fifth ring.

“Good call,” Marilyn told her.

“I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t answer it,” Missy said, and she giggled.

“No, not the call. Your decision to not answer it. That was the good call.”

“OK,” Missy said.

“You’ll be pleased to know—now—that you won’t die young and painfully, but will die very old and in comfort. Your end time will be with loved ones around you. It’ll be beautiful. I envy you. You’re lucky. All of my own end times are so multifactorial—not so binary. But there will be other paths from which to choose. And they won’t be such simple forks in the road. And Missy, I won’t be here, so you’re on your own. I pray you choose wisely.”

“Prayers are good. I know. Jesus will save me. You’ll be called soon, Miss Mayer.”

“By Jesus?” Marilyn asked. “I think not.”

“Oh, my goodness no. For your appointment. I was talking about trusting in Jesus for how life goes.”

All in the waiting area had heard the strange exchange.

“Jesus won’t be involved,” Marilyn added. They heard that, too.

“Oh, um, OK, I guess,” Missy trailed off, as Marilyn returned to her seat. All eyes in the waiting room were on her as she sat down.

Missy rethought the conversation and began to tremble slightly. She reached into a draw at her desk and retrieved her purse, stood up, and left the office, visibly shaken.

It was perhaps the last time Marilyn would ever see Missy again, however carefully or haphazardly she chose her track switches.

_________

On to Part 5: https://vocal.media/fiction/of-another-kind-altogether-part-5