Jenny’s notes were pretty abysmal, but I could get by with her random bursts of typing that at least helped me peg what part of the book to study. I wasn’t worried about my grade. The class was one of the easiest courses I’d ever taken.

I am fine, I told myself for the hundredth time since I’d started skipping. I just wanted this appointment over, to know I hadn’t made any huge mistakes, and then I could start fresh again. Whether or not Gavin played a role in my future wasn’t something I had to decide right this minute.

Unless, of course, I was pregnant.

I placed my hand on my belly, wishing I could tell. The stick test that morning had been negative again, and since the last unprotected encounter was a week ago, I was close to being out of the woods. I was no more ready for the consequences of my actions than I had been at eighteen.

A nurse opened the side door. “Corabelle?”

I shoved the phone in my backpack and stood up. The woman in pink scrubs smiled, her hair an intricate weave of thick braids that instantly made me think of Angilee from the NICU. Same wide friendly eyes, dark skin, and powerful frame, the sort of person that made you think of a warrior princess.

“So tell me what’s going on,” the nurse said as we walked down the hall.

“I’m here for a VD screening and a pregnancy test.”

The woman nodded. “Let’s get your weight and blood pressure.” She led me into a small room that held only a scale and a seat with a cuff.

When we finished there, she pointed to a bathroom. “Urine sample. Write your name on the cup and leave it on the little ledge by the window.”

I knew the drill and left the cup in front of a frosted window that didn’t lead outside, but to another room. As I opened the door to the hall, someone on the other side slid the window open and collected my cup with a latex-gloved hand.

The nurse caught up with me and brought me to an exam room, and the sight of stirrups made my heart palpitate. I sucked in a breath and steadied myself with a hand on the end of the cushioned table.

“You all right, Corabelle?” The nurse set down her clipboard and took my arm. “Let’s get you lying down.”

She helped me up on the table. “You’ll have to undress from the waist down and cover yourself with this paper sheet,” she said. “But don’t do it until you’re sure you’re doing all right. Do doctor offices always make you this anxious?”

I shook my head. She turned back to the forms I’d filled out. “Okay, so I see you have been pregnant before.” She paused. “So your baby is how old now, four?”

My throat closed up completely.

“Corabelle, you okay?”

Tears escaped from the corners of my eyes and slid down to the paper pillow. “He died.”

“Bless your heart, child. When did that happen?”

“When he was seven days old.”

Her warm hand squeezed my arm. “I’ll check your test myself. Do you know the date of your last menstrual period?”

“I’m on the shot. It’s been a while.”

“When did you get your last shot?”

“Two months ago.”

“Did you do it here?”

“No, I wasn’t a student yet.”

“The doctor will take a look.” She gave me one more squeeze and headed for the door. “Take your time getting up and changing. He’s slow as molasses anyway.”

I stared at the ceiling when she left, reading a breast self-exam poster that had been taped there. One corner was peeling, and a patient was bound to get a surprise when it finally fell. Maybe I’d point it out when the nurse came back. Imagining the paper floating down, drifting side to side, helped distract me. I wiped my face and sat up, easing off the table to undress.

I’d gotten this far. I would make it the rest of the way. At least the walls weren’t lined with pictures of babies, like at my old ob/gyn back in New Mexico. When I went for my postpartum checkup, just a week after Finn died, I couldn’t bear to look at the collages of smiling mothers and red-faced infants. My mom had come with me, and she tried to block my view, but both of us sobbed pretty continuously until the exam was over. I think I was supposed to go back again later, but I never did, switching to Planned Parenthood for my shots since they didn’t have all the trappings of happy motherhood anywhere in their office space.

A rapid knock at the door made me startle. I jumped back on the table, snatching up the paper sheet.

“Everybody indecent?” the man asked.

I arranged the crinkly sheet around me. “Yes, I’m pretty indecent.”

He entered the room, followed by the Angilee lookalike. “I’m Dr. Alpern. I’ll be making you uncomfortable today.”

I managed a smile. I’d imagined someone stern and disapproving, lecturing me about unprotected sex.

“I’m very sorry to hear about your baby,” he said. “Was there a problem during labor?”

“He was eight weeks early. He had a heart defect.” I sucked in air, trying to make sure I breathed, but the next words still came out as a gasp. “They didn’t operate.”

The doctor nodded. “Well, your urine test was negative, but we’ll do a blood test to be sure. How long since you had unprotected sex?”

“A week.”

“So it could still come up. You can keep testing at home, but let’s take a look. Lie back for me and scoot to the edge.”

I fell back on the pillow and wriggled down to the end. The doctor aimed a light between my legs, and the nurse handed him something in a plastic wrapper. I focused again on the illustrated hand cupping the wide-nippled breast on the poster.

“Going in. Take a deep breath,” the doctor said.

I tried to relax. Still, the metal against my skin made me tense again.

“Just a little swab,” he said. “And another little bit of pressure.”

I felt something bump me inside, then he withdrew the speculum. I exhaled, not sure if I’d breathed even once while he was in there.

“I don’t see anything that worries me,” he said, pulling off his gloves. “No redness. No bumps. And no discoloration of the cervix that might indicate a pregnancy.” He reached for my hand and I grasped it so he could pull me to a sitting position.

He perched on the stool. “You can come back in a week for a follow-up blood test if you still feel concern, but the home tests are pretty accurate. Did you have a reason to think you might be pregnant?”

“I was on the shot last time I got pregnant.”

“You want to try something else? There’s the patch, IUDs, and diaphragms.”

“I hadn’t had sex for four years, so I hadn’t worried about it.”

He nodded, and I figured he was thinking — you picked a real winner to break your fast if you need VD screening.

“The shot is pretty good normally, but if it failed once, then there’s reason for doubt. You want to try an IUD?”

“Maybe,” I said. “We did add condoms.”

“Condoms aren’t a bad idea.” He nodded at the nurse, who promptly left the room. “So, Missy said you were pretty distraught when you came in. You want to talk about it?”

“I hadn’t been around stirrups in a while. Might be a bit of post-traumatic stress involved.”

“Makes sense. But you know what happened to the baby was not your fault.”

I couldn’t meet his gaze. He had no idea.

“It’s natural to think something you did caused a problem in the baby. But I assure you, it didn’t.”

Something cracked in me. If I couldn’t tell Gavin, if I had crossed the line in the sand with him, I could still tell his man. Maybe saying the words out loud, dispersing them into the air, would release the poison.

“I smoked pot when I was pregnant.”

He nodded again, no different from the gesture he’d made all along. “The whole pregnancy?”

“No, just before I found out.”

“How far along were you when you stopped?”

“Seven weeks. I didn’t know until then, not until I had real symptoms, since I hardly ever bled anyway.”

“Smoking anything — pot or legal cigarettes — can harm the baby’s lungs, but doing it that early isn’t going to cause a heart defect. What did he have? Do you remember?”

“Hypoplastic left heart syndrome.”

“I’ve never done a neonatal rotation, but I do know that heart problems are usually genetic. Did you talk to the hospital doctors about this at the time?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t tell anyone. I’ve never told anyone.”

“All these years?”

“No.” My voice had lost its force, so it came out as barely a whisper.

I teetered, the room swirling, and the doctor steadied me by my shoulder. “Slow down, Corabelle. Take a deep breath in through your nose, and exhale it through your mouth.”

I realized I was breathing fast. I brought it down, forcing myself to be calm.

He let me go, waited to see if I was steady, and said, “We have a speaker who comes to campus every year who talks about suicide.”

“I’ve never been suicidal,” I choked out.

“But it’s her story. She lost a baby when she was seventeen. He was born and lived a few hours.” He snapped his fingers. “I think she was here last night. I wonder if she’s still in San Diego.” He stood up. “I’m going to ask the nurses. I think you could benefit from meeting her.”

I didn’t want to talk to some stranger about our dead babies, but I nodded.

“I’ll see what I can find out.” He stood up. “Are you doing okay in school? Is this anxiety affecting your work? I can refer you to the mental health clinic. In fact, I’ll write it up. You can decide if you want to use it.”

“But I’m doing fine.” A lie, and we both knew it.

“You are. You really are. I’ll send Missy back in. We’ll have the lab results back in a couple days, but I think you’re fine.”