Page 18 of The Devil Gets His Due

I tell my mom I need to pack. I’m already calling my lawyer by the time I hit the stairs.

“I need you to write something up for me,” I tell his voice mail.

Maybe Keeley isn’t the same as my mom, but she might be even worse.

And I’m not fucking living through that again. Neither is my kid.

11

KEELEY

Iarrive at the office, waving half-heartedly to Trinny at the front desk.

She winces, and I already know what she’s going to say.

“Your schedule is packed. Dr. Fox had something come up.”

Ugh. I’m nearly through the backlog, but my days are just as long because Dr. Fox and Dr. Joliet seem to have a lot of shit that justcomes up, always to my detriment. And maybe if they knew I was pregnant they’d stop doing it, but it’s still early in my tenure here and they already don’t seem pleased. There have been comments about my attire—my cardigans would be more flattering if belted, apparently—and there are vague complaints about the way my new patients aren’t thrilled with me. Why would my patients be thrilled? They thought they were getting a well-known doctor and got dumped on the one who’s still wet behind the ears.

I can’t say I’m thrilled either. I’m putting in as many hours as I did as a resident, and they somehow feellonger. At least at the hospital, my day was exciting. There were burns and lumps and deformities. There were blisters the size of my hand and the occasional cutaneouslarva migrans. Now, my day is always some version of the same thing:“I’m breaking out”or“I don’t like these lines”. Psoriasis is as exciting as it gets.

I glance at the schedule. There are now three patients shoved into time I blocked off for my nineteen-week exam.

“I’ve got a doctor’s appointment today,” I tell Trinny. “That’s why I blocked it off.”

She looks at me, eyes wide. “Do, uh,youwant to tell her?”

My shoulders sag. I already know how that will go…Dr. Fox takes disappointment poorly, to say the least. “I’ll change my appointment.”

But this is going to have to stop. And I’m wondering how I’ll ever gather the courage to tell Dr. Foxwhyit has to stop when I can’t even ask for a lunch break.

Julie isable to fit me in at the end of the day. I hope her irritation over this is why she’s coming down on me so hard about everything else. “Keeley,” she says, “you’ve put on ten pounds in a week.”

“It’s all gone to my rack, though,” I argue, glancing down. Out of nowhere, I’m suddenly spilling out of every bra I own.

“You’d dropped weight early on and you had some catching up to do,” she says. “It’s just something we’ll need to keep an eye on.”

“I thought we were here to discuss thebaby’shealth,” I mutter, feeling judged. “Notmine.”

“Thisisabout the baby. A serious spike in weight might be a sign of gestational diabetes. Didn’t you do an obstetrics rotation?”

Various facts pop into my head.Between six and nine percent of pregnancies, excessive thirst and urination might be the only signs.It’s easier to play dumb, though, so I simply shrug.

“Yeah, but I was hooking up with Lowell Chambers at the time. Remember him? Maybe you were gone by then. Anyway, I was in a lust-induced fog, and it all went in one ear and out the other.”

She gives me one of her politeJuliesmiles, the kind that say,“I can’t believe this woman and I got the same degree.”I get that look from colleagues quite often, surprisingly.

“Is the father going to be involved?” she asks.

I glance away. “I’m not entirely sure.”

It’s been two days since Graham left and there’s been absolute silence. I assume this means he’s gone back to his soulless and tidy apartment in New York, run the numbers, and written it off.

I’m mostly relieved. Yes, there’s the occasional thought about how fuckingeasyit is for men to bear none of the consequences, but then I remind myself: I didn’t want him involved and I don’t need his money.

I mostly don’t need his money. Any day now, I’m going to turn into the kind of person who stops buying designer clothing and taking trips to Cabo.

“Well, let’s take another look,” she says, grabbing the jelly for the ultrasound.

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