Obstetrix(5)
They walked me up to one of the smallest of the huts and opened the door. “Ta da,” Sarah said. “This is yours. We’ll let you get settled in. When you hear the dinner bell, come up to the big building for dinner.” She glanced at Brandon, then added, “Or if you want, someone will bring you a tray.”
I stepped inside and closed the door, just to see if they’d let me. They did.
It was tiny but reasonably well insulated, and the heater was running; it warmed up fast. There was a door at the far end that led to a bathroom, and a closet with medical scrubs, new ones. I wear a women’s L for the top and an XL for the bottoms, and they had provided the correct sizes for me. Also dresses, which I don’t normally wear: two denim shirtdresses, with long skirts. I looked to see if they were my size and didn’t find a tag; after a minute of confusion, I realized they must have been handmade. In the two-drawer dresser by the bed I found an unopened pack of black socks, an unopened pack of white underwear, two pairs of black thermal leggings, and an unopened pack of white sports bras, all the same respectable-yet-cheap brand.
I hated the idea of wearing their clothes, but I’d soiled myself while unconscious and my clothes were damp and smelled of urine. I undressed, showered—my skin was red and abraded from sitting in the wet clothes on that long drive—and put on clean clothes from the drawer, hesitating between the dresses and the scrubs.
We need an obstetrician. Had these people never heard of posting a want ad? But no: I could, in fact, guess their dilemma. There’d been an article that had popped up three times in my algorithmically curated news app, about how the last professional obstetrician had now left North Dakota. The doctor in the article was a younger woman who had grown up in Grand Forks and gone to medical school at UND. She hadn’t gone very far—she’d just moved her practice across the river to East Grand Forks, in Minnesota. The article didn’t mention my name, but the specter of my trial hung over the story like smog in icy air.
Patients in Grand Forks and Fargo could just cross the river to Minnesota, but as you traveled west through the Dakotas, the lack of obstetricians became more of a problem. And I wasn’t sure quite where we were, but from my confused memories of the drive I thought we’d gone farther. Maybe west to Idaho. Maybe south to Oklahoma. Although the weather here seemed colder than I’d expect, if we’d gone south.
I put on a dress and leggings. The dress was long sleeved, and buttoned up the front to a rounded collar. It had pockets, although I didn’t have anything to put in them. I washed my own clothes out in the sink and hung them up in the shower, then stepped back into the main room and poked around a bit more. No clock, no phone, no TV. No books. I checked the top drawer of the nightstand for a Bible, like I was in a hotel room: nothing.
They’d given me my coat when I got out of the car. Normally I had a pen, a little bit of cash, and a wad of random receipts tucked into my outer coat pockets, and a slim paperback tucked into the inner one. The pockets had been emptied, down to the spare quarters I kept in my pocket for the cart at Aldi. They’d left my hat and gloves, and as I went through the pockets I realized they’d missed one pen, a ballpoint that said MINNEBABY that I’d apparently walked off with after my job interview. So I had a pen, but nothing to write on. I tucked it back into the pocket where they’d missed it.
Who the hell thinks they’re going to get good care from a doctor they kidnapped? I wondered. What would they do if I just refused to lift a finger? Most birthing women don’t actually need much intervention; it’s just that when you do need someone, you really need them. I could refuse to help. I could pretend to help and then do someone harm. Why would they expect me to do otherwise?
Some of the people here might assume I would provide care to my kidnappers because of the Hippocratic oath, but here’s the thing about oaths like that: most doctors take them and then most of us don’t think about them all that much. I’d taken a modernized Hippocratic oath in medical school, but when I was looking at Maddy’s kidney function labs and listening to her sob, I did not think, Not terminating this pregnancy would be a violation of my Hippocratic oath; I’d thought, Letting her continue to suffer would be wrong.
Probably Sarah had figured I was a good bet because I’d risked prison to help Maddy. Probably that was why.
* * *
I DIDN’T REALLY WANT to go have dinner with the full population of the cult or whatever this was. But it would be much easier to drug my food again if someone brought it to me on a tray. So when the dinner bell rang—it sounded like an actual brass bell—I put my coat on and went back outside to trail after the rest of the crowd to the big building between the houses and the barns.
Inside, there were rows of tables and a cross on the wall. Children brushed past me as I paused to look around. The food was set out buffet-style and it smelled like lasagna. There was a hum of conversation, and everyone was openly staring at me. All the women and girls were in dresses, with long hair. There were about a hundred adults. Many of the women were visibly in some stage or other of pregnancy. Everyone here looked white.
Sarah bustled over when she saw me and showed me to a spot at one of the long tables. “Everyone, this is Dr. Elizabeth. Our new doctor!” There was a faint emphasis on new. Everyone smiled and murmured a greeting. I sat down, not saying anything. I was going to escape from here; immediate furious defiance was not likely to help me. I needed to regain my strength, let them think I was cowed, and be ready when the opportunity presented itself.