Forcing herself to ignore the man, Nancy walks up the path and scales the three steps to the wooden porch. A small brass plaque at eye level beside the mailbox reads: DR. E. TAYLOR, MD—FAMILY PHYSICIAN.
Nancy removes the glove from her right hand and knocks loudly. There is no window, but a peephole instead. With a jolt in her stomach, she realizes she has, out of sheer habit, knocked her usual four quick raps.
Shit.
She hastily whips her fist up and knocks another three, loudly.
Shit shit shit.
She strains her ears toward the door. After only a beat, there’s a rustling behind the wood. Nancy centres her face in the peephole so they can see her clearly. The speck of light visible inside is snuffed out. A moment later, the door opens by a few inches. A Black woman with a pleasant face pokes her head into the gap.
“Can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Nancy. I have a seven-thirty appointment. Are you Dr. Taylor?”
“Hi, Nancy, we’ve been expecting you. I’m Alice,” the woman says, stepping back to allow Nancy to pass over the threshold.
She’s much shorter than Nancy, with curly brown hair and eyes that have seen enough to slightly dull the light behind them.
“There wasn’t anyone out on the street, was there?” Alice asks. “No one saw you come in?”
“Actually, yes. An older man, a few doors down. He was shoveling his steps and he saw me.”
Alice’s brow knits. “A few doors down which way?”
Nancy indicates to her left.
“Ah, okay,” Alice says, relaxing. “That’s probably just Chester. He’s a good neighbour, total sweetheart. He was Dr. Taylor’s first ever patient, actually.”
Nancy smiles tightly.
“Do you have to go to the washroom?” Alice asks. “If you do, you should go now. It’s just off the hall through that door there.”
“No, I’m okay. Thanks.”
“All right, then. How are you feeling about this?”
Nancy hesitates.
“It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind,” Alice says. “It happens a lot. It’s perfectly normal.”
“No, no, honestly, I’m okay,” Nancy tells her. “This is all just pretty weird. A bit surreal, you know? I feel like I’m in over my head. I didn’t think this would ever happen to me.”
Alice nods. “Most women don’t.”
“But this is—I mean, this is safe, right? It’s just that I’ve actually seen this before, but not done by a doctor. And I’m a bit…”
“Ah. Okay. Come on with me, and we’ll go meet Dr. Taylor. She’ll explain the procedure, you can see the room, and hopefully that can help put your mind at ease. It’s very common to be nervous.”
Nancy follows the nurse toward another door at the end of the hallway. The floorboards creak: the hallway floor is covered with a worn rug that was probably deep red and green in days long past, but is now a faded pink and pale green. Glancing to her left, Nancy spots a waiting room in what probably used to be the dining room of the old house. It’s dim in there, but she can see the institutional chairs that line the walls and a coffee table strewn with an untidy assortment of magazines. A water cooler stands sentry in one corner, the surface of the water glinting in the yellow light from the streetlamps outside. It’s a warm and comfortable place, though. It smells like peppermint and old wood. Far more like a home than a doctor’s office.
Alice opens the door at the end of the hall. It’s much brighter in here, and Nancy’s eyes squint as they struggle to adjust. Alice shuts the door behind them. Two locks slide into place, and Nancy recalls the many locks on the back-alley abortionist’s door. Her heart begins to race, and she fights to push away the comparison.
She’s facing a room that looks like a cross between a regular doctor’s exam room and what Nancy figures a surgical room must look like, though she’s never had so much as a broken bone in her entire life. The walls are painted plain white and unadorned with windows or decor, save for a fancy scrolled frame that displays Dr. Taylor’s diploma with its official stamped red wax seal. A long exam table is situated in the centre of the room. There are no black sheets this time, just the usual crunchy sterile paper running along the table’s length, with metal stirrups propped up at the end. A pedestal tray stands beside one of the stirrups. It’s covered in a blue fabric, like a paper napkin. Nancy can just make out a glint of silver poking out from underneath it. She swallows hard on a parched throat and turns her focus away from it.
A tall, thin woman with shoulder-length brown hair and sporting light blue scrubs strides toward Nancy and extends her hand. “Dr. Evelyn Taylor. You must be Nancy.”
Nancy nods. “It’s nice to meet you.” They clasp hands. “Thank you for, you know…”
“Of course. You can set your coat and purse down over there, Nancy. Alice and I will give you a few minutes to get changed out of your clothes. I need you to undress from the waist down—you can keep your socks on if you like, sometimes it gets a bit chilly in here—and lie down on the table with this sheet over your bottom half.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve had a PAP test before, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, parts of this procedure will be very similar to a PAP. You’ll have your feet up in the stirrups, and I’ll be using a speculum and inserting some instruments into your vagina, but this time I’ll utilize others to open the cervix and remove the tissue from your uterus. We’re going to give you some painkillers, and a local anesthetic. We try our very best to make this process as quick and painless as we possibly can.”
A leather belt covered in teeth marks.
A subway seat soaked in blood.
“Okay.”
“If you like, Alice will be here to hold your hand, give you a warm or cold cloth for your face, talk to you for a distraction, or whatever else you might need. We want you to feel as relaxed as you can, okay?”
“Okay.”
Dr. Taylor nods again. She has a good manner for this, Nancy acknowledges through her nervousness. Calm and matter-of-fact, but compassionate. She understands what her patients are feeling and thinking. Nancy wonders if she’s ever been on the table herself.
“We’ll leave you to change. Take your time.”
“Okay,” Nancy says again, wondering why she keeps using the word when she knows for a fact that she has never felt less okay in her entire life.
* * *
“We’re about halfway through the procedure, Nancy. You’re doing great.”
Nancy nods to acknowledge Dr. Taylor’s voice, but keeps her eyes closed. Alice squeezes her cold fingers and runs a hand through her hair.
I wonder if she’s a mom, Nancy thinks. She has mom hands.
Then a series of loud bangs rattles the distant front door. Nancy’s eyes snap open to the harsh light of the exam room. Dr. Taylor and Alice freeze mid-movement.
“That was ten—” Alice says.
“Alice! Evelyn!” Nancy hears a voice from down the hall. Another woman. “Code blue!”
“Jesus.” Alice bolts to the door.
“Nancy, stay focused here,” Dr. Taylor says from down between Nancy’s feet. Above her mask, her eyes are trained on her task, but she continues talking. “That’s just our neighbour from the apartment upstairs. She’s another one of our Janes. Her sister Mary is a secretary at the police headquarters. When she gets wind that there’s going to be a raid on a clinic, Mary calls her sister and her sister gives all four of the clinics a heads-up. It’s okay. This has happened before. And it might not even be our clinic today. That’s why it’s great that we have Mary now, to give us all a bit of notice. Just try to stay calm. We’re almost done here, okay, sweetheart?”