“Good,” Will says. “Look, I can be there in…” His voice goes faint and she can tell he’s looking at his phone screen, figuring out how long the journey will take. Then he comes back on. “Twenty, twenty-five minutes?”
“I don’t know if I’ll still be here.” Hannah looks up at the clock on the wall. “When they hooked me up they said they’d monitor me for half an hour—it’s been nearly that now. Shall I call you when I know what’s happening?”
“Okay,” Will says. He sounds worried, but also like he’s trying to keep his concerns from her. “I love you, and Han—”
“Yes?”
“I’m—I’m really sorry about… you know.”
“It’s okay,” she says. For anyone else, his words might be hard to decode, but Hannah knows he means their fight. She bites her lip. She wishes Will were here. “This isn’t your fault, I promise.”
“Okay,” he says, though he doesn’t sound completely convinced. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
She hangs up. November has moved away, trying to give at least the illusion of privacy, but now she turns around, looking over her shoulder.
“Everything okay?”
“I think so.”
There is a rattle at the door and a tall, smiling obstetrician comes in, holding a clipboard.
“Hannah de Chastaigne?”
“Yes,” Hannah says. She struggles to sit up straighter in the padded chair, the plastic creaking. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Excellent. Could we have a moment?” She looks at November, though it’s not clear whether she’s inviting her to leave or stay.
“I’ll be in the corridor, Hannah,” November says tactfully. She picks up her bag and slips out.
The doctor takes November’s stool and begins to look through Hannah’s notes and at the readout on the monitor.
“Well,” she says at last. “I hear you had a little fainting spell.”
Hannah nods. “I think I just—I don’t know, I’d had a bit of a shock, low blood pressure probably. I feel fine now.”
“Well, the good news is you look fine, and so does baby, all the vitals are really good, and your urine is clear, but… we do want to keep an eye on your blood pressure.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it’s been creeping up a bit over the last few appointments, and I’m afraid it’s a bit higher than we’d like.”
“What? But I don’t understand—the doctor at the hotel said low blood pressure was what makes people faint.”
“It can be, but yours isn’t very low, I’m afraid. I understand it’s been up at the last couple of checks?”
“Yes—but—but there were reasons—” Hannah feels tears rising in her throat, forces them down. If only Will were here. “I ran there. You don’t understand.”
“Have you had any headaches? Flashing lights? Dizzy spells?”
“No! I mean—other than today, obviously, but the rest, no, absolutely not. I feel completely fine.”
“Well, I think we’d like to get it down regardless. I’m going to give you a prescription for methyldopa—it’s a very safe drug, we’ve been using it for years with pregnant women—”
“You’re kidding.” Hannah heart is sinking, a hollow feeling of guilt and anger at her body’s betrayal taking its place. “Medication? I don’t want to take drugs. Can’t I just—I don’t know—take it easy?”
“It’s very safe,” the doctor repeats. She is trying to be reassuring, Hannah can see that, but she feels anything but reassured. In fact her heart is racing, the trace on the monitor spiking up and up. She feels again that sickening slide into uncertainty she experienced after April’s death—the sensation that events have taken over, and that her life is spiraling out of control. Only this time it’s not police officers telling her where to go and what to do and how to feel, it’s a doctor with a white coat, but the same pitying, understanding smile that Hannah knows so well.
“No,” she says forcefully. “No, this isn’t okay. This can’t be happening!”
“Your baby is fine,” the doctor says again, gently. “This really is just about taking the best care of you both. I understand it’s upsetting when things don’t go—”
“I’m not upset!” Hannah explodes, though it’s so patently untrue that part of her wants to give a sobbing laugh at the irony of that fact. Her throat is tight and she feels like crying. But she cannot. Will not. She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I am, obviously, upset. It’s just—it’s so unexpected. I feel like things were fine a week ago and now, it’s like—”