“Have you looked at my family history?”
Her head was down once again, afraid to see anything in the doctor’s eyes.
He cleared his throat before he answered. “I have, and I have to say, I think you have valid concerns, Marie. I’ll order a pregnancy test and a few others. Don’t worry,” he paused to reassure her with a calm smile, “we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Thank you, doctor.” The smile she sent back to him was wobbly, and her eyes were damp. “I’m just worried, you know?”
“I understand, Marie, I do. Just let me reassure you, stress can cause all of these problems, and I don’t think there’s a soul alive that isn’t stressed these days. Can you tell me how things have been going at home lately? I saw in your file that you used to live in Louisiana. A beautiful place, what brought you up to this jungle?”
“I got married,” she said simply. She began to elaborate, told him about her childhood, about her mother, her mother’s death, the marriage, and by the time she’d finished he nodded sagely.
“I think you’ve just told us the main reasons for your current problems, Marie. You’ve had a lot of trauma. A lot.” He frowned as he wrote another note on his clipboard. “I want you to think about getting some counseling, alright? While we wait for these test results.”
“Oh,” she said simply, her eyebrows raised. That wasn’t something she’d considered at all.
Her relationship with her mother had been chaotic, and the rest of it. Well, maybe the doctor was right. He had a calm manner that made him seem competent and able to make decisions like this. The advice was sound, it just wasn’t something she’d ever considered. Counseling? That was for crazy people, wasn’t it? Basket cases that couldn’t help themselves.
That’s what her mother had told her. She’d come home from one doctor's appointment and complained about the doctor that had told her that her symptoms were all in her head and she just needed to see a shrink. Marie had sensed it was the doctor’s dismissiveness that bothered her mother, but she’d also understood the words. Psychiatrists were for nutcases, and Marie wasn’t nuts. But, maybe she did need some help coming to terms with everything that had happened.
“I’m not dismissing you, I hope you understand that Marie?” He waited for her to nod yes before he continued. “Good, because that’s not it at all. Whether you were having these symptoms or not, after what you’ve just told me, I think it’s best for you. And like I said, I still want to run some tests, just to be sure about your physical health, alright?”
“Yes, Doctor Murphy, thank you.” She looked up with a pleased smile. He’d listened to her, heard her, and that was important. Now, she had to find a way to tell all of this to Matteo. She’d hidden it all, worried that she would end up like her mother, that he’d divorce her. Or that he’d wrap her in cotton and never let her out on her own again.
He was so protective of her, she knew that if she’d told him about her problems, he’d go overboard. For now, she wanted to be calm, wanted to not be wrapped away from her own problems. She wanted to face this now that she’d turned her face towards her fears.
“I’ll wait for the pregnancy test results, and if that’s negative, I’ll write you some prescriptions. A sleeping tablet that you can take when you can’t get to sleep, and another to help you relax. Only take them when you need to, alright? They are habit-forming.”
“Of course, doctor. Thank you.”
The doctor left her in the exam room as he went out to check on another patient. The nurse came in to take blood and urine from her, and 30 minutes later Marie left with the prescriptions the doctor mentioned along with a referral to a counselor. She took a deep breath, certain now that she wasn’t pregnant.
Now, she just had to wait to find out what the other tests revealed. For now, she was glad she wasn’t pregnant. She wanted a child with Matteo, she’d decided, but in the future. Not right now, not when she was just getting to know herself and him.
Over the last few months, she’d found out a lot about herself. Without her mother there to henpeck her, she’d found she loved looking pretty for her husband. She found she was brilliant