Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

off.
     
    A thin, bearded man in a stained hooded sweatshirt was walking toward them across the waiting room. Dylan recognized him from the group around the fire in the homeless encampment.
     
    Regina trembled.
     
    Dylan put his arm around her without thinking. The man passed them, his gaze lowered. Dylan scanned the room. There was something there, something in the air that wasn’t right. But when he breathed in, all he smelled was Regina’s shampoo like apricots.
     
    “It’s not Jericho,” he told her quietly.
     
    “I know. Caleb said he brought another patient in yesterday.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “The day before yesterday.”
     
    She had lost almost a day in the caves.
     
    Dylan tightened his arm around her.
     
    A woman in a printed smock looked up from behind the counter and smiled. “Hi, Regina. The doctor is ready for you now.”
     
    And he had to let her go.
     
    *
     
    Regina sat up, hitching her paper sheet around her waist and over her thighs. Thank God that was over.
     
    Donna Tomah scrubbed her hands at the tiny sink. “Everything seems to be normal. I’d say you’re about five weeks along.”
     
    Stars wheeling, rocks shifting, Dylan plunging thick and hot inside her . . .
     
    “Four,” Regina corrected.
     
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    Donna glanced over her shoulder. “Your due date is calculated from the beginning of your last cycle. We can’t really pinpoint the date of conception.”
     
    She could. Heat crept into her face.
     
    “Do you want to talk?” Donna asked gently.
     
    “What about?”
     
    “Your options. If you’re not comfortable talking with me, there’s a family planning clinic in Rockland . . .”
     
    “Oh.” And then, as the implications sank in, “Oh.”
     
    Just for a moment, she let herself be tempted, felt the possibility expand her lungs like air. Her old life beckoned. To have options . . .
     
    “No.” She met the doctor’s eyes. “It’s not like I haven’t done this before.”
     
    “Hm.” The doctor shut off the water with her elbow. “If you’re sure.”
     
    Regina rubbed the bare skin below her collarbone. “Sure.”
     
    Donna dried her hands on a paper towel. “All right, then. Nancy will get your blood and a urine specimen. You should pick up some prenatal vitamins. Why don’t you get dressed, and I’ll give you a sample to get you started.”
     
    “Thanks.”
     
    Regina hopped off the table as the doctor left the room, hissing at the pain of her swollen toes. Before she finished dressing, the door reopened.
    She clutched her pants, oddly uncomfortable at being caught in her underwear by the doctor who had just seen her naked. Stupid.
     
    Donna appeared flustered, too. Her face flushed as she set a little paper cup of medicine beside the exam table. “Here you go.”
     
    Regina reached for the vitamins. They were small. Like yellow aspirin. “Three?”
     
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    “One for now, two for later,” the doctor said smoothly, avoiding Regina’s eyes. She filled a cup at the sink. “In case you don’t want to face the gossip at the drugstore right away. Water?”
     
    Regina accepted the cup, aware of the doctor’s eyes on her as she forced the tablet down her throat.
     
    “Good,” Donna said, whisking the water away. She sealed the remaining pills in a tiny plastic bag. “Don’t forget to take these now. And tell Nancy to set up another appointment in a couple of days.”
     
    “So soon?” Regina asked, surprised. When she was pregnant with Nick, she’d only seen a doctor every six weeks or so. But then she’d been on her own in Boston, trying desperately to make ends meet and grabbing appointments at the free clinic.
     
    “With all you’ve been through lately . . . Better safe than sorry.”
     
    Anxiety snagged her breathing. “You said everything looked normal.”
     
    “Everything looks fine,” Donna assured her. “Any questions?
    Concerns?”
     
    Regina swallowed a hiccup of completely inappropriatelaughter. No way could she share her real concerns. “Is there any way to tell the baby’s sex yet?”
     
    “I can schedule an ultrasound in the middle of the second trimester.
    Let’s say, at eighteen weeks.” Donna scrawled the prescription and handed it to Regina. “Do you want another boy? Or are you hoping for a girl this time?”
     
    Just for a moment, Regina felt the draw of the baby at her breast and the warm weight of it in her arms, saw the cap of soft, dark hair and the fan of