Chapter 9: The Clinic on Route 9

The urgent care on Route 9 had a fish tank in the waiting room and a TV playing cooking shows.

Alana carried Eli on her hip and filled out the form with a pen on a string.

Under Relationship to Patient, she wrote stepmother, then crossed it out and wrote father's fiancée.

"Is that allowed?" I whispered.

"I don't know," she whispered back. "We'll see."

The receptionist looked at the form, then at Eli, and then at me.

"Where's Dad?"

"On a job site," Alana said. "No signal. He's fine with this, I promise. I have his insurance card."

She did.

She had stolen it from his wallet, I realized, and she looked a little sick about it.

The doctor was a tired woman in a green fleece, who came out herself to call my name.

She shook my hand, which nobody had done in a long time.

"I'm told you've got some heart concerns," she said. "Hop up on the table."

Eli sat with Alana in the corner and ate Goldfish crackers out of the bag, and I took off my sweater.

The doctor warmed her stethoscope, and I held my breath.

She listened to my chest for a long time.

She moved it three inches and listened again, and then she asked me to lie down.

She listened with my knees bent, and then she asked me to sit up, lean forward and breathe out.

Then she stopped moving her hand altogether.

"Huh," she said quietly.

"Can you hear it?"

"I can." She took the earpieces out. "Who told you that you had a murmur?"

"Nobody."

"Has a doctor ever mentioned a hole in your heart, or a clinic?"

"No."

She searched my face.

"Open your hand."

She looked at my nail beds and pressed on one, then watched it turn white and go back to pink very slowly.

Keep reading free with an account. Start One Kiss for My Last Month from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.