Divorce While I'm Pregnant? Fine, Let's Sign It! novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Courier Day

"Then you know more about me than I do," I said. "Please, sit."

He looked at the stool I was pointing to, then at Libby's phone, then at the thirty faces.

"I'd prefer somewhere private, Mrs. Stroud."

"And I'd have preferred that you examine me before you signed a paper saying you had."

His smile stayed exactly where it was.

"A capacity opinion can rest on the record. That's standard."

"Then let's add to the record." I held out my arm. "Libby."

Libby was already pulling a blood pressure cuff out of her coat pocket.

She handed her phone to a man at the nearest table, still live, and wrapped the cuff above my elbow.

She pumped it and watched the dial.

"One-ten over seventy," she said. "Heart rate eighty-four, baby kicking. She's the healthiest person in this room, Doctor, and that includes you."

"Write that down," I said. "That's an examination. It's the first one anyone has done."

He opened his mouth and closed it.

"Did you ever speak to her before Friday?" a woman called from the window.

He didn't answer.

"Did you?" said the man in the flat cap.

The doctor picked up his leather bag.

"The court will appoint its own evaluator," he said to me. "You will cooperate."

The bell rang behind him.

Somebody clapped, and then the whole room did, and I sat down on my stool with my hands shaking where nobody could see them.

The courier came on the first of February, a Sunday, at eleven in the morning.

I was thirty-one weeks along, and the brunch line went out the door.

Holden and Daphne had been at table nine since half past ten.

Since the morning Otis found it, the little coin under the back door had heard only what we wanted it to hear, and they had come to watch the end of it.

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