Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 69 of 70

The negative test should have settled her. It didn't. Tuesday morning Lymber stood at the bathroom sink and pressed her hand flat against her stomach. The bloat had not gone down. The sharp twinges came and went in the same spot, low and to the left. She had eaten light for three days and the jeans still bit. The stick in the trash had said one line, but the body under her hand kept saying something else. She wiped her face and went downstairs. Paul was pouring cereal for Jett. She waited until the twins were arguing over a bowl and then she told him she wanted a real appointment. Not a drugstore box. A doctor. Paul set the milk down. He said, today. He said it like it was already decided. He drove her to the clinic at ten. Saddie was at the house with the kids. Lymber sat on the paper sheet in a gown while the nurse took blood and asked the same questions she had answered a hundred times. The doctor came in and pressed on her stomach in the spot she pointed to. She winced. He ordered a urine test, a blood panel, and a pelvic scan. Lymber lay on the table and watched the screen turn gray and black. The doctor moved the wand. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said her uterus was clear. No pregnancy. He said the tenderness was a small ovarian cyst on the left side, common, not dangerous, and it would likely resolve on its own within two cycles. He said the bloating and the weight came with it. He printed a page and circled the number. He told her to come back in six weeks if the pain got sharper or the bleeding changed. Paul stood by the door with his hands in his pockets. He said, so she's okay. The doctor said yes. Paul nodded once and looked at the floor. In the parking lot Lymber sat in the passenger seat and held the printout on her lap. Not pregnant. A cyst. A name for the thing pulling at her side. She felt her shoulders drop for the first time in a week. Paul started the car and then stopped and looked at her. He said, I was scared too. He didn't say anything after that. Lymber folded the paper and put it in her bag. She told him she wanted to go home and eat a real lunch and see the kids before her shift started Monday. Paul pulled out of the lot. Lymber watched the clinic get small in the mirror. Her body was hers again, mapped and named. She still had one week before the tower, and now she could spend it inside her own life instead of guessing at it.