Part 1

The waiting room smelled of disinfectant, old carpeting, and grief. Salem Brody sat behind the glass window at the front desk. She smiled brightly at the young woman filling out intake forms. One hand rested on her belly, round beneath a floral dress.

“Name, date of birth, address, insurance and so on,” Salem said. She slid the clipboard forward. Across the hall, two nurses lingered at the supply cart. Their voices spoke low.

“Have you noticed her?” The tall one with an eating disorder and a large nose, Carla, nodded toward the desk.

“Notice? She is waddling like she is six months along,” said Denise with her hands folded across her belly.

Carla lowered her voice further. “She had a hysterectomy here three years ago. Dr. Grant did it herself.”

Denise’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish. I assisted. She had fibroids about the size of baseballs. I sat with her all night. She cried that she would never be a mother. Something snapped, all right.”

“Sure did.”

They both glanced back. Salem was laughing softly with the patient, tapping her pen against the bump.

Denise shook her head. “So, what is that? A rubber duck she hides in there. That’s sick.”

Carla’s mouth tightened. “Don’t say anything. Just keep it quiet for now. But we can’t have this kind of freak show here. This is basically an abortion clinic. Plus, she’s just part time. She works in that tools factory outside town – Woodstone’s.”

Salem adjusted her seat and calmly smoothed her dress. She rang the next patient with a cheerful voice. The dissonance of a pregnancy in a gynecological surgery where over decades   surgeons tore mountains of uteri and ovaries lingered between the walls.

* * *

Jonah’s boots crunched against the gravel driveway as he climbed out of the truck. His shoulders were heavy with the fatigue of a day spent in the wind and cold sun on the farm harvesting yams and potatoes – an impossible task with the ground being wet as it was. His back ached, muscles screaming with every step toward the trailer. Mud from the fields streaked his trousers and shirt, slowly drying into stubborn crust. Through the fading light, he saw a large cardboard package sitting on the doorstep of the trailer. The package with its blue tape sat plain and unassuming but didn’t stop Jonah’s chest from tightening. He stopped, hands on his thighs, staring at it. The weight of the day pressed down on him, and now another layer of dread before him, before he’d even opened the door. The door creaked open, and Jonah’s boots thudded against the worn linoleum. The air inside smelled of leftover takeout and disinfectant.

His calloused hands trembled with fatigue as he peeled back the blue tape. And when the cardboard flaps sprung open, they exposed a large rubber belly, pale and round like a giant grotesque breast with a belly button and Velcro straps. He poked it with a finger like a dish served cold by some alien species. He lifted it like it weighed a hundred pounds. His chest tightened further.

“Jesus,” he muttered, his voice rough from disbelief. He shook his head. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” He sank into the chair, elbows on the old, wobbly, plywood table, mouth pressed firmly into his shoulder, and looking back at the rubber abomination. The quiet of the house pressed in, heavy and suffocating. Outside, the soft wind rattled the mournful, wet trees.

Jonah’s mind replayed the day: the sun beating down, his back screaming, his hands cracked and bleeding into the mud. The long hours, the endless work that pays little would be soon exchanged for a seasonal layoff that paid nothing, and now… another one of this. Another layer of chaos waiting at home.