The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

Author:Mary Kubica [Kubica, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Eve

After

We sit in the waiting room, James, Mia and me, Mia sandwiched in the middle like the cream filling of an Oreo cookie. I sit in silence with my legs crossed and my hands folded on my lap. I stare at a painting on the wall opposite her—one of many Norman Rockwells in the room—of an old man holding a stethoscope to a little girl’s doll. James sits with his legs crossed as well, ankle to knee, flipping through the pages of a Parents magazine. His breathing is loud and impatient; I ask him to please stop. We’ve been waiting more than thirty minutes to see the doctor, the wife of a judge friend of James’s. I wonder if Mia considers it odd that every magazine cover in the entire room is cloaked with babies.

People size her up. There are whispers and we hear Mia’s hushed name escape from the tongue of strangers. I pat her hand and tell her not to worry; just ignore them, I say, but it’s hard for either of us to do. James asks reception if they can hurry things along, and a short, redheaded woman disappears to see what is taking so long.

We haven’t told Mia the real reason why she’s here today. We didn’t discuss my suspicions. Instead we told her that we were worried that she hasn’t been feeling well lately and James suggested a doctor, one whose Russian name is nearly impossible to pronounce.

Mia told us she had her own doctor, one in the city who she’s been seeing for a half dozen years, but James shook his head and said no, Dr. Wakhrukov is the best. It never occurs to her that the woman is an ObGyn.

The nurse calls her name, though of course she says Mia and it takes an elbow from James to get her attention. She sets her magazine on the chair and I look at her with indulgent eyes and ask if she wants me to keep her company. “If you want,” she says, and I wait for James to disapprove but he is silent.

The nurse stares strangely at Mia as she weighs her and gets a height. She eyes poor Mia like she’s a celebrity of some sort, instead of the victim of a horrible crime. “I saw you on TV,” she says. The words come out sheepishly, as if she isn’t quite sure whether she said them aloud or managed to keep them in her head. “I read about you in the paper.”

Neither Mia nor I am quite sure what to say. Mia has seen the collection of newspaper articles I clipped during the time she was away. I tried to hide them in a place where she wouldn’t see, but she did anyway when she was looking for a needle and thread in my dresser drawer, to replace a button that had fallen from a blouse. I didn’t want Mia to see the articles for fear of what they might do to her.

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