Free Private Practices by Linda Wolfe Page A

while to calm down. “Shouldn’t you examine me?” she worried.
    â€œNo. Not just now, though I will later tonight if the bleeding gets worse. Call me if it does. Otherwise, we can wait until tomorrow morning. In fact, I’d like you to come in then whether it’s remained the same or it’s stopped. And try not to worry too much. Chances are it will stop.”
    â€œBut isn’t there anything you can do now?” she implored. “Can’t you give me medicine? An injection?”
    â€œNo. You know that, Mrs. Harper. If there’s anything seriously wrong, it’s just as well we find it out now.”
    â€œThere must be something,” she pleaded.
    â€œYes,” he said finally, responding to her insistence. “There’s something you can do.” She heard him pause. “You can lie down. You can try to relax. Get your husband to watch TV with you. Or read to you. That’s always nice.”
    Grateful, she wiped away the last of her tears, and as soon as he had hung up, obeyed his instructions, stretching out on the bed and pressing the remote control for the television. She didn’t stir. And she tried very hard not to start crying again, even when she remembered that Philip had told her he was taking a group of his Social Studies pupils on a tour of City Hall this afternoon and wouldn’t be home until late. Still, she was basically a self-controlled woman, one who despised tears and tantrums and the tendency of many others she knew to panic under stress, to mishear instructions on exams, misread job applications, mistrust or misconstrue the remarks of lovers and husbands. Willing herself to think positively, to concentrate on the fact that Zauber had said there was, at least, a 50 percent chance she wouldn’t miscarry, she at last began to regain her composure.
    It was fortunate, because when Philip walked in and saw her lying in bed, he paled, and although he tried to sound optimistic and casual after she had told him what had happened, she could see he was terribly alarmed.
    She stayed in bed, getting up only to tuck a sanitary napkin into her panties. Philip rescued the chicken from the oven and ate some of it on the night table next to the bed. Then they watched a TV movie and afterward they took turns at reading the new Agatha Christie aloud. But Emily couldn’t concentrate. She was watching the clock so that every hour precisely she could slip gingerly out of bed and go to the bathroom to check and change the napkin.
    There wasn’t much blood. Each time she looked there was just a small, scarlet pool in the center of the napkin. But she changed the napkin every hour anyway so that she could be a better judge of whether the staining was increasing or decreasing. And then, around one in the morning, there was no blood on the napkin at all.
    She yelled the information out to Philip and ran to the bedroom and threw her arms around him. She wanted to jump, to leap, to fling her arms around and around. She had never felt happiness be so physical, so energizing. For Philip too, happiness became movement. Normally so sober and even pedantic, he clutched her and twirled her. They were waltzing around the bed. A moment later she grew prudent, afraid that in their jubilance they could make the bleeding start again, and she got back into bed and Philip lay down next to her, settling on top of the covers in order not to disturb her. He stroked her hair and at last she grew altogether relaxed, and now when she wanted to check the napkin she no longer got out of bed but just pulled the covers up over her head for privacy and in the half-light peered at the napkin and poked her head out of the blankets, grinning and joyous. The bleeding had not resumed. It had vanished, just as Dr. Zauber had said it might.
    He seemed utterly miraculous to her then. Falling asleep at 3 A . M ., Philip’s arms entwined around her shoulders, she felt bound to Zauber with