The whole time Dr. Morales spoke to Tina she looked ahead, not bothering to look her in the face at all. She could even hear the smile in her voice as she spoke to her about the baby, and it sickened her further.  Tina’s mind was not solely focused on Dr. Morales’ words, truth be told she was listening in and out throughout her whole speech. A few words she did catch like ‘Prenatal Vitamins’, ‘Benefits of Childbirth’, and ‘Thriving.’

“Thriving” she repeated softly to herself, not caught by Alice or Dr. Morales. She looked down at her hands resting on top of her thighs. They were sunken in and her veins could be seen protruding through the skin, they were so weak. But her wedding ring caught her mind mostly. Her fingers were so frail and thin that it barely fit properly. The prominent diamond on top so heavy it leaned to the side on it’s own now. No longer standing strong as she once was before.

“Have you ever been married Dr. Morales?” Tina asked as she looked at the young doctor for the first time. In her she saw, inexperience and naiveté, surely this young woman could never know what heartache Tina was going through. Just as expected she shook her head no.

“I didn’t think so.”

Alice could tell by the way Tina’s voice was low and the questions were brash, that this was not going to end well. And the end result was not what she was hoping for.

“Maybe you’ve lost someone close to you?” Tina asked again with a voice that was void of any emotion and on the verge of tearing into the young doctor.  Dr. Morales was going to continue on with her thoughts on the matter but thought better of it, and instead just nodded her head. 

“Do you want to be reminded of that person everyday?  The fact that they’re not here with you, to be here with you like they promised a long time ago. This baby inside of me is apart of my husband who is no longer here, so he has no say so in the matter at all. But when he was alive, we talked about it and we both decided that a baby was not something we wanted, as a couple. So for me to take on this responsibility now  as a single mother and a widow is not what I’m looking forward to in the next nine months.” Dr. Morales stayed silent and tucked her hands dutifully into her coat pockets.  “Now I want to speak to someone who hasn’t gotten their fucking education out of the Cracker Jack’s box yesterday, to get this fucking thing out of me today!” she screamed at Dr. Morales. Instead of trying to press the issue as Alice wanted she nodded her head and told Tina that she would be back with another doctor to talk to her about the procedure she wanted.  Alice looked at Tina as though she was a stranger, she couldn’t understand why Tina didn’t want the baby, despite all of the reasons she’d given the doctor. Right at that moment everything in Alice wished she could trade places with Tina, to bring life out of this tragedy was what Rick would’ve wanted for them. Like Alice he believed that everything happened for a reason and this life fighting inside of Tina was meant to happen for a reason, even if she couldn’t see that now Alice knew that Tina would realize that later. She just hoped that it wouldn’t be to late.