CHAPTER SIX
Diana sat uncomfortably on the plastic table. Dr. Mason and her mother were peering at her like she was some sort of dead insect they were viewing through a microscope—their faces revealed pity, intrigue and something that vaguely resembled disgust.
"You see, Diana," Dr. Mason explained, "immaculate conceptions have become increasingly rare in the past two thousand years." Diana was too embarrassed to roll her eyes, even though Dr. Mason, the gynecologist she'd shared with her mother since she was seventeen, and normally a kind man, suddenly reminded her of Mick—just another frustrated comedian in the wrong line of work. Then again, how could she expect him to take her seriously after her mother laughingly introduced her ailment as "ghost impregnation," explaining that although Diana had not had sex since high school, she actually believed herself to be pregnant? The truth was that Diana had no idea what was going on. She'd been too mortified to buy a home pregnancy test. But pregnancy was the only explanation she could think of for two months of missed periods.
"Dr. Mason," Mrs. Christopher interjected, "do you think there's a chance that she—now, Diana, don't get upset with me for saying this—but do you think that maybe Diana wanted to get pregnant so badly that she sort of willed her body into a false pregnancy? You hear about that sort of thing every now and again, don't you?"
Diana shot an angry glance at her mother. She now knew what it was like to have violent thoughts toward others. She'd been having them toward herself for longer than she cared to remember, but having them toward someone else, though in a sense liberating, was also infuriating. How dare her mother presume to know anything about her private dreams and hallucinations? And how dare she speak before a third party when her presumptions were so ridiculously off base? Diana didn't want a baby.
"Diana, your mother is right," Dr. Mason said. "Many times, women who want children so desperately can actually create the physical symptoms of pregnancy for themselves. These women usually think they have miscarried when they get their periods, so they end up going to the doctor who then informs them that they were never really pregnant to begin with."
"But, Dr. Mason," Diana said, opening her mouth for the first time since she'd gotten there, "I don't want a baby. Look, all I know is that I've gotten my period on schedule every single month since I was twelve, and last month, I didn't get it at all. And this month, I'm already ten days late."
"Diana, do you have a secret boyfriend?" Mrs. Christopher asked, her patronizing eyes glittering wildly at the prospect of her daughter actually having a life.
Dr. Mason's face grew serious. It seemed he'd gotten so caught up in the humor he and her mother appeared to find in all of this that he'd overlooked a grave possibility that was only now occurring to him. "What Diana may have, Patty, is some sort of cyst or tumor in her fallopian tube that is inhibiting her menstrual cycle."
Tumor? Diana was horrified. She had often thought about death, many times considering it a welcome alternative to bumbling through life, but now that it was practically staring her in the face, she suddenly realized that her death wish needed to be refined to include catastrophic accidents only—like the kind that had killed her father—not some terrible disease that would eat away at her for months. To die of cancer would be worse than dealing with her weight and her mother and Mick and those hungry, insulting truckers for the rest of her life. A terrible diagnosis like that would welcome living. And what would Diana do with a will to live when her only real motivation to even exist was knowing that one day these loathsome daily struggles that defined her would meet their end?
"In most cases, these tumors are benign," Dr. Mason continued.
"But what about Diana's weight gain?" Mrs. Christopher asked quickly, the color rushing back to her face, which had turned a ghastly white upon the sound of the word tumor. "I mean is pregnancy a total impossibility?" Funny how her mother, who had practically laughed her into the next time zone when Diana confessed that she might be pregnant, now seemed to think that immaculate conception was more believable than cancer.
"Well, Diana has been gaining weight pretty steadily since I've known her," Dr. Mason said, seemingly insistent on kicking Diana while she was down. "And if she has not had sexual intercourse in as long as she tells us she hasn't . . ." Kick number two. "Well, then I think we'd better do an ultrasound and find out just what it is we're dealing with here."
"And what happens if you find something?" Mrs. Christopher asked, beginning to appear numb.
"Well, in that case, I'd have to say that the best thing to do would be to schedule an immediate biopsy," Dr. Mason paused, responding to the desperate look in Mrs. Christopher's eyes. Diana had already begun to feel indifferent. And it annoyed her that Dr. Mason was playing more to her mother's emotions than to her own when she was clearly the wounded party. "We can do the ultrasound right now."
It's funny how much one's life can change in such a short period of time. Or maybe it's too serious to be funny. Maybe it's ironic. While Dr. Mason flipped through his date book, Diana wrestled for the adjective—for just the right adjective to describe how one minute her mother and gynecologist could be ridiculing her to shreds for being an undersexed fatty, and the next, they could be planning the details of her biopsy. "I have a breakfast I can cancel . . ." Dr. Mason muttered to himself. "Is tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. good for you?"
"It's fine," Diana said, choking back her own breakfast and wondering how many more chocolate banana muffins she'd be able to eat and feel guilty about before she died.