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The Allegheny County Courthouse on a mild Spring day was only a 33-minute walk from the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, and twenty minutes by car. But with parking by the hour and the weather so intolerably lovely, Cassie McKay felt like the extra ten minutes was worth it.
It was good for you, anyway, she told herself as she tied her scrub top around her waist and took off, lunch-bag slung over her shoulder like a teenager.
Being a doctor gave her lots of opportunity to see the necessity of long walks, her last case had just been an older man with a nasty case of gout. Before she’d gone into medicine, she didn’t even know people still got gout, thought it was some kind of Victorian thing. The King’s Disease, it was called colloquially, because you got it from drinking hard and eating steaks all the time. Obviously, that wasn’t in line with patient sensitivity training, so she stuck to the name in her textbook and advised the patient, an ornery man ironically named Henry, to take his Colchicine and incorporate some leafy greens in his diet.
It was good to be a person who took walks, so that she didn’t get gout. It was also good to go to her court-ordered reconciliatory meetings to hash-out the revised custody agreement with Chad and his child-bride, Chloe, because that’s what she had to do to be a responsible citizen, even though it made her want to bash her brains out. But wow, the weather sure was great!
It had been a relatively slow day for PTMC: no disasters, no ambulance heists, and lots of old people. She’d been lucky to have one very cute, fat-cheeked toddler with an ear infection, who sat still for some numbing ear drops while he slobbered all over his beloved ring of plastic keys. He had reminded her of Harrison when he had been little and squishy, and that had put her in a good mood for the rest of the day, even when Javadi had made an off-handed comment that she was scared to shop at thrift stores because she thought she would get head-lice or some kind of other contagious skin lesions. Cassie had told her she was likely exposed to a lot more lice and contagious skin lesions right here at work, which had made her go bug-eyed and begin to stare into the middle-distance.
By the time she arrived at the courthouse, she was ten minutes early and went inside anyway because the building was grand and if you climbed to the top of the marble staircase, you could look out the window to the garden below where there was a fountain, and hey, that was a pretty nice view. She’d been trying to do things to lower her stress level. Looking at running water was supposed to be good. Fresh air, check. Custody battles were probably less helpful, but if she could make the best out of it, she would sure as hell try. She had seen worse sights than this.
Inside, lawyers walked around in shoes that clicked and echoed through the cavernous hallways. Families all dressed up for court lined up outside of closed doors. Cassie wondered if they were here for reconciliation, too. Or, maybe one of the kids was getting adopted. Or, maybe the mom was being sued by the city for having fifteen unpaid parking tickets, and everyone had just decided to dress-up to make a nice impression.
Down another hallway, Cassie spotted another group of well-dressed people. It took her a moment before she realized that she recognized these people. It was Frank she saw first, unmistakable with his stupid, floppy hair that he seemed to have taken the time to comb back today. She squinted, trying to place everyone else. That was definitely Dr. King in a sun-dress, and probably her sister fidgeting with the tie in the back.
“It looks good, Mel,” she said, her pigtails bouncing with every turn of her head. Langdon paced, hands behind his head, looking antsy.
Feeling like she wasn’t supposed to be seeing any of this, Cassie ducked into an alcove with a water-fountain, hoping none of them had seen her. What was Langdon doing with Mel and her sister at the courthouse on a Tuesday? What were they doing all dressed up? She had listened to the gossip about Frank with mild interest, not the stuff about rehab, but the stuff about his marriage. That he’d started driving a different car to work. Sometimes, he didn’t show up with his ring on. All of these things were catalogued by the watchful eyes of Princess and Perlah, who may or may not have had some kind of betting pool on his possible separation.
Cassie had hoped that he might come to her if he’d needed advice. After all, she was one of the only other staff members besides Al-Hashimi that had gotten divorced with kids involved, and maybe she could have helped him out a bit. However, she knew she wasn’t the most shining example, so she hadn’t taken offense when it never came up. He talked around Abby, brought up the kids constantly, and sometimes he still wore the damn ring, so Cassie had just figured that maybe things were on the rocks. Besides, she’d been trying to get less involved with her co-workers. Have less overlap with work and home. Her therapist said that was a good idea. Less stress. Always a good idea. But here she was now, hiding from Langdon as he stalked around the courthouse with nervous intensity.
“I don’t know…” Mel was frowning, fussing with the front of her dress. Cassie squinted, trying to get a good look at what about it was bothering her so much, when she froze completely as Mel smoothed her hands down around— well, no fucking way.
There were a lot of reasons a woman could look pregnant, Cassie knew this. That was why you never asked unless you were filling out a chart. Bloating, ovarian cysts, cirrhosis of the liver, but obviously Mel wasn’t an alcoholic, and obviously not a lot of people lovingly cupped their ovarian cysts. She nearly flattened against the wall as Mel’s sister took a digital camera out from her cross-body bag.
“You look great, sweetheart,” it was Frank, who reached down to casually wrap his arm around Mel as if he did it all the time, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead, “You okay?”
“Mm,” Mel made a sound kind of like a sigh and a hum, leaning against Frank’s chest and burying her face in his button-up shirt. “Tired.”
“Dr. Langdon?”
“I told you,” he laughed good-naturedly. “It’s okay to call me Frank.”
“Sorry, I don’t like that name very much,” Mel’s sister said earnestly and Cassie had to hold in a snort that pushed past her surprise at the whole situation.
Mel put her hand on her forehead, exasperated. “Becca! We talked about this!”
“It’s okay,” Frank mollified, “I’m not, uh, the biggest fan, either. Sorry, Becca, what were you asking?”
“Is this a real wedding? Because Mel doesn’t even have a veil on.”
What the actual fuck.
As Mel explained that not every bride wore a veil, and that she didn’t want one anyway, and that when Becca got married, she could wear whatever she wanted, Cassie started to put things together.
There had been a week a few months back where Mel had taken about three days off. Cassie remembered this, because Dana had gone around trying to incentive people to cover her, and Cassie had taken one of the days at the promise of having a sandwich ordered for her from her favorite deli. And then, when the sandwich came, she didn’t even want to eat it because a patient had just projectile vomited all over her, and she’d had to finish her shift in morgue scrubs.
And then, there had been another time, maybe a few weeks later, when she and Mel had both been in the break-room for lunch at the same time, and Mel had opened up the wrap she’d packed for lunch (the same one she packed every day), and had decided she didn’t like it. And then, (now this was the very weird part), it was Langdon who had frantically pulled out his phone and let her order whatever she wanted on his DoorDash app, which she remembered distinctively, because she had made fun of him for paying for a “DashPass”, which was a frankly ridiculous thing to pay for.
And maybe she hadn’t noticed before, but now that she was looking at her now, even across the hall, she could see that Mel’s cheeks were rounder, she was looking softer all around. The scrubs they wore every day were pretty boxy, they didn’t hug the body unless you made them (which some of the younger techs did— she didn’t blame them, sometimes it wasn’t fun to dress in a paper bag). But if she had paid more attention, she might have been able to spot the slight swell of Mel’s belly, the fullness of her breasts.
And of course, on top of it all, they had always been weird together, now that she was thinking about it. Mel, who shrank from sudden movement and touch, seemed to touch Langdon quite a lot, hanging off his arm, leaning against his shoulder, leaning up to mumble things into his ear. It was intimate.
It began to dawn on her with mild horror that she was accidentally in attendance at Mel and Frank’s shotgun wedding. And by the looks of the other guest(s)— the distinct absence of Langdon’s Catholic parents— the timing was more than suspicious enough to imply that Mini-Mel had been conceived while the divorce was still pending. Or very possibly even before that.
This kind of information would win a million dollar jackpot. It was beyond Princess and Perlah’s wildest dreams. And of course, this secret had a time-limit on it, because by the looks of Mel’s belly in her sundress, it was only a matter of weeks before it became uncontainable.
It was at this moment that Cassie found she could do one of two things: reveal herself (politely), and then at least they’d be aware that she was aware. Or, walk away as casually as possible and hope they were all too absorbed in marital bliss to notice her.
On one hand, the first option would be a courtesy. The chances she would tell anyone else were slim. She didn’t really like drama, and she definitely knew what it felt like to have an… oops baby (she would never call Harrison that to his face, but he definitely was not planned).
On the other hand, this was a monumentally bad decision to make so soon after recovery. Frank was stupid. Mell was naive. She didn’t know the circumstances, but it seemed like both of them were in over their heads. And she didn’t even really like Mel, if she had to tell the truth. On the best of days, she was sweet. On the worst of days, annoying. And this development certainly wasn’t endearing… but Cassie would never have said that out loud. At least, not at work.
Deciding a quiet exit was the most dignified thing to do, Cassie waited until Mel’s sister started snapping photos of them together, Frank with his arm protectively around Mel, the other hand occasionally going up to rest on her belly. Mel smiled, looking nervous and young, doing her best to follow her sister’s highly specific posing instructions. They did look good together, she thought, as she surreptitiously walked past them and down the stairs; well-matched.
The next shift Cassie worked with Mel was a Monday. She’d noticed that both her and Langdon had managed to snag two days off together in a row. A honeymoon, she had thought to herself, only mildly amused. She tried to avoid Mel as much as possible, who she couldn’t help but notice looked radiant, her hair long and thick, her cheeks full and rosy. Now, looking at her, it was weird that no one else had noticed.
“Dr. McKay?”
She tried not to look so mortified when Mel cornered her in the break room, wringing her hands in that nervous way she often did that she found slightly unsettling.
“What’s up?” She asked, swallowing and giving her a thin-lipped, almost-smile, willing her eyes not to dart down to Mel’s belly.
“Um, could I talk to you for just a minute?”
Cassie chewed the inside of her cheek, containing her facial reaction, “You already are.”
“Oh! Right,” Mel nodded quickly, then inhaled sharply through her nose, “Um. I saw you the other day. At the courthouse.”
“You did?” Cassie tried to play it off, but quickly realized it was not going to work when Mel nodded again, taking her response entirely in earnest.
“Yes. On Wednesday. Do you remember?”
Cassie felt a rush of sympathy, then. Oh, god, poor Mel. She remembered keenly the frustration that she had felt while pregnant. How unfair it was that men could fuck whoever they wanted, but it was women who had to wear the evidence on their bodies, that had to deal with the stares and the questions and the puking.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, tone a bit softer, “I did.”
“Well,” Mel stammered, then closed her eyes for a minute, visibly grimacing as she collected herself. Cassie felt like a total bitch for ever being hard on her for a second, even if it was only in her head.
“It would be nice if you, um… would maybe…”
“I won’t tell anyone, Mel. Don’t worry about it. Seriously,” she said, keeping her voice low in case anyone else walked in, although it would be hard to keep a low profile with Mel wearing everything she was feeling on her face.
“Oh…” Mel let out a breath of relief, “Thank you. It’s, um,” she bit her lip, then her eyes moved around the room as if she was recalling something she’d memorized. “We’re going to tell everyone soon. But the timing wasn’t… the best. And Dr. Langdon needs to sort out things with the kids, and…”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, alright?” She found herself using the same voice that she did when she reassured patients. Nervous young girls who came in for Mifepristone, or kids who needed their casts sawed off, “I’ve been there… I just… I hope you know…” she stopped, trying to find a way to say what she meant without sounding like… well, like a complete bitch.
I hope you know what you’re doing… I hope you know what you’re in for… I hope you have a plan B in case he cheats on you with a shiny, new favorite student…
Mel narrowed her eyes a little bit, as if she was thinking very hard, and then she said (much more cooly than Cassie had ever heard her speak), “I know exactly what I’m doing, Dr. McKay.”
Cassie, feeling slightly taken aback, blinked and then shook her head, quickly regathering her composure.
“Right. I didn’t mean it like that, I just…” she bit her lip, “Actually, I think the only thing I can say now is congratulations. And, I wish you the best.”
“Thank you,” Mel said, voice measured, and then she let herself smile cautiously and whispered with almost childlike excitement: “It’s twins!”
“Lucky you.” Cassie said, and tried to hide the way her eyes were bulging with a small, stifled cough.
“Um, well, I’d better go check on my patient. Thank you for talking with me, Dr. McKay. I appreciate your… discretion!”
“Yep,” she said, eyebrows raised and a bit pale. “No problem, Mel.”
Later that day, Cassie moseyed her way up to the nurse’s station, looking casual.
“Hey, Princess,” she hissed, enticing her to lean forward. “... I wanna place a bet.”