A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

An image of her husband forms: cynical, candid, lacking trust.
I’ve been asked this question before. I’m not agency-based or
hospital-based. I work alone, which is the reason my fees may be
more than most. I provide services not everyone provides. You don’t
get just any doula when you go into labor, dependent on who’s on
call. You get me.
“He found one online that charged only three hundred dollars,”
Shelby says. “But I said I didn’t want that one. I want you.”
“Why’s that?” I ask. Shelby doesn’t know me from a bar of soap.
Why would she pick me over any other doula?
She shrugs. She smiles. “I like you,” she says. “But Jason said if I
could talk you down to a thousand, that would be even better.”
“Talk me down to a thousand?”
“Or even eight hundred. I mean, he’s right. It’s a lot of money for
one day of work.”
I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t like where
this conversation is headed. It’s not one day of work. It’s a prenatal
appointment, meetings like this, the labor and delivery, a postnatal
visit, endless phone calls and texts. It’s also my livelihood, me
putting my own life and family on hold for hers.
I don’t tell her that.
“I’m sorry, Shelby, but I don’t negotiate on my fees.”
Another shrug. Another smile, this one far more brazen. I get the
sense that there’s more to this woman than I originally thought. For
as nervous as she was the other day, there’s none of it today. Today
she is assertive and sure. Which side of her am I to believe is true?
“Yeah, well,” she says, “it doesn’t matter. I got him on board either
way, didn’t I?”
What I notice is that Shelby wears sunglasses, though we’re inside
and outside the day is gloomy and gray.