Chapter One

It struck Dame as particularly cruel that West End Fertility offered, among other magazines, Today’s Parent as reading material in its waiting room. As she flipped through the pages, the glossy images of young families smiling and celebrating their good fortune left her feeling vaguely nauseous. Dame dropped the periodical back on the table in front of her and selected the safety of National Geographic instead. When she opened the magazine to a picture of a gorilla piggybacking its infant, she whapped the cover shut again.

After a small forever, she heard her name called. She spent another ten minutes sitting in the examination room, breathing in the faint menace of rubbing alcohol, and facing the narrow bed with its cruel metal stirrups. The last few months came back to her in flashes of banal horror: blood tests, hormone injections, follicular growth evaluations, the cold jizz of ultrasound gel.

Next to the bed was a cabinet, newly plastered with a constellation of cartoon stickers. The messy evidence of children. Dame hoped it was a good sign.

Eventually, the door swung open and the doctor came in carrying a clipboard. He was in his early sixties, with sad, penetrating eyes and wavy hair combed away from his forehead.

“Good morning, Dame,” he said. “Hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

“Not at all.” Maybe if she kept the conversation buoyant, he’d have no other choice but to deliver good news. “Gave me a chance to admire the new artwork.”

The doctor turned and looked at the mess stuck to the cabinet. “My wife’s a pediatrician,” he said. “She uses the office sometimes.”

“You two really have the market cornered” — Dame kept treading water — “manufacture, maintenance, repair …”

He gave a small, unconvincing smile and cleared his throat. In the instant he looked down at his notes, Dame could see the truth in his eyes.

“So,” he said, “I’m afraid it looks like this most recent transfer didn’t work —”

She felt herself slip beneath the surface and sink into the familiar abyss.

“— and as this was your last viable egg, I think it might be a good time to reassess your current situation.”

“My current situation?”

“Well, you’re” — the doctor lifted a page on his clipboard — “thirty-six years old. You’ve had three miscarriages. Five failed transfers. You’ve listed your marital status as separated —”

“Divorced,” she corrected him. “And?”

“And, maybe it’s time to start considering alternative options.”

“I thought this was the alternative option.”

“I mean options besides in vitro fertilization.” He paused for a moment. “There are a number of very credible adoption agencies in the city, and I think —”

Dame shook her head.

“Look, this is an expensive process. You’ve already spent thousands of dollars, and there are no guarantees.”

She adjusted her glasses. “Are there ever?”

“I know it seems unfair.” The doctor crossed his arms. “After everything you’ve been through, it must seem like the universe owes you a child.”

But as Dame stared at the half-peeled Spider-Man sticker clinging to the cabinet, she knew her doctor had got it wrong. The universe didn’t owe her a child; if anything, it was the other way around.