Chapter 4: Transfer Day

The transfer room was colder than the waiting room and smaller than a bathroom.

I lay on the table in a paper gown with two weeks of hormone shots in my hip and a nurse talking in the calm voice nurses use on people about to cry.

Gavin stood by my head in a suit he'd probably worn to a board meeting that morning.

He had not been asked to come in.

He had asked, and the nurse had looked at me, and I had said fine.

"The embryo has thawed well," said the doctor from the foot of the table. "It's a good one."

"Good how?" I asked.

"Good in all the ways we can see. The material from the intended father has been in storage eight years, and it behaved beautifully."

I glanced up at Gavin.

"You banked it eight years ago?" I said.

"I was careful," he said, and looked at the ceiling.

His hand was resting on the edge of the table, an inch from mine.

"Careful about what?"

"Later."

"Ms. Hruska, I need you to hold very still," said the doctor.

I held very still.

It took four minutes.

It didn't hurt, and I'd expected it to, and that undid something in my chest I'd been holding shut since the hospital hallway.

A tear ran sideways into my ear.

Gavin's fingers closed over mine.

He didn't say anything.

He just held on, so hard it almost hurt.

"All done," said the nurse. "Lie flat for twenty minutes. Don't be brave about it."

When she and the doctor had gone out, he let go.

"Thank you," I said.

"For what?"

"For the hand."

"It wasn't for you," he said, and then looked appalled at himself.

"Who was it for?"

"The embryo," he said. "I'm told they like it."

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