Chapter 6: The Count

The Prairie Fertility Group had a waiting room that had given up on being cheerful.

There were orchids, a fountain and a wall of framed baby photos.

Matthias sat on a grey sofa with his knees too high and held the clipboard.

"Breathe," I said.

"I'm breathing."

"You've been holding that pen for four minutes."

"It's a good pen."

I took the clipboard from him.

The first page asked for my medical history, which was short and boring.

The second page asked for his, which was not.

I watched him write it all down, line by line.

Lymphoma. Chemotherapy, eleven months. Remission, twelve years.

His handwriting got smaller toward the end.

The doctor came out herself.

She was a brisk woman in her fifties with reading glasses on a beaded chain and a handshake.

"Mr. and Mrs. Reinhardt," she said. "Come in. I've read your files twice."

Nobody had ever called me Mrs. Reinhardt.

I looked over my shoulder for his mother before I remembered.

Her office had a window onto a parking lot and a bowl of mints on the desk.

She skipped the small talk.

"Mr. Reinhardt, you banked six samples before your treatment. They are stored here, in our cryo tank, and all six passed their last inventory."

"Good."

"Quality is a different matter. Your count was low before chemotherapy."

"The thaw loses some more. I'd estimate one in four attempts will work, per sample."

"One in four," Matthias said.

"That's actually respectable for your history."

"Respectable," he repeated, and I saw his jaw work.

"Mrs. Reinhardt is twenty-seven with good hormone levels. That helps a great deal. A natural cycle, monitored, is the gentlest way to begin."

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