Chapter 7: The Chart

The Lakeview Fertility Center had a waiting room I knew by heart.

Beige walls, a fish tank, a stack of parenting magazines nobody picked up.

I had sat in the third chair from the door for two years.

Mara sat in the one beside it with her feet up on a stool and a lollipop from the front desk.

"You realize this is the saddest room in Chicago," she said.

"I know."

"The fish look depressed."

"They're always depressed. It's a tank in a clinic."

She popped the lollipop out of her mouth.

"Okay, I'll be good. What's the plan?"

"I'm a patient here," I said. "Our file is joint. I'm entitled to the spouse intake."

"And if they say no?"

"Then I'll ask nicely again."

The nurse at the desk was the same one who had once patted my knee.

She looked up, and her face softened in the careful way it always had.

"Dr. Sherman. We didn't expect you until the spring."

"I need to see the spouse side of our chart, please. Scott's."

She hesitated.

"It's technically a separate record," she said.

"I know. It's also on the same joint consent I signed in the first month. I've read it. I can recite it."

She looked at Mara.

"I'm her emotional support doctor," Mara said.

The nurse pressed her lips together to hide a smile.

"Wait here," she said.

She was gone a long time.

When she came back she carried a thin manila folder and set it on the desk between us.

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