Chapter 10: The Vial

They took him into a glass-walled room across the hall, and I watched through the glass in my paper slippers.

I couldn't hear anything.

I could see the lab man talking fast, with his hands moving, and the doctor beside him with her glasses off.

I saw Matthias go very still.

He stood with his back straight and his hands loose at his sides.

The doctor said something short.

He nodded once.

Then he walked back across the hall and stopped in front of me, and the look on his face made my knees go weak.

"Hanna," he said. "Come and sit."

We sat in two armchairs in the little office with the mints.

The doctor sat behind her desk.

She looked ten years older than she had on Tuesday.

"Mrs. Reinhardt," she said. "I'm going to tell you exactly what happened."

"Then I'm going to apologize, and I would like you to let me do both."

"Go ahead," I said.

"Thursday night, a sensor on our cryo storage tank failed to send an alert."

"The temperature on one shelf rose above safe limits for six hours before an engineer found it this morning."

My mouth went dry.

"Which shelf?"

"Shelf B."

"How many of his vials were on shelf B?"

"Four," said the doctor.

The room tilted.

"Four of six," I said.

"Two were on shelf A and are unaffected. We tested the first of the four this afternoon."

She looked at Matthias.

"There were no viable sperm."

He didn't move.

"I am so sorry," she said. "We have a protocol for this, and it failed."

"I will personally review it. The practice will refund every dollar, and we will cover your next attempt."

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