Chapter 11: The Waiting Room

The waiting room of the genetics clinic had eight chairs and a fish tank.

We took three of them.

Iván sat by the window with his lawyer, checking his watch every thirty seconds.

Valeria sat by the door with her handbag on her knees and her eyes on the carpet.

I sat in the middle, because it was the only chair left.

Nobody spoke for ten minutes.

A receptionist with a clipboard called us in one at a time.

A technician drew four vials of blood from Valeria's arm.

She swabbed my cheek and Iván's, and told us the results would take until Tuesday.

"That's four days," Iván said.

"That's the standard time, sir."

"My time is not standard."

"Then I'm sorry for your time," said the technician, and went back to her desk.

I almost liked her.

When we came out into the waiting room again, Iván was looking at me.

He had not looked at me directly since the cloakroom.

"I'm only curious," he said, in a voice that carried to every chair.

"What does it feel like? Giving a sample to prove you can't?"

The receptionist stopped typing.

An old man with a cane looked up from his magazine.

"Iván," said Valeria.

"I'm making conversation, Vale. The man had a procedure, and he's here to prove it worked. It's actually rather sad."

I said nothing.

I had carried that word through five years of dinner parties, and I knew exactly how it sounded in his mouth.

"She told me about it, you know," Iván said to me, and smiled.

"She said it was the most devoted thing anyone had ever done for her. And then she said, 'But he'll never give me anything else.'"

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