“Last slice?” Oliver says. I shake my head and he and Sam decide to split it. Then Oliver takes our plates into the kitchen and I look out the window to where the light has all but faded. The trees in the front yard stand quiet and strong, supporting their snowy branches as if they’ve never known tiredness. And I decide something.

I decide that it doesn’t matter why I feel what I do. I’m not selfish for wanting a baby that shares my DNA. It doesn’t make me a bad person if I’m yearning for a child with Oliver’s dimples, or my love of music, or Dad’s laugh. And this waiting, and hoping, and not knowing—it can’t go on. I take a breath, and get off the couch.

In the kitchen Oliver’s just finishing cleaning up. I shut the door, and he looks at me, sensing a change in the air.

“Oliver…” I meet his eyes. “I know how you feel about IVF. But this can’t go on. I need us to go to that clinic. I need us to try.”

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

I see the look on his face, he takes no pains to hide it.

“I thought we had talked about this, Gillian.”

“Well in that case,” I keep my voice calm. “I want to talk about it again.”

He keeps his gaze on the window, brows drawn.

“We wouldn’t have to be like Rakesh and Lisa,” I go on. Just because it tore our friends’ marriage apart, it doesn’t have to be the same for ours.

He glances back to me.

“Gillian, it’s not as if this is some, you know, herbal remedies,” he says, his voice sharp. “It’s not like just popping a sleeping pill or something. They pump all these synthetic hormones and chemicals into you. You’d be shooting yourself up with these fake laboratory hormones all day long. That stuff changes you, you know? It changes your body. It changes your mind.” He looks at me. “People just don’t understand how fragile the mind is, Gillian. You don’t even realize how lucky we are, you and me both, that we don’t have to medicate ourselves just to get through the day. And now you want to throw a bunch of chemicals in there and mess with all that? You don’t know what’ll happen. You don’t know how it’s going to change you.”

I close my eyes.

“Ollie, I know what you’re saying, but this isn’t some experimental drug we’re talking about…”

“And what about long-term effects?” he continues. “I read that some studies have shown links to cancer, Gillian!”