“Out anywhere, Gillian. I can’t do this right now.”

Seconds later I hear the front door close. I sit down at the table, trembling a little.

Oliver’s always said he doesn’t want us to get adversarial over this like Rakesh and Lisa did. I remember how they got about it all in the end: everything was about who was the “problem”; were the eggs defective or was it the sperm? We have to be playing on the same team, Oliver says. But that’s all very well for him to say when that team’s not even on the field, just sitting benched on the sidelines where he wants it. Not doing anything is a choice too, and it’s not my choice, it’s his.

And it isn’t fair.

I take a breath, and pull up the browser on my phone. I look up the fertility clinic, and the address and phone number comes up, and their hours. I close my eyes and hit Call.

“Good afternoon, Freedom Fertility,” a woman’s voice picks up.

“Hi,” I say. “I was wondering if I could come in for a consultation. What’s the first appointment you have available?”

*

I pretend to be asleep when Oliver comes back in. I lie facing the wall, eyes closed. I have no intention of telling him about the appointment I just made tonight. New Year’s Eve—I thought they’d be closed tomorrow, but they’re not. They have an opening first thing, nine thirty in the morning. Just thinking about it, I feel goosebumps. I’ll tell him about it when it’s over. I don’t know how, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Oliver slips into bed beside me, and I’m pretty sure he knows I’m not really asleep but if he does he says nothing. My stomach roils with guilt and the thrill of deception: I have a secret and I hold it to myself like armor—and soon, despite my certainty that racing thoughts will keep me awake till the small hours, I’m sinking under like I haven’t a care in the world.

It’s a shock, then, to wake up in the morning and find I’ve overslept. I pick up my phone from the nightstand and check it in a panic. The stupid screen is declaring Alarm in bright orange, but I didn’t hear anything. I jump out of bed—Oliver’s gone, of course—and knock on Sam’s door.

“Sam? Are you up? I have a doctor’s appointment I forgot about. We have to rush, sorry. I’m going to drop you off at Dinah’s, okay?”

He cracks the door open, looking slightly alarmed.