She also had two children and a strong sarcastic streak. Hannah adored her.

Nia must have checked her sarcasm at the door today. She didn’t wait for the ultrasound tech but instead swooped over toward Hannah like some elegant but predatory stork. “I’m going to do the ultrasound myself,” she said, enunciating behind her mask so they could understand her. That was one thing Hannah already missed, both as a doctor and as a patient: the ability to hear people clearly and see their faces as they spoke. You lost nuance without full facial expressions. Hannah tried as best she could to convey empathy and concern and kindness with just her eyes, but it was difficult when you were shouting at people.

“Bloodwork still looking good, my friend,” said Nia. “Let’s do this.”

Hannah closed her eyes. At the touch of the ultrasound probe, her earlier confidence deserted her, replaced with a wash of sadness. How had it come down to this moment? There had never been a time in her life when she hadn’t been obsessed with the idea of becoming a mother. She’d been the sort of little girl who carried her dolls everywhere, naming them, fixing their hair, feeding them, creating elaborate backstories for them—they’d been rescued from orphanages or saved from cruel parents or discovered abandoned in forests, and she’d loved and tended and nurtured them until their soulless plasticized bodies glowed with an almost sentient appreciation. Oh, how she’d loved those dolls! Her favorite, inexplicably named Feenie, had been bizarre-looking, with coarse blond hair and a petulant face and a lumpy, misshapen cloth body, out of which protruded sticklike plastic limbs of a malignant peachy yellow. Because of her ugliness, Hannah had loved her most. Even as a little child, she’d recognized and recoiled from the cruelty the world hurls at a less-than-beautiful female.

She wanted to experience the process she’d spent her entire adult life shepherding in others. All the years of thinking about it, all the effort and time and money and prayer and longing—all of it came down to this one final moment. She was in her forties. She’d likely never have another chance.

“Hannah,” said Nia, and this time her voice was so quiet Hannah had to strain to hear it. For a bleak moment, she understood Nia must be preparing to console her, but as she opened her eyes, Nia’s fist shot straight up, pumping at the air eight or ten times in an explosion of pure joy. It was clear from her exuberance that if her other hand hadn’t been clutching the ultrasound probe, she’d have been jumping up and down like a ten-year-old.

“Congratulations, Mama,” she said, swiveling the monitor. Hannah looked at the screen, and there it was amid a grainy, undulating background: the quivering little blip of a heartbeat. Her own heart froze.