Then the women are taken away through swinging double doors, to a waiting room where a television is playing—the gaudy blare of morning TV. It gets on Hannah’s nerves and she does not want to watch it or listen to it, so she pulls out her book and tries to read, wishing she had brought headphones. Her name is halfway down the list that is pinned to the wall.

They are given hospital gowns to wear—strange garments, open at the back. They sit so their knickers are not showing.

The morning passes like this. There is weak-flavored juice to drink. One by one the women leave, and Hannah watches them go—each with her precious cargo, full of hope. She tries to read their faces, their bodies, as though she might see their destiny written there—which one of them will have the longed-for child. As though if they win, then she loses. As though fertility were a zero-sum game.

She thinks of Cate. Sometimes I think I was irresponsible, having a child at all.

The carelessness of her comment. The luxury of a gift that came so easily.

In truth, the comment had made Hannah furious, but she’d said nothing, packing away the anger she has no spare energy to feel.

The woman beside her is nervous. She keeps getting up to go to the toilet. It is making Hannah nervous too.

“Is it your first time?” asks Hannah, when she returns.

The woman nods. “You?”

“Third.”

“Really?” The woman looks unhappy to hear this, and Hannah wishes she had kept quiet.

“I don’t like anesthetic,” the woman says. “Don’t like being knocked out.” Her face is ashy in the hospital light.

By the time Hannah’s turn comes, she too has grown nervous. How many eggs will there be? The more she has, the higher her chances. It looked like eleven on the monitor, when she had the last scan, but sometimes they are just empty sacs.

“Hannah Grey? Follow me.”

She shuffles after the nurse into the small cupboard-like anesthetic room, where she climbs onto the table.

“OK there?” The anesthetist shoots her a quick look.

Her hand is taken, the anesthetist asks her to count backwards, and Hannah does and . . .

“THIRTEEN,” SHE SAYS to Nathan, in the recovery room. “I got thirteen.” She is dizzy, jubilant.

“Blimey.” He reaches over to kiss her. “Aren’t you clever?”

“How was yours?”

“Fine.” He grins. “It was funny though, they had the same magazines in the drawer they had last time.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not!”

“Do you think they disinfect them? Do you think that’s someone’s job?”

“I’ve no idea.”

They are laughing and she is light, sitting here, high on hospital tea in the sterile recovery chair. Other women sit opposite her. Some look happy, some less so. And she knows. She knows this is their time.