“SHOULD WE DO SOMETHING THIS WEEKEND?”

Nathan is standing in the shower. It is the second day after the transfer. The door to the terrace is open, and autumn sunshine streams into the flat.

“Like what?” he calls over the water.

“Like—I don’t know—get out of London? Go to the countryside. The sea.”

“Yeah, why not. Oh, wait . . .” He turns off the shower and reaches for a towel. “I’ve got that paper to turn around for publication.”

She watches him towel himself dry, stretch in a shaft of sun. He comes towards her. “You look well,” he says.

“I feel it.”

He tastes of coffee and toothpaste and soap.

“But you should,” he calls behind him, as he goes into the bedroom and pulls out a pair of boxers and jeans from his drawers. “Get out, I mean. Why don’t you go and see someone? See Cate? Go to Canterbury? Or—what’s that place by the sea? Nearby? The one with the oysters?”

“Whitstable.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” He comes back over towards her, buttoning up his jeans. “Why not go there?”

“Maybe.”

“Wait. Can you eat oysters? If you’re—?”

“Oh. No,” she says, closing her eyes, warmth inside, warmth without. “No, I don’t think you can.”

IN THE END she does nothing—finding that she does not want to stray far from home after all. But as she goes about her weekend, she thinks of the embryos inside her. Often, she takes out the photograph and stares at it, tracing them with her finger, those two points of light, surrounded by an immensity of dark.

ON MONDAY, THE fourth day, they call. She is in a meeting, and feels her phone buzz in her bag. She excuses herself, goes out into the hallway and answers.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse says. “Nothing has been frozen. The other embryos were not doing well.”

“Oh,” says Hannah. “Thank you.”

The pulse, the flicker of life. Gone out.

“What happens?” she says softly. “To the other embryos? Can you tell me?”

“I . . .” The nurse falters. She sounds very young. “They’re . . . disposed of, I imagine. I’m sorry, no one’s ever—”

“It’s OK,” says Hannah. “Thanks.”

ON THE SIXTH day, a Wednesday, she goes to meet Lissa at the theater. She gets out of the tube at Embankment and walks slowly over Hungerford Bridge, where dusk is falling and the lights are dancing in the river.