I gave in and took his offer of a third shot. After that, I insisted to myself, I was done. Really I was.

“Let’s be honest, Chef,” I said.

“Go on,” he said. “Hope that we always are, Connor.”

“This baby thing is driving a wedge between us.”

Micah took our mugs and started to wash them by hand.

“How?” he asked.

I leaned against the bar while he ran the tap.

“The constant failure,” I said. “I can never say, ‘It’s sad, it’s terrible, and it’s unfair, but you can’t get pregnant, Kristen. We have to move on.’ Instead, every month feels like a referendum on our life.”

Micah gave me a quick nod. “I hear you loud and clear. I’m right there with you.”

“Yeah,” I went on, feeling the tequila pretty good. “It’s a blame game, and yet I’m not playing along with her. I can’t. I know that this is on her. I love her. I don’t want her to think anything bad about herself, but the constant bitching about our failure is tearing me up.”

He rolled down the sleeves of his white shirt. “Sarah’s not so bad,” he said, “but I must admit that every now and then she gives me a little zinger. The other day she said men over forty have less than fifty percent of the potency of men in their twenties. Potency? Like we’re a bud from the pot store!”

I let out a laugh, and it felt good.

“So that’s why we’re hungry after sex,” I said.

Micah gave me a courtesy grin, but I immediately switched the tone back to what had been eating at me. “I am tired of feeling like a goddamn failure,” I said. “I’m tired of jacking off into a tube so that she can do the deed when it’s best for her.”

“Like a piece of meat?” he asked.

I got where he was going. “Okay. Every man’s dream, I guess. And it wouldn’t be so shitty if I could see a way out of it that would keep her happy.”

“People with fertility problems work their way through this,” he said, quickly adding that he and Sarah had been to a counselor. “It takes a while. It’s harder for the woman, of course. They see a baby in someone’s arms and are immediately reminded of what they don’t have. On TV. On the streets. Sarah gets a load of it every Christmas when her sisters show up. One had twins. The other, four kids. She looks at them, and despite all that she is, all that she’s accomplished, she feels less than.”

I’d seen that look in Kristen’s eyes too. “Yeah,” I said. “Nothing to do but let acceptance set in.”

“That’s right,” Micah said. “Sarah wouldn’t be happy that I shared all this with you.”