Mark lays his jacket over the back of the couch and drops a plastic Target bag on the cushion. He settles on the ottoman facing her and takes her hands.

His palms are clammy. She can smell the city’s mugginess on him, the sharp tang of sweat that hits the back of her nose when she inhales.

“Why aren’t you at work?” she asks.

“I couldn’t concentrate, so I took a walk.”

“You walked all the way here?” His office is in Midtown, past Rockefeller Center, over thirty blocks from their home. “Why?”

“I’ve been thinking. We . . .” He squeezes her hands, looks down at them. “We should take a break.”

“A break,” she murmurs.

His gaze lifts to hers. She sees his stress in the fine lines flaring from the outer corners of his eyes. He wears it like his ties. Up front and center.

She feels a tear drop on their linked fingers before she realizes that she’s crying. “I’m sorry.”

Mark cups her cheek, waits for her to lift her face. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “This isn’t all on you.”

But it is. Dr. Egan said so. Not directly, but in enough words for Joy to understand that it’s up to her to take the next step that would hopefully make everything right.

For over a week, Joy’s been home moping, wasting personal leave hours she should be saving for their annual vacation on the coast. But she hasn’t had the motivation to go into work and spend time on a product she’s thoroughly lost interest in, and with only three months until launch. They’re in the final stages of product testing. She’s surprised she hasn’t been fired.

But her reason for staying home has nothing to do with her career and everything to do with the single bar on the EPT stick. Not pregnant, yet again. After months upon months of multiple negative pregnancy tests and three short-term miscarriages, she’s lost steam. Sex is a chore, a task item on her schedule, and she and Mark have been arguing more than ever. Little things set her off. He leaves dirty socks on the bathroom floor and she yells at him. She forgets to purchase his favorite trail mix at the grocery store and he snaps at her.

How’s she supposed to know he finished the bag the night before? Telepathy?

Go buy it yourself, she’d grumble under her breath.

Joy has been checked. So has Mark. Her hormone levels are normal and periods regular. Mark’s sperm count is average. Everything is in working order and, in theory, she should be able to get pregnant and carry.