“Most of the indignities,” Robert reminded her, “but not all.”

“I’ve had to take my temperature every morning for months on end and plot it on that graph before I even get out of bed to pee.”

Robert was in his closet, selecting a suit and an appropriate tie. He turned his head toward Marissa, who was blocking the light from the bedroom. “You were also the one who doctored the graph with the extra Xs,” he said flippantly.

Marissa fumed. “I had to cheat a little so that the doctors at the clinic wouldn’t think we weren’t trying by not making love often enough. But I never cheated around ovulation time.”

“Making love! Ha!” Robert laughed. “We haven’t made love since this whole thing started. We don’t make love. We don’t even have sex. What we do is rut.”

Marissa tried to respond but Robert interrupted her.

“I can’t even remember what lovemaking is like!” he shouted. “What used to be pleasurable has been reduced to sex on cue, rutting by rote.”

“Well you haven’t been ‘rutting’ very often,” Marissa lashed back. “As a performer you’ve been less than the greatest.”

“Careful,” Robert warned, feeling Marissa was getting nasty. “Just keep in mind that this rutting is easy for you. All you have to do is play dead while I do all the work.”

“Work? My God,” Marissa questioned with disgust.

Marissa tried to speak again but all she could do was stifle a sob. Robert was right, in a way. With all the fertility therapy, it was hard to feel spontaneous about anything that went on in the bedroom lately. In spite of herself, her eyes welled with tears.

Seeing that he had hurt her, Robert suddenly softened. “I’m sorry,” he said, “this hasn’t been easy on either of us. Especially you. But I’ve got to say, it’s not been easy on me either. As for today, I really can’t make it to the clinic. I have an important meeting with a team of people from Europe. I’m sorry, but my business cannot always be ruled by the whim of the doctors at the Women’s Clinic or the vagaries of your menstrual cycle. You didn’t tell me until Saturday about this egg retrieval today. I didn’t know you were going to give yourself that releasing injection or whatever you call it.”

“We’ve followed the same schedule as we have on three previous in-vitro fertilization cycles,” said Marissa. “I didn’t think I had to spell it out for you every time.”

“What can I say? When this meeting was scheduled we weren’t involved with infertility treatments. I haven’t reviewed my entire calendar with your fertilization cycles in mind.”

Marissa suddenly felt angry again. Robert went to the armoire to get a freshly laundered shirt. Above his head Joan Lunden was interviewing a celebrity on the TV screen.