“Maybe they can talk to each other,” Wendy suggested.

“I don’t know,” Marissa said. “Robert doesn’t like to think he’s being manipulated. The therapist tried talking with him after my last transfer, but it only made things worse.”

“Excuse me, everybody!” Susan Walker called out over the general din. “If everyone could find a seat, we’ll get going.”

Marissa and Wendy sat down on a nearby couch. Marissa was still full of questions for her old friend and had to force herself to be patient. She and Wendy had been quite close during medical school. The fact that they had lost touch was purely a function of geography and their busy careers. After the long forced isolation of infertility, Marissa was overjoyed to find such a former friend in whom she could confide.

But Marissa’s patience paid off, and she soon found herself mesmerized by the meeting. A number of the women stood up and addressed the group, telling their own stories.

It was an emotional experience for Marissa as she heard story after story with which she could identify. When one woman confessed to screaming at a shopper in a grocery store who she thought was neglecting her children, Marissa nodded, remembering the teenage mother with the dirty child.

Even one of the husbands got up to talk, making Marissa particularly sorry that she’d been unable to get Robert to come. He talked about the stress from the male point of view, giving Marissa a slightly better appreciation of what Robert had been trying to tell her about his response to “performing.”

One woman lawyer stood up and spoke of the need for couples going through unsuccessful IVF to grieve for their lost potential children. After eloquently outlining such couples’ predicaments, she added quietly, “If there were formal supports for the infertiles’ grief, maybe my friend and colleague Rebecca Ziegler would be with us tonight.”

For a few moments, after the lawyer sat down, the room maintained a respectful silence. Clearly many had been touched by mention of the dead woman. When the next speaker got up, Marissa turned to Wendy.

“Was Rebecca Ziegler a frequent attendee of these meetings?” she asked.

“Yes, poor thing,” Wendy said. “I even spoke with her at the last meeting. It was a shock to hear she’d killed herself.”

“Had she been very depressed?” Marissa asked.

Wendy shook her head. “I never saw signs of it.”

“I saw her the day she died,” Marissa said. “In fact, she hit my husband.”

Wendy looked at Marissa in surprise.

“It was at the Women’s Clinic. She was out of control,” Marissa explained. “Robert was trying to restrain her. The curious thing was that she didn’t act depressed then either. She was angry, yes, but not depressed. Was she pretty calm in general?”

“Seemed to be every time I saw her,” Wendy said.

“Weird,” Marissa said.