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noticed a large wrought-iron cage hanging from a chain near the open window in which two canaries hopped about. During our conversation, one of these birds sang plaintively.
    He began well. He told me that he was obliged to ask me a number of personal questions, and that I could be assured my answers would not travel beyond the walls of his office, that in particular he would not repeat anything I said to my mother or my husband. I found the darting, unfocused looks he gave me reassuring, and I made up my mind to tell him whatever he wanted to know. I wanted to enlist him on my side. He asked about my monthly discharges, were they regular, copious, clotted, or clear, attended by pain or swelling? He asked about my general health, my diet, how much riding I did, if I ever suffered from dizziness or fainting spells. As my health has always been excellent, I answered these questions readily, nor could he have been much surprised at my responses. He listened closely, occasionally making a note in a leather-bound book he had open before him.
    Then he questioned me about my marriage, and in particular about my sexual congress with my husband. How often did our relations take place, did I experience pain, was there ever bleeding afterward? He asked most delicately if I was certain that my husband ejaculated into my womb, a question which made me laugh, though I could not look at him and felt a hot flush rising in my cheeks. “I apologize for being so indelicate,” he said, “but I have known cases of infertility caused by inadequate knowledge on the part of the husband.”
    “My husband knows very well how babies are made, I assure you,” I said coldly.
    He fiddled with his pen and made no answer. I looked past him at the window where the bird was singing. There was a plantain tree just outside with a big bruised purple pod of unripe fruit hanging from it. One of the leaves lay across the windowsill like a fold of impossibly bright satin. I thought of my husband’s embraces, so urgent and disagreeable, his kneading and sucking at my breasts until the nipples hurt, his fingers probing between my legs, his harsh breath in my face.
    “I see no physical reason why you can’t have a child,” the doctor said at last.
    “No,” I agreed. “There is no physical reason.”
    “Do you want children, Mrs. Gaudet?”
    I gave this question thought. I had assumed I would have children, the question of whether I wanted them had never occurred to me. What sort of woman doesn’t want children? Dr. Sanchez waited upon my answer, but he had a calm, patient air about him, as if he wouldn’t mind waiting forever. Suppose I had married a man like him, I thought, a man who knew everything about women’s bodies and was never impatient. I arrived at my answer. “No,” I said.
    He nodded, pressing his lips together. He had known all along. “Do you fear the pain of childbirth?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Perhaps you feel anxiety about the disfigurement of pregnancy?”
    “That passes, surely,” I said.
    “There is some other reason,” he concluded.
    “Yes,” I said. He produced a handkerchief, picked up a pair of eyeglasses that lay upon a stack of books on his desk, and began methodically rubbing the lenses. “It is because I despise my husband,” I said.
    He looked up at me briefly, but without surprise, then returned his attention to his eyeglasses. “Unhappy marriages still produce children,” he said.
    “Perhaps they are not unhappy enough,” I replied.
    “Has it occurred to you that a child might be a comfort to you in your suffering?”
    “I am not in need of comforting,” I said.
    He put the glasses down and gave me his full, unfocused attention. “Did you love your husband when you married him?” he asked.
    “I hardly knew him. Ours was considered an advantageous match.”
    “And how did he earn your enmity?”
    “Well, let me think,” I said. “Would the fact that the servant I brought to the marriage has borne