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turned to the people in the room.

“The clinic would like to apologize for this little incident,” he said as he straightened his long white coat.

A stethoscope was tucked into a pocket, several glass petri dishes in another. Turning to the receptionist, he asked her to please call housekeeping to clean up the mess on the floor.

Dr. Wingate walked over to Robert, who’d taken the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit to dab at his split lip.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Dr. Wingate said as he eyed Robert’s wound. It was still bleeding, although it had slowed considerably.

“I think you’d better come over to our emergency facility,” Dr.

Wingate said.

“I’m okay,” Robert said. He rubbed his shoulder.

“It’s not too bad.”

Marissa stepped over for a closer look at his lip.

“I think you’d better have it looked at,” she said.

“You might even need a stitch. A butterfly, maybe,” Dr. Wingate said as he tipped Robert’s head back to get a better view of his lip.

“Come on, I’ll take you.”

“I don’t believe this,” Robert said with disgust, looking at the bloodstains on his handkerchief.

“It won’t take long,” Marissa urged.

“I’ll sign in and wait here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Robert allowed himself to be led from the room.

Marissa watched the door close behind him. She could hardly blame Robert if this morning’s episode added to his reluctance to proceed with the infertility treatment.

Marissa was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of doubt about her fourth attempt at in-vitro fertilization. Why should she dare hope to do any better this time around? A feeling of utter futility was beginning to bear down on her.

Sighing heavily, Marissa fought back new tears. Looking around the waiting room, she saw that the other patients had calmly retreated to the pages of their magazines. For some reason,

Marissa just couldn’t force herself back in step. Instead of approaching the receptionist to check in, she went over to an empty seat and practically fell into it. What was the use of undergoing the egg retrieval yet again if the failure was so certain?

Marissa let her head sink into her hands. She couldn’t remember ever feeling such overwhelming despair except when she’d been depressed at the end of her pediatric residency. That was when Roger Shulman had broken off their long-term relationship, an event that ultimately led her to the Centers for Disease Control.

Marissa’s mood sank lower as she remembered Roger. In late spring their relationship had still been going strong, but then out of the blue he had informed her he was going to UCLA fora fellowship in neurosurgery. He wanted to go alone. At the time she’d been shocked. Now she knew he was better off without her, barren as she was. She tried to shake the thought. This was crazy thinking, she told herself.

Marissa’s thoughts drifted back a year and a half, back to the time she and Robert decided to start their family. She could remember it well because they had celebrated their decision with a special weekend trip to Nantucket Island and a giddy toast with a good Cabernet Sauvignon.

Back then they both thought conceiving would take a matter of weeks, at the most a couple of months. Having always guarded so carefully against the possibility of becoming pregnant, it never occurred to her that conceiving might be a problem for her. But after about seven months, Marissa had begun to become concerned.

The approach of her period became a time of building anxiety, followed by depression upon its arrival. By ten months she and Robert realized that something was wrong. By a year they’d made the difficult decision to do something about it.

That’s when they’d gone to the Women’s Clinic to be seen and evaluated in the infertility department.

Robert’s sperm analysis had been the first hurdle, but he passed with flying colors. Marissa’s first tests were more complicated, involving X-ray