in vitro

They knew there would be mishaps. Nothing is really easy anymore, she told him. And he would nod and change the channel in time with his nod. Then she would get up and go into the kitchen and make a vodka tonic. I’m not going to be able to drink these soon, she’d yell into the living room, forcing herself to smile, the glass clinking against the aqua tiled counter.

The day they went to the hospital was cold, and full of dead leaves. Dead leaves in piles on the neighbor’s yards, clogging the gutters, on the windshield of the car. It was a clear day, empty, like God had sucked out the clouds. It seemed higher, the sky did, not hanging low like it did when it was burdened with clouds.

The night before:

So you’ll come with me, she asked, resting beside him on the couch.

Of course, he said, not looking at her. The room was dark, the only light was the television, with its incessant changing of light and sound. She held onto his arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

Will it work?

He shifted in his seat and turned to television off. I don’t know, he answered. I’m going to bed.


They had waited to have sex until they were married, believing in God and the sanctity of their marriage and the sacredness of lovemaking.

When it was over they fell asleep holding each other, so glad they had waited.



The day she found out she left the doctor’s office and went to the grocery store. She rolled the metal cart down the white aisles and pulled things off the shelf. Everything was new and bright and the wheels of the cart clicked against the floor. Milk, eggs, grapefruit, pasta, tomato sauce, vodka, chicken breast, orange juice, bottled water. The things you need to make dinner, and lunch, and breakfast, day after day.




You’ll be okay, her mom told her.

No, she said. I won’t. We won’t. It will just be him and I for the rest of our lives.

You have to believe in God’s will, her mom told her. This is your burden. This is your trial of faith.

When she got home he was sitting on the couch, watching television. She unloaded the groceries, made a drink, and sat down beside him.

You don’t drink, he said.

I think I am going to start.

Why? You want to destroy your body?

Yeah, she said. I do.





She pushed him away, then sat up and picked up her book, turning on the light.

It’s not worth it, she said.

Why not?

Nothing will happen.

We have done it tons of times where nothing did, where we didn’t even want anything to, where we purposefully tried not to let something happen.

It’s different now.

Now that nothing can happen?

It’s the possibility. I just want the possibility back.

He sighed and tried to pull her to him. She grabbed his arm.

We can do it, you know, she told him. There are ways to make it happen.

But that isn’t us. It isn't something that was made in us.

Millions of couples do it all the time.

We aren’t like them. We’re different. I thought you didn’t want to be like the world.

No. I do, she said. I want what everyone else has.



At the hospital they inserted a catheter into her vagina and from that catheter the fertilized eggs. Five lives swimming in her uterus. They told her to lie there for an hour. He waited outside.

Sir, you can sit in your wife’s room, the nurse said to him, holding the door open.

That’s all right, he said, holding up his hand. I’ll just wait out here.

So she lied there for an hour, alone in the hospital room. Her blanket was aqua, like the tiles in the kitchen. Connect, connect, connect. She said out loud, balling her fists, banging them against the blanket. Connect, please.

When they were leaving the hospital he asked:

What happens to the ones that don’t connect?

They save them in a freezer.

Don’t you think we should have them? Aren’t they ours?

She laughed. Don’t be silly. They aren’t alive.



When it didn’t work she cried. She rested her head on the kitchen counter and wept. In the living room the television blared as he sat in the dark flipping through the channels. She went to the freezer to get ice to make herself a vodka tonic. Inside the freezer, next to the ice trays, there were four test tubes.

What are these? She asked grabbing the test tubes and walking into the living room.

Your babies, he said.