“Sure you don’t want me to beg or fetch?” Alex asked.
“As if you’d listen to me anyway.” Dr. Ramsay smiled, the lines around her eyes deepening.
She’d been Alex’s doctor for ten years now and she always managed to fit Alex in, no matter how crazy her work schedule.
Dr. Ramsay’s expression grew distant as she pressed down on Alex’s lower belly.
“Let me know if you feel any pain or discomfort.”
“Okay.”
“How’s that?” Dr. Ramsay asked, pressing near where Alex imagined her ovaries were located.
“All good.”
“And here?”
Over her bladder this time.
“Fine.”
A few more pokes, then her doctor was done.
“You can get dressed now. So unless there’s anything else you were worried about, we’re finished.”
Alexandra sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the table.
“Nothing major. I have noticed my periods have been getting heavier over the past few months. More cramping, that sort of thing.”
“Unfortunately, that’s something that happens for a lot of women as they age. You’re, what, thirty-nine this year?”
“That’s right.”
“We’ll keep an eye on it and if it becomes a problem we can look at your options. But given the average age of menopause is fifty-one, it might be an issue that will simply resolve itself.”
Alex laughed nervously. “Menopause? I’m not even forty yet.”
Dr. Ramsay shrugged. “But you are on the tail end of your fertility, and quite a few women go into menopause in their forties.”
“But…I haven’t had children yet.”
Dr. Ramsay looked startled. “Oh. I didn’t realize that was something you wanted. I always assumed you were a career woman.”
“No. I mean, I am. I love my career. But I want a family, too.”
There was concern in Dr. Ramsay’s eyes now. “I see. Well, you probably don’t need me to tell you that the clock is ticking.”
“I’ve still got a few years up my sleeve yet, right?” Alex asked.
She hesitated a beat before speaking again. “Why don’t you get dressed and we can discuss this further?”
The curtain hissed shut between them. Alex tried to push beyond the growing sense of dread as she reached for her clothes. It took her two attempts to button her skirt.
Dr. Ramsay was seated at her desk when Alex opened the curtain.
“Grab a seat,” the doctor said, patting the chair she’d pulled up alongside her desk.
Alex sat and folded her hands into her lap. “Why do I feel as though I’ve been called to the principal’s office?”
Dr. Ramsay drew a diagonal line on the paper in front of her, sloping from the top left corner down to the right. Then she jotted some figures along the horizontal and vertical axes of her impromptu graph.
“Here’s a crash course in female fertility,” she said when she’d finished her sketch. “When it comes to having babies, the quality of the egg is what’s important. The current understanding is that fertility as well as egg quality hit their peak at around twenty-seven. From then onward, it’s a steady decline. After thirty-five—” Dr. Ramsay tapped the appropriate point on her downward-sloping graph “—fertility drops off dramatically. Statistically, the likelihood of a woman in her early forties having a successful pregnancy with her own ovum is only ten percent.”
“Ten percent?” Alex repeated.
“Ten percent.”
“But I’m only thirty-eight right now. Where does that place me on the graph?” Alex leaned forward urgently.
Dr. Ramsay tapped a spot scarily close to the bottom of her sloping line. “At about thirty-five percent. But remember, these figures are averages. There are always people who fall outside of the norm.”
Alex stared at the tiny indentation the doctor’s pen had made in the page. Thirty-five percent. She had a thirty-five percent chance of getting pregnant and successfully carrying a child to term. And next year that figure would drop again.
“I thought I had more time. I mean…Madonna. And Geena Davis. And I’m sure I read about a woman in her early fifties having triplets….”
“Unfortunately these high-profile late-in-life pregnancies give women a false sense that having a baby is as simple as deciding the time is right and going for it. Many, many older women have to resort to IVF to get pregnant in their late thirties and early forties. Many fail and are forced to look to donor eggs.”
Alex’s palms were damp with sweat. For so many years she’d dreamed of being a mother. She’d drawn up a list of names, she’d even bought her sensible, safe sedan with an eye to the future. She’d always assumed that she would be a mother, that when she was ready, her body would cooperate and she’d get pregnant…
“Are you telling me that it might already be impossible for me to have a child?” she asked. It was hard to get the words past the lump in her throat.
“Without invasive tests, without you having tried and failed to conceive for an extended period of time, it’s impossible for us to know how fertile you are. What I’m trying to say and perhaps not doing a very good job of it is that if this is something you want, Alex, you need to move quickly. The sooner the better as far as your body is concerned.”
Alex smoothed her hands down her skirt. She could feel how tense her thigh muscles were beneath the fine Italian wool. Her belly muscles were quivering and she was frowning so fiercely her forehead ached.
“I see,” she said.
And she did. She saw Jacob’s baby boy, his big blue eyes taking in the world, his fingers clutching the edge of his blanket.
So small and soft, so full of promise.
All the rage and resentment and bitterness that she’d suppressed this morning rolled over her.
She’d given Jacob
seven years.
Seven of her best years, apparently. He’d said no to children again and again, and now he had what she’d always dreamed of and she was left to face the possibility that she would only ever be a godmother to her friends’ children.
It was so unfair, so bloody cruel…
Alex realized Dr. Ramsay was watching her, an expectant expression on her face. She’s missed something, obviously.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said I’d be happy to jot down the names of some good books on the subject for you,” her doctor said.
“Yes. That would be great. Thank you,” Alex said.
She waited while Dr. Ramsay wrote down a couple of titles, then somehow found the strength to make polite small talk as the doctor saw her to the door.
She drove on autopilot to the gym to meet her coworker Ethan for their weekly racquetball game. It wasn’t until she was pulling on her Lycra leggings and hooking the eyes on her sports bra that she registered where she was and what she was doing.
She sat on the bench that bisected the change room and put her head in her hands. She didn’t want to run around a court and exchange smart-ass banter with Ethan between points. She wanted to go home and curl up in the corner with her thumb in her mouth.
She pressed her fingertips against her closed eyelids and sighed heavily. Then she straightened, pulled on her tank top, laced up her shoes and shoved her work clothes into her gym bag. As much as she wanted to go home, she couldn’t leave Ethan hanging. Not when he was probably already standing on the court, waiting for her. She’d made a commitment to him and she always honored her commitments.
Shouldering her bag, she made her way to the wing that housed the racquetball courts. As she’d guessed, Ethan was already there, warming up. She eyed him through the glass panel in the door, for once not feeling a thing as she looked at his long, strong legs, well-muscled arms and fallen-angel’s face.
She smiled a little grimly. After months of telling herself that it was really, really inappropriate to have a low-level crush on her fellow partner and racquetball buddy, it seemed that all it took to neutralize his ridiculous good looks and rampant sex appeal was the news that she might have left it too late to have children.
She tucked her chin into her chest, squared her shoulders and fixed a smile on her face. Then she pushed open the door and entered the court.
“Hey. Thought you were going to chicken out on me,” Ethan said as she threw her bag on top of his in the corner. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead and he brushed it away with an impatient hand.
“Sorry. Got caught up,” she said.
“No shame in admitting you’re intimidated, slowpoke,” Ethan said, his dark blue eyes glinting with amused challenge.
Most of the women in the office would turn into a puddle of feminine need if he gave them one of those looks, but Alex had been building up her immunity from day one. It was part of their shtick, the way he twinkled and glinted and flirted with her and the way she batted it all back at him, supremely unimpressed by his charmer’s tricks.
According to their usual routine, she was supposed to rise to the bait of him using his much-disputed nickname for her but she didn’t have it in her tonight. Instead, she concentrated on unzipping the cover on her racquet before turning to make brief eye contact with him.
“Let’s play,” she said. The sooner they started, the sooner this would be over.
He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t want to warm up?”
“Nope.”
She took her position on the court.
He frowned. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “You want to serve first…?”
Ethan’s gaze narrowed as he studied her. She adjusted her grip on her racquet and tried to look normal. Whatever that was.
Finally he shrugged and moved to the other side of the court. After all, it wasn’t as though they had the kind of friendship that went beyond the realm of the stuffy oak-paneled offices of Wallingsworth & Kent and the racquetball court. They might be the two youngest partners, and they might see eye to eye on most issues that came up during the weekly partners’ meetings, but she had no idea what he did in his downtime—although she could take an educated guess, thanks to office scuttle-butt—and vice versa. Their friendship—if it could even be called that—was made up of nine-tenths banter and one-tenth professional respect. He was the last person she would confide her fears in.
Ethan bounced the ball a few times before sending it speeding toward the wall with his powerful serve. She lunged forward, racquet extended, and felt the satisfying thwack as she made contact. In a blur of stop-and-go motion they crisscrossed the court, slamming the ball into corners, trying to outmaneuver each other.
He was taller than her, and stronger, but she was faster and more flexible, as well as having four years on him agewise. The result was that they usually gave each other a good run for their money—although Ethan was slightly ahead on their running scoreboard, having beaten her last week.
Tonight she went after every point as though her life depended on it, pushing herself until she was gasping for breath and sweat was stinging her eyes.
After twenty minutes she’d won the first game and was ahead by three points on the second. Ethan shot her a grin as they swapped sides for her serve.
“You’re on fire, slowpoke. But don’t get too comfortable.”
She didn’t bother responding, bouncing the ball and sending it slamming toward him instead. Another frenetic few minutes passed as they fought for the point.
“I pity him or her, I really do,” Ethan said after she’d won the battle with an overhead slam.
Alex tucked a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear. “Sorry?”
“Whoever pissed you off.”
“I’m not angry,” she said.
“If you say so.”
She prepared to serve again but he walked to the corner and grabbed a bottle of water from his bag. She waited impatiently for him to drink, tapping her racquet against the side of her sneaker.
They’d just started their third game when she went long, lobbing a shot at the wall. It hit the high line and ricocheted toward Ethan but he let it fly past him to hit the rear wall without even attempting to take the shot.
“One, love,” he said, his chest heaving, a big grin on his face. “Nice volley.”
“Hang on, that was my point,” she said. She wiped her forearm across her forehead.
“Sorry, it was out.” His tone was final, utterly confident.
“It was in, Ethan. Right on the line, sure, but the line is in.” She pointed toward the front wall with her racquet.
“Trust me, it was out.”
“Oh, well, if you say so, it must be right. I mean, it’s not like you’d ever lie to get your own way, is it? You’re a man, and if it suits you, I’m sure anything goes—until it doesn’t, right?”
Her words echoed off the hard surfaces of the court. There was a short silence as Ethan looked at her, his expression unreadable. Then she was looking at his back as he turned to collect the ball.
Heat burned its way up her chest and into her face. Talk about out of line.
“I’m sorry. That was really…I’m sorry,” she said.