Angie nodded, gripping her handbag even tighter than she had. “Over three and a half, actually.”
Dr. Rouben cleared his throat again. “Before I go into the details of what this clinic is all about, and what we would like to do over the next few months, I want to be frank with you both. Ten percent of adults in the western world, male and female, are infertile. That means for every ten of your friends one of them cannot conceive a child. Either of you may be that one. This means that anywhere between ten to twenty percent of couples are going to be childless.” The room was silent. To Michael, it was as if the doctor was deliberately letting this piece of information sink in for several seconds before he went on. “Before we go any further, it is imperative you wash away all your feelings of guilt – both of you – for not being able to have a child the so-called normal way. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Michael crossed his right leg over his left, feeling uncomfortable with the direction this was going. It was opening up too many fresh wounds in his and Angie’s relationship, wounds that he’d rather have let heal in their own time without someone else intervening, especially someone like this guy. “We know it’s not our fault,” he began to reply.
Dr. Rouben held up his hand. “Of course, but it’s something that I like to address straight away.”
“Okay, thank you, Dr. Rou… Dr. Billy, but Angie and I are still a bit uncomfortable with this whole thing. We need a little more time before this will start to feel like a normal thing to do.”
Angie shot him a glance, but said nothing. He could sense that she didn’t appreciate him saying that. There was an impatient look in her eye, as if the last thing she wanted was to wait any longer for something to be done.
“I understand, but it may help to extinguish all concepts you may harbor of what you consider normal or natural,” Dr. Rouben said, twitching the first two fingers of both hands in the air, like rabbit ears, Michael thought, to emphasize the word “natural”. “This clinic specializes in assisting couples who are experiencing difficulties procreating, that’s all. We are not producing babies in factories. The pregnancy still takes nine months, the mother still gives birth, and the baby still needs feeding and its diaper changed. What can be more normal or natural than that?”
Michael switched legs. Angie remained silent.
“Look, Angie and Michael,” he said, directing himself mainly at Michael, sensing his unease. “I don’t want to do anything that you’re not comfortable with. That means both of you. If either of you are having doubts about going through with this, then it’s not going to work. I need full cooperation, no halfway efforts, and if you need more time to consider alternative opportunities, then please, go home and think about it some more. There’s no shame in having doubts.”
Michael certainly had doubts. About seeking help, about this guy, this room, this hospital, about everything really. If it were his decision, he would get up and leave straight away, check out before he had the chance to check in. He turned to Angie in the hope that she’d grab this opportunity to make a graceful exit. Their eyes met and he was immediately disheartened. She’d been sold. There was no way they were going to leave. She had already checked in while he wasn’t looking and there was only one real eventuality from now on.
“No,” he said with a sigh, turning back to the doctor, “we don’t need to think about it anymore. We’ve been doing that for too long.” He paused, almost unable to say what was on his mind. “You have our full support.”
The tension in Dr. Rouben’s face seemed to fade away like the light shining through the window behind him. He relaxed into his chair, and said, “Excellent. We’re here to help you start a family, and that makes us extended family, does it not?”
Angie glanced at Michael and then at the doctor. “Well, then,” she said, in what Michael recognized as her professional tone of voice, “let’s get down to business.”
TONIGHT MICHAEL IS dreaming of the black shadow again. As before, everything is in black and white, the trees, the houses, the street, and there are no other people. It’s like time is nonexistent – all the cars are stationary, the birds aren’t flying – everything is at a standstill, except him, he is running. His chest feels like exploding and his heart is galloping. Suddenly, he realizes that he’s on a street he recognizes. It’s not his street, Christopher Street, but it’s a street somewhere in the neighborhood. His legs feel heavy, like two logs, but he must run faster than ever before. He wonders why.
A mysterious voice answers his thoughts. From where it’s coming, he doesn’t know: You have what they want. You have what they need.
He is confused as to who they are and what they want. He begins to slow. Turning, he sees the black shadow, huge and dark and menacing, not too far behind. He is terrified. He tries to run but his legs are too weak to carry him further. Now he feels as if he’s not moving at all, as if the pavement has turned into a treadmill: his legs are moving, but he is going nowhere.
Then he hears the whispering voice again, warning him: Quickly! They’re after you. Run, Michael. RUN!
It fades, like a child’s cry as it is being carried away… slipping away… into silence, as if abducted by the shadow. He feels alone and scared. He must run. He must, because now he knows the chase is on. They are after him
– they, and the black shadow.
AROUND NOON THE following day, Michael stirred from his thoughts of last night’s nightmare. The whole morning had passed in a blur. He couldn’t stop thinking of the black shadow, and only now in the open air could he clear his head and focus on what he was doing. It was Friday, November 24th. It was lunchtime. He and Norman were on teacher’s duty, and they had even managed one complete circuit of the oval before he had snapped out of his daydreaming, before he returned to the land of the living, as Angie often said. He figured they would have to do at least another two more laps until the bell signaled the end of lunchtime.
All around him children cavorted on the grass, shrieking with delight. One girl was doing summersaults, her yellow dress flipping over her head revealing a pair of white knickers each time she rolled over. Few, mainly girls, were sitting cross-legged on the ground in groups of three or four, chatting animatedly, but for the most part kids were running and squealing in one game of chase or another, for no particular reason it seemed except to run.
Norman asked him a question, which he didn’t completely hear. Michael slowly turned to him with blurred, half-dazed eyes. Norman was wearing a pair of brown corduroy trousers and a tan, V-necked sweater with large, mustard-yellow squares, raiments Michael associated with retired executives dawdling on the golf course. Norman clutched his belt and hoisted his trousers over his belly, looking somewhat impatient, as if he was envisaging slapping Michael in the face or throwing a bucket of ice over his head to wake him up.
“Are you going to tell me how it went last night, or not?” His voice had risen to a low squeal. “You told me this morning you went to the fertility clinic at St. Mary’s with Angie after work,” he said. “That’s why you didn’t make it around for dinner, which, by the way, you missed out big time. Bridget cooked up a gorgeous feast.”
Michael only now remembered that he was supposed to have phoned Norman after the clinic appointment. He had simply forgotten when he and Angie got home. They had flopped in front of the telly for a while and then went to bed, too exhausted to do anything else. He apologized to Norman for not ringing.
Norman shrugged, seemingly not too upset by his forgetfulness “Anyway, you were telling me about last night,” he said.
Michael glanced to his right, pondering his reply. A small creek ran past the oval’s southern-most edge, lying just beyond the wire-mesh fence that encircled