He decided not to say anything; it was uncomfortable to say the least. Instead, he took another sip of beer. He could see his father was disappointed. Somehow he knew he wasn’t receiving the whole truth.
“I can only begin to understand how you must be feeling, Mikey,” Robert said, looking Michael firmly in the eye, “and I won’t ever try to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your own wife. But one thing this old dog has learnt in the past fifty-seven years is that honesty and patience always win through in the end, no matter how rough it may seem at present.”
“It’s getting rougher,” Michael said. Robert cocked an eyebrow. “Angie wants us to go to a fertility clinic. She’s even made an appointment for next week.”
“And you don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”
Michael sat back and ran a hand through his hair, glancing at the light above table. Why was he so averse to seeking treatment at a fertility clinic? Why, when he imagined himself walking into the waiting room, did he have this feeling of dread and despair, as if he was walking into a lion’s den?
“I don’t know what to think any more,” he said, sighing. “There are good and bad things about it. Her health insurance is going to cover the costs and the clinic may actually be able to help us have a baby. That’s something good, at least, but I’m worried for Angie. She seems to be pinning all her hopes on this. If they can’t help, and we can’t have any kids, she’s going to be devastated. It’ll be worse than when her parents died. At least then we could plan for a future and have something to believe in. I’m afraid that she’ll have nothing left to hope for if the fertility clinic falls through.”
“There’s always hope, Mikey,” Robert said, his voice and expression serious. “It’s what’s kept mankind getting out of bed ever since he emerged from the African jungle.”
Michael was pensive. Hope, he thought, was about all he had left.
CHAPTER 2
AS HE SLEEPS, Michael is aware of two things; firstly, he knows it is the night before the appointment at the fertility clinic; secondly, he knows he is in the middle of a frightening dream. In it, everything is in black and white. He is running down the street. His legs are heavy and his chest is burning. He thinks he is being chased, but he’s not sure; he can’t see anyone behind him, but he feels fear, terrifying fear. Suddenly, he trips and falls. A black shadow looms over him. He tries to get up, but he can’t. He can’t move. He can’t run. He can’t do anything. He screams, but no sound comes out. Then he feels horrendous pain, as if he’s being stabbed in his stomach, as if his whole intestines are being wrenched out. He knows he is going to die. The black shadow is watching. He looks up at it and screams in horror. The shadow has no face.
Michael woke with a fright and sat immediately upright. The back of his throat was stinging sharply, like a bad case of tonsillitis, though he knew it was probably because he’d been breathing harshly through his mouth, like someone who’d been running, while he slept. He put his hand over his heart and felt it thumping against his ribs. He could feel sweat on his brow. Taking several deep breaths, he glanced at the clock on the bedside cabinet. It was 5:29 a.m.
Angie continued to sleep quietly, oblivious to his recent fright. Slipping out of bed, now wide awake, he went to the bathroom. His hands, he noticed, were trembling. It had to be one of the worst nightmares he’d ever had, even worse than those he suffered as a child after he and Jude saw Billie die, when he’d wake up terrified and screaming for his dad to come and comfort him. He glanced at his fatigued reflection in the mirror and tried telling himself that it was only a dream, that it wasn’t real. It took a minute or two, but it seemed to work. His mind began to calm and his hands lost their shivering tremble.
After relieving himself, he filled the bathroom sink with hot water. Steam misted the mirrored doors of the cabinet above, which was good because he didn’t want to look too closely again at his bleary eyes and haggard face. He opened the cabinet and reached for his razor. The blades looked blunt, so he removed the disposable head and tossed it into the bin beneath the sink. He was surprised to see it land near a crumpled blue box and a white, plastic object that on first glance looked like a small toothbrush. He bent down and removed the box and object, only now recognizing what it was, a home pregnancy kit. At one end of the plastic tester he spied a reading. It was negative.
He knew Angie used to test her urine every month like clockwork when they first began trying to conceive, but the sight of the pregnancy tester confused him. Angie hadn’t bothered to do it for the last six months or so, when she came to realize that the likelihood of being infertile was more probable than possible. Why had she tested it last night? Was there something she wasn’t telling him?
The thought that Angie was withholding something troubled him the whole time he showered and got dressed. The image of that pregnancy tester lying in the bin beneath the bathroom sink simply wouldn’t leave his head, and by the time she arrived in the kitchen at quarter to seven, dressed and ready for work, he was in a rouseable state of skepticism. She had, after all, arranged the clinic appointment behind his back. What else had she been up to that he wasn’t aware of?
The cuffs of his blue shirt were rolled half way up his forearms, as if ready for a fight, and his freshly washed long hair was hanging loose over his shoulder, occasionally falling in front of his face as he finished the last spoonfuls of his cereal. Angie seated herself at the table with her usual cup of coffee, paying no particular heed to him. She seemed neither surprised nor pleased that he had risen before her. She just stared outside through the windowpane sliding door, interested only in gauging the weather. He followed her gaze, glancing quickly outside. Several fluffy cumulus clouds were rising with the sun over the hills in the east. There was nothing of interest for him, just the same shit, different day, so he turned back to Angie with the intent of confronting her with the news of his earlier discovery in the bathroom.
Angie didn’t give him the chance to speak. “Don’t forget we have the clinic appointment today,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “Five o’clock.”
“You know I don’t like hospitals,” he said, and then, almost as an afterthought, added, “Miss Schmetterling had a fit when I asked her if I could miss tonight’s teachers’ meeting. Are you sure I have to go?”
Angie rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yes. We’ve discussed this all before and we don’t need to go through it again. You’re my husband and we’re in this together. If you don’t meet me at the hospital, it’ll be a total dereliction of your duty.”
“Christ!” he said. “This is emotional blackmail.”
“Don’t you blaspheme!” she said, and slapped her palms down onto the tabletop. Tears formed in her eyes. She pushed herself up from her chair, knocking the underneath of the table with her upper thighs, and before Michael knew what was happening she was out of the kitchen and crying. He heard her footsteps hurry down the hall to the front bedroom.
He threw his hands in the air. “Christ!” he said, pushing the chair back and standing up. “Angie, I’m sorry,” he yelled after her. “I didn’t mean it, you know that.” He waited for her reply. There was just the tic-toc of the grandfather clock. “Angel, come on!”
This was getting ridiculous, he thought. This whole thing was getting out of control. He couldn’t say anything anymore without her running off crying. Staring at the ceiling, not knowing what to do, he absently ran a hand through his hair. He just wished the whole situation would go away and they could get back with their lives, the way they used to be when they just got married, happy and carefree, like when they used to find the time to go for dinner at their favorite restaurant, Piccolo Diavolo, and spend a romantic night together, or like when they used to go away on weekends to his father’s holiday house in Serena and relax and enjoy each other’s company. That was all he wanted, nothing more. He just wanted the marriage to get back to normal.
He followed her out of the kitchen,