as if Elisabeth had missed something. “And this couple seems adorable. Kim and Tim. Their names rhyme. How cute is that? I want to help them. They deserve it.”
Elisabeth looked to Sam, but Sam only shrugged.
“Please think about it,” she said. “You’re going to regret this one day. It’s not worth the money, I’m telling you.”
Isabella seemed like the type who could laugh anything off. But just for a moment, Elisabeth thought she saw something cross the girl’s face. An understanding of what she’d said. She hoped she had gotten through.
“How long did you have to do IVF for?” Sam asked quietly.
“A year.”
“Was it awful?”
“It was both really bad and not that bad,” Elisabeth said. “Those months when it didn’t work after I basically made it my full-time job were awful. I did so many ridiculous things to make it happen.”
“Like what?” Sam asked.
On top of all the shots, she had a daily regimen, culled from the advice of doctors, friends, and random women in online forums, of meditation, baby aspirin, iron supplements, bone broth, pomegranate juice, six cups of red raspberry leaf tea, followed by six cups of nettle tea. There was the acupuncturist who took a gentle, spa-like approach to enhancing her fertility. And the one who said the more pain the better, shooting electrical currents into her abdomen through thick needles. At Faye’s urging, on a work trip to Montreal, Elisabeth hiked to the top of Mount Royal to procure oil from Saint Joseph’s Oratory, which she rubbed onto her belly each night, even though she was an atheist.
She looked at Sam and Isabella, unaware of the desperation that could take hold if you waited too long. How did you tell girls like this that there was something called a vaginal steam and it cost three hundred dollars, which you were beyond willing to pay, in the hopes that it might be the magic bullet? The answer was you didn’t tell them. They weren’t ready for that kind of information.
Elisabeth had once gone for a Mayan abdominal massage. She was embarrassed by her disappointment upon learning on arrival that the masseuse’s name was Rochelle Moskowitz. For the price, she’d been hoping for an actual Mayan. The massage itself was not at all relaxing. Rochelle was running behind that day, so they started fifteen minutes late. Rochelle instructed Elisabeth to envision a nest of feathers and rocks. But all she could think about was that she was going to be late for dinner with her coworker Pearl.
When Rochelle Moskowitz said, “Do you want to meet your girlfriend now?” Elisabeth replied, “Yes.” Amazed that this woman had somehow read her mind.
Rochelle took Elisabeth’s hand and rubbed it along her pubic bone. Apparently by your girlfriend, she had meant your uterus.
“You guys are at the age where a woman’s body is supposed to make babies,” she told Isabella and Sam. “I’m at the age where a lot of women actually do it. But that doesn’t mean you should sell your eggs. This stuff is so emotionally and morally fraught, even when it’s your own children you’re carrying.”
“How so?” Isabella said.
“Like in my case, I have two extra embryos. I don’t want any more kids. But I wanted one child so badly that I promised Andrew if we did IVF, I wouldn’t leave any embryos behind. He was raised Catholic; I don’t know if that’s why he’s so determined. He says it’s because he’s an only child. He knows what that feels like. He wants Gil to have a sibling.”
What was she doing? She shouldn’t have shared that. Andrew would be mortified if he knew.
“What else do you two have on tap for the weekend?” she said, trying to steer the conversation back to a neutral place.
“A friend’s birthday tomorrow night,” Isabella said. “And a party in our dorm on Sunday because there’s no class on Monday. It’s Lucretia Chesnutt Day.”
“What’s that?”
“Lucretia Chesnutt was the first African American woman to graduate from the college,” Sam said. “The school honors her on her birthday every year. There are panels and lectures and guest speakers, all on the topic of diversity.”
She sounded proud.
“Do you want the day off from here, so you can go?” Elisabeth said, silently praying the answer would be no.
“Nah,” Sam said. “It’s okay. Thanks, though.”
“Are you sure?”
“No one goes to the panels,” Isabella said. “We usually go to the mall.”
“I’ve gone to the panels,” Sam said.
“I’m not into it,” Isabella said. “Like, look at us. We are