In the Middle of All This Read Online Free PDF Page B

“That’s what we are thinking,” he said.
    â€œI just don’t think”—Sparks’s ears were turning red from the tips down—“I just don’t consider that to be terribly pragmatic.”
    â€œBut you said—”
    â€œIn fact”—she quickly leafed through the test results—“I am certain you’d find the process a quite difficult one in which to achieve an affirmative result.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause the health status and projected longevity of the applicant parents are crucial elements in the overall evaluation.”
    â€œBut I’m stable. I’m not going anywhere.”
    â€œEven in cases of remission, and yours is not that, it’s impossible to proceed without a five-year disease-free case history.”
    â€œFive years. I could be dead by then.”
    She covered her mouth from the horror and truth of what she’d said.
    â€œYou’re doing fine,” Sparks consoled her. “Just keep doing fine. You’re surprising all of us.”
    They already had her damn certificate written out and ready to go. But she couldn’t muster the rage. She felt as if Sparks had stuck a hose in her and flooded her veins with everything she was not. Her body. It was so tiring to be conscious of her body all the time. Richard touched her sleeve. His eyes were full. Not that, please not that.
    â€œI guess we’ll talk in a month,” she said, standing, waiting for the sturdiness. It was somewhere in there, clinging to whatever hadn’t been washed away.
    â€œYes.” Sparks smiled patronizingly. “But do call sooner, if you like.”
    â€œThanks ever so much,” Richard mumbled.
    In the Alfa Romeo convertible—the one she’d treated herself to after a larger than expected bonus—with the top down, she let the wind wash her, the weather golden and dry, stunning. The kind of weather that made you wish you could live forever. Down into the car-exhaust jumble of London they rode, the canyon of buildings rising around them.
    â€œYou don’t mind the long ride back?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œI’m sorry she said what she said.”
    Elizabeth sighed. At least she had her sunglasses on. At least he wouldn’t have to see her like this. “I’ll make some calls,” she said, smoothing the knees of her pants. “We’ll see.”
    â€œThe States?”
    She glanced at him. It wasn’t an issue between them. She had decided it was best to continue living in London. She had decided they should stay in their nice new house they’d spent two years and a small fortune to remodel. Refurbish. Restore. Resurrect. They had a scrapbook of how it looked before, how it looked when it was completely gutted out, and how it looked now, as if even now were just another completed phase between then and the future. A scrapbook of their house! She wanted a scrapbook of their children.
    â€œProbably,” she said, relieved that their long halt at the light was over, her back sucked into the seat as he roared the last blocks to his office.
    He nodded, his face into the wind as neutral as a clock.
    She couldn’t quite find the door in her brain, but she knew where it was: when they told her that she couldn’t, not ever. For five years she and Richard had done calendars and tests and counts and counseling. They hadn’t even yet considered in vitro, the cost of it exaggerated by her ambivalence. What about adoption? everyone had wondered. She’d dismissed it. Their babies had to come from them. Their babies had to be of them. The self was the center, the sun, the emanator. A child didn’t come from the outside. A child came from you. And now, when she’d finally accepted the uselessness of her own system , they were going to deny her. She hadn’t even miscarried. She hadn’t even once been late. She hadn’t even ever been certain that