“Making love! Ha!” Robert laughed.
“We haven’t made love since this whole thing started. We don’t make love. We don’t even have sex. What we do is rut.”
Marissa tried to respond but Robert interrupted her.
“I can’t even remember what lovemaking is like!” he shouted.
“What used to be pleasurable has been reduced to sex on cue, rutting by rote.”
“Well you haven’t been ‘rutting’ very often,” Marissa lashed back.
“As a performer you’ve been less than the greatest.”
“Careful,” Robert warned, feeling Marissa was getting nasty.
“Just keep in mind that this rutting is easy for you. All you have to do is play dead while I do all the work.”
“Work? My God,” Marissa questioned with disgust.
Marissa tried to speak again but all she could do was stifle a sob. Robert was right, in a way. With all the fertility therapy, it was hard to feel spontaneous about anything that went on in the bedroom lately. In spite of herself, her eyes welled with tears.
Seeing that he had hurt her, Robert suddenly softened.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “this hasn’t been easy on either of us. Especially you. But I’ve got to say, it’s not been easy on me either. As for today, I really can’t make it to the clinic. I have an important meeting with a team of people from Europe. I’m sorry, but my business cannot always be ruled by the whim of the doctors at the Women’s Clinic or the vagaries of your menstrual cycle. You didn’t tell me until Saturday about this egg retrieval today. I didn’t know you were going to give yourself that releasing injection or whatever you call it.”
“We’ve followed the same schedule as we have on three previous in-vitro fertilization cycles,” said Marissa.
“I didn’t think I had to spell it out for you every time.”
“What can I say? When this meeting was scheduled we weren’t involved with infertility treatments. I haven’t reviewed my entire calendar with your fertilization cycles in mind.”
Marissa suddenly felt angry again. Robert went to the armoire to get a freshly laundered shirt. Above his head Joan Lunden was interviewing a celebrity on the TV screen.
“All you think about is business,” she muttered.
“You have meetings all the time. Can’t you postpone this one for half an hour?”
“That would be difficult,” Robert said.
“The trouble with you is that business is more important than anything else. I think you have a mixed-up set of values.”
“You are entitled to your opinion,” Robert said calmly, trying to avoid another round of mutual recriminations. He pulled on his shirt and started buttoning it. He knew he should remain silent, but Marissa had hit a sore spot.
“There is nothing inherently wrong with business. It puts food on the table and a roof over our heads. Besides, you knew how I felt about business before we were married. I enjoy it and it’s rewarding on many levels.”
“Before we were married you said children were important,” Marissa retorted.
“Now it seems that business comes first.”
Robert stepped over to the mirror and started to put on his tie.
“That was how I felt before we learned that you couldn’t have a child, at least not the normal way.” Robert paused. He realized he’d made a mistake. He turned his head to look at his wife. He could tell by her face that the careless comment had not gone unnoticed. He tried to take it back.
“I mean, before we learned that we couldn’t have a child the normal way.”
But his restatement didn’t mitigate the blow. In a flash, Marissa’s anger dissolved to despair. Tears welled anew and Marissa began to sob.
Robert tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away from him and ran into the bathroom. She tried to shut the door behind her, but Robert pushed his way in and enveloped her in a hug, pressing his face into the crook of her neck.
Marissa’s whole body shook as she wept. It took her a full ten minutes to begin to recover. She knew that she wasn’t acting like herself. No doubt the hormones that she’d been taking contributed to her fragile emotional state. But that knowledge didn’t help her pull herself together any faster.