Ever since she and Robert had begun dating she had been trying to please his mother, but with only marginal success.
“I don’t want to tell my mother,” Robert said.
“I’ve already told you that.”
“Why not?” asked Marissa.
“Because I don’t want to hear a lecture. And I don’t want to hear her tell me it serves me right for marrying a Jewish girl.”
“Oh, please!” Marissa exclaimed with a new burst of anger.
“I’m not responsible for my mother’s prejudices,” Robert said.
“And I can’t control her. Nor should I”
Angry again, Marissa turned back to her dressing, roughly buttoning buttons and yanking her zipper.
But soon Marissa’s fury at Robert’s mother reverted back to selfloathing for her own infertility. For the first time in her life, Marissa felt truly cursed by fate. It seemed unreasonably ironic how much effort and money she’d spent on birth control in college and medical school so that she wouldn’t have a child at the wrong time. Now, when it was the right time, she had to learn that she couldn’t have a child at any time except through the help of modern medical science.
“It’s not fair,” Marissa said aloud. Fresh tears streamed down her face. She knew she was at the edge of her endurance with the monthly emotional roller coaster of hope to despair each time she failed to conceive, and now with Robert’s increasing impatience with the process. She could hardly blame him.
“I think you’ve become obsessed with this fertility stuff,” Robert said softly.
“Marissa, I’m really beginning to worry about you. I’m worried about us.”
Marissa turned. Robert was standing in the closet doorway, his hands gripping the jambs. At first Marissa couldn’t see the expression on his face; he stood in shadows with his sandy hair backlit from the bedroom light. But as he moved toward her she could see that he looked concerned but determined; his angular jaw was set so that his thin lips formed a straight line.
“When you wanted to go this infertility treatment route I was willing to give it a try. But I feel it’s gotten way out of hand. I’m coming to the conclusion that we should think about stopping before we lose what we do have for the sake of what we don’t.”
“You think I’m obsessed? Of course I’m obsessed! Wouldn’t you have to be obsessed to endure the kind of procedures I’ve been going through? I’ve been willing to put up with it all because I want to have a child, so that we can have a family. I want to be a mother and I want you to be a father. I want to have a family.”
Without meaning to, Marissa. steadily raised her voice. By the time she finished her last sentence, she was practically shouting.
“Hearing you yell like this only makes me more convinced we have to stop,” Robert said.
“Look at the two of us. You’re strung out; I’m at the end of my rope. There are other options, you know. Maybe we should consider them. We could just reconcile ourselves to being childless. Or we could look into the idea of adopting.”
“I just cannot believe that you would pick this time to say these things,” Marissa snapped.
“Here it is the morning of my fourth egg retrieval, I’m prepared to face the pain and the risk, and, yes, I’m an emotional wreck. And this is the time you pick to talk about changing strategy” “There is never a good time to discuss these issues with this in vitro fertilization schedule,” said Robert, no longer able to control his anger.
“You don’t like my timing, okay. When would be better, when you’re crazy with anxiety, wondering if you are pregnant? Or how about when you’re depressed after your period starts again? Or how about when you are finally coming out of your grief and starting a new cycle? You tell me; I’ll come talk to you then.”
Robert studied his wife. She was getting to be a stranger. She’d become impossibly emotional and had gained considerable weight, especially in her face, which appeared swollen. Her glare was so cool, it chilled him to the bone. Her eyes seemed as dark as her mood, and her skin was flushed as if she might be running a fever. She was like a stranger, all right. Or worse: just then she seemed like some irrational hysteric. Robert wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly sprang at him like an angry cat. He decided it was time to back down.