Chapter 25
Ilena
Eighteen Months Before the Outing
Ilena stared at the photographs on the wall of the fertility doctor’s office. Babies of all sizes and shapes in varying degrees
of open-mouthed wailing.
“Are we actually doing this?” Ilena said.
Jonah reached for her hand. “We’re exploring our options. Unless you don’t want to?”
“Do you not want to?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Me neither.”
“Okay, then. Options. Exploring. The choice, ultimately, is ours. And remember, we define our choices, not the other way around.”
Jonah waved the fertility treatment brochure at her. “And hey, good news. We can still have sex during ovarian stimulation.
At least until your ovaries expand.”
“Expand? They’re going to expand? Will I need a bigger belt?”
Jonah pretends to study the brochure intently. “Hmm . . . this suggests you simply walk around naked. Airflow is good.”
Ilena tried to smile, to laugh, but she couldn’t because she was failing. She let go of Jonah’s hand. “This is a lot, and it hasn’t even started.”
Jonah shifted in the chair to face her. “We’re lucky though. To live here, in a state where these treatments are covered by
insurance and we couldn’t ask for better doctors and hospitals. Your eggs, my sperm, this is top-tier, five-star, champagne
and caviar, Four Seasons all the way.”
He was trying so hard, and her heart nearly burst with love for him. “I know all that, and I’m grateful for it.” Ilena closed
her eyes, thinking of all the pregnancy tests she’d taken over the past few months—so sure so many times, and yet all those
single lines on the plastic tests added up to nothing. “It’s just . . . a part of me is disappointed in myself.”
Jonah winced as if he’d been hit by a brick. “We don’t even know if something’s wrong yet, let alone if it’s attributable
to one of us.”
“I’m sure it’s not you.”
“And I’m sure it’s not you either.”
“It’s us, then? We aren’t meant to be parents?”
Jonah ran his hand through his hair, sending his cowlicks in a thousand different directions. “All I know is we’re meant to be. That’s enough for me.”
The door to the office opened, and in came the smiling woman who would help determine their future. As the doctor sat at the
desk in front of them, Jonah searched Ilena’s eyes, waiting for a response.
“Me too,” Ilena said, not realizing how much weight two little words could hold when they became a lie.