“You fell asleep early.”

“I know, I’m beat.”

“You hungry? Do you want anything from downstairs?”

“No, did you eat? I feel terrible there’s nothing in there. I was going to go food shopping after school, but then we had the party.”

“Don’t worry about it. I had more cake. I’m having a cake baby.” Marcus patted his waist, which was still trim enough to qualify as a four-pack. She had met him her freshman year of college, when he was a hunky junior in her Government class. She’d done a double-take when she saw him pick up his backpack and his forearm rippled with not only two muscles, but three. It was lust at first sight, though love came later and happily, stuck around for the duration. They had been married for seven years, happy as fried clams.

“So what did Lauren think? About our donor?”

“She didn’t think it was the same person, either. For what it’s worth, we called Dr. Davidow and told him.”

“Really?” Marcus pursed his lips. “What did he say?”

“He said he would call Homestead and get back to us. They’re the only ones who know the donor’s identity. The doctor’s only the broker.”

“I knew that.”

“I didn’t.” Christine blinked, feeling vaguely dumb. It wasn’t a feeling she liked, which was why she had so much empathy with her reading students. Most of them had tracking problems or problems identifying words, the kind of challenges that left them feeling stupid or excluded even though they fell short of dyslexia or other diagnosed reading disorders.

“Did Dr. Davidow tell you about the screening they do for donors?”

“Not really.” Christine saw the pain crossing Marcus’s face, and she felt guilty even having the discussion. “Truly, I’m not worried about it as much as I was before. I think it’s probably just a fear. I felt better after I talked to him.”

“Good.” Marcus lifted an eyebrow. “I was worried Lauren would rile you up.”

“No, she didn’t. She listened, but she didn’t get me crazier than I already am.”

“Good. I like you just the level of crazy you are.”

“Me, too.” Christine touched his arm, stroking the curve of his bicep, still damp.

“God, I’m beat, too,” Marcus said, unsmiling, and Christine knew it was code that he wasn’t in the mood to make love. She hadn’t been either, so she didn’t press the point. Their sex life hadn’t been a problem until their infertility issues. The fun had gone out of their lovemaking back when they still thought Christine was the one with the problem; instead of a loving expression, sex acquired a single-minded purpose, to get pregnant. The situation had gotten worse after their problem was diagnosed as Marcus’s. He had lost all interest in sex, and one or two times, hadn’t been able to perform. They had only recently gotten their sex life back on track, but Christine worried that today’s focus on Donor 3319 wouldn’t help.

“I really like Dr. Davidow,” she said. “He took me seriously, but he didn’t become alarmed.”

“There’s no reason for alarm.”

“He told me that if there were any problem with our donor, they would take the sperm off the shelves.”

“Really.” Marcus lifted an eyebrow, and Christine leaned over, pulled her laptop into her lap, and pressed ENTER to wake it up.

“Yes, they take the donation off the shelf if the kids are born with a clubfoot or a lazy eye, stuff like that.”

“Interesting.”

“Agree.” Christine felt she had redeemed herself, knowing something he didn’t. She navigated out of the Nutmeg Hill website and back to Homestead’s, plugging in Donor 3319 into the search function. She had checked it every fifteen minutes until she had fallen asleep. “He said that it probably wasn’t a problem if his sperm was still available.”

“That makes sense.”

“He and I checked together, and it was still available.” Christine clicked the link for Donor 3319, but froze when she read the screen. The entry for Donor 3319 had been changed. Now it read: Sperm Temporarily Unavailable! Sorry!

“Oh my God, no,” Christine said, stricken.

Chapter Six

“Who are you calling?” Christine asked, as Marcus pressed a number into his cell phone. Still in his towel, he had gone for his phone as soon as he’d seen that the sperm was unavailable. He didn’t seem upset, only determined, but Christine was panicking. Her mouth was dry, her heart was pounding. She kept refreshing the laptop screen, thinking there must have been some mistake with the website.

“I’m calling Homestead.”

“But they work through Davidow.”

“Homestead sold us the sperm and they’re going to answer to us.” Marcus brought the phone to his ear.

“Don’t you think we should call him first?” Christine couldn’t think clearly. Her emotions tumbled one over the other: fear, disbelief, agony, shock. She didn’t know if she was making too much of it, or too little. She felt sick to her stomach again, not knowing if it was from her pregnancy, the turn of events, or both.

“I’m not going to ask anybody for permission to find out what I need to know.”

“Not for his permission, just to see if he talked to them.” Christine didn’t even know why she was fussing at him. Marcus was great in an emergency, a logical thinker with an innate mechanical sense. He was tailor-made to be an architectural engineer, working every day to make buildings functional and structurally sound, and he had endless patience for calculating stresses and loads, as well as hammering out the details of electrical, heating, plumbing, and energy efficiency systems, which had become a growing specialty of his firm.

“Davidow must have called Homestead. It’s too coincidental that our donor comes off the shelves after you phoned him.”

Christine couldn’t deny that Marcus might be right. Still, she couldn’t collect her thoughts.

Marcus said into the phone, “Hello, my name is Marcus Nilsson, and my wife conceived about two months ago using Donor 3319. I would like to speak with someone in charge about him. Yes, I’ll hold for the assistant director.”

Christine sat straighter in bed, trying to get her act together. “Can you put it on speaker?”