My wife could be carrying the baby of a serial killer.

At the end of the day, Christine left the building alone, deep in thought, her head down. She didn’t know what to think or expect. The rug had been pulled out from under her, and she felt hopeless, rudderless. She knew what she was leaving behind, but she didn’t know where she was heading.

Except to see a therapist, with her husband.

Chapter Eight

“Hi, Coach.” Christine entered the office with Marcus, finding a heartfelt smile for their therapist, Michelle LeGrange. Michelle was in her late fifties, but looked younger; though her bright blue eyes were hooded behind her preppy tortoiseshell glasses, she had on a cheery, almost child-like turtle-print shift from Lilly Pulitzer. She rose quickly and gave Christine a warm hug.

“Honey, come in. I’m so sorry about what happened, or may have happened.” Michelle’s touch was soothing and familiar, and Christine almost didn’t want to let her go. Marcus had been distant in the waiting room, and she could tell that he was completely preoccupied. She had driven separately from him since she had come from school and he from the office. He even looked out of sorts, his dark silk tie just slightly askew against his cutaway collar, which he had on with a lightweight tan suit.

“So you heard.”

“Of course. I can only imagine how hard this is for you both, to have such a cloud over happiness you worked so hard for.”

“Exactly.” Christine sat down in a cozy conference area, with several sea-foam club chairs opposite Michelle’s sleek walnut desk. Her framed diplomas and awards lined the walls, and medical binders and textbooks stocked her bookshelves. Christine and Marcus usually had sessions in Michelle’s home office at her lovely Tudor in Rowayton, which Christine preferred. She couldn’t forget that she had been inseminated one office down, and the techs had shown her the gray cryotanks under their counter across the hall, where they fertilized eggs in petri dishes, for IVF. One of the techs had told her that there were four thousand fertilized embryos in their tanks, and that the techs had two fears; one was mixing up the embryos, and the other was dropping them.

“Thanks for coming in. I’m glad we can talk this over.” Michelle turned to Marcus, extending a hand, but he was already heading for the other chair.

“Michelle, I don’t know what good ‘talking it over’ will do.”

“How so?” Michelle took her seat opposite them, crossing her legs, which were trim and muscled. Late-day sunlight filtered into the office through blinds on the window behind her.

Marcus asked, “Aren’t you the one who talks about the ‘elephant in the room’?”

“Yes,” Michelle answered, pleasantly.

“So, there’s a question that has to be answered before we discuss our feelings. Is the serial killer Donor 3319 or not?”

“I understand how you feel, and unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that question.”

“How typical is this that Homestead won’t confirm or deny something so basic?”

“Nothing about the situation is typical. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Christine sighed. “I’m sure.”

Marcus was shaking his head. “Really? It seems like it’s exactly the kind of thing that can happen. These aren’t gods who donate sperm, they’re just guys, mostly college kids or graduate students, whatever. They’re young guys. Things are going to happen as they grow up, criminal or not, that have to impact this process.”

Michelle nodded. “You would think that’s true, but the fact is this hasn’t happened to us before. Our task is to try to bring some perspective to the situation, even in the absence of facts we wish we had known.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Marcus shot back.

“Thank God,” Christine said, at almost the same moment, but she could see that Michelle wanted to finish a thought.

“Marcus, I understand where you’re coming from. Like most of my patients, you’re used to setting goals and arriving at them. You run a multimillion-dollar company, you’re a CEO. You’re used to a degree of control. You’ve been very successful in life, setting goals and meeting them. Is that a fair statement?”

“Yes,” Marcus answered, but he pursed his lips, and Christine knew what he was thinking. He always felt that Michelle stroked him too much, overly sensitive to the fact that his male ego was bruised by his infertility. Christine didn’t buy into the criticism because she did the same thing. She walked on eggshells when the subject of his infertility came up, a classic no-win position.

“So this situation is going to challenge you in new ways, both of you.”

“Oh it’s challenging me all right,” Marcus said, with a smirk.

Michelle glanced at Christine. “Christine, how are you feeling?”

“I’m really upset. I’m upset for me, for the baby, and obviously for Marcus.”

“And what upsets you the most?”

“It’s hard to say. Everything.”

Marcus interjected, “That nobody will answer a simple question.”

Michelle kept her eyes on Christine. “You were saying?”

“Well, I guess, first, it does bother me that Homestead won’t tell us the truth.” Christine didn’t want to begin there, but she wanted to back Marcus up. “We don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing to do.”

“I understand how you could feel that way.” Michelle’s voice remained soothing. “None of us here knows the identity of 3319. We are not withholding information from you. We simply don’t have the information, though we wish—”

“You could get it,” Marcus interrupted.

“What makes you say that, Marcus?” Michelle asked, tilting her head.

“You deal with Homestead all the time. You probably send lots of your patients there. You’re familiar with them. Dr. Davidow called Demipetto by her first name. Lee Ann.”

“And what follows from that, in your view?”

“I think you can put pressure on them to give us the information.” Marcus stabbed the air with an index finger. “I think you could say, ‘we’re not going to send you any other patients, and we’re not going to spend a single dollar at Homestead unless you give the Nilssons the information they need.’”