"Of course," he said, starting the car. "With you?"

"Mmm-hmm."

He glanced over to meet her eyes but her head was turned toward the window. He signaled to pull into the pa.s.sing lane. Meredith inhaled quickly, as if she was about to say something. She turned to him, but as she did he flicked his head the opposite way to check his blind spot. She exhaled and stared straight ahead.

Joe shifted in his seat, keeping both hands on the wheel. "So what is it?"

"There's something we need to discuss."

"I agree."

"You do?" She swung her head and looked at him.

He wrapped his hands so tightly around the wheel that his fingernails dug into the heels of his palms. "I think so."

"What is it, then?" A slight challenge in her tone.

"The baby...thing." Joe glanced over. "Right?" She chewed her thumbnail. Faced forward. He took her silence as a grim invitation. "Look, maybe we should talk about this later."

"No. It's fine. Let's talk about it now," she said.

"All right. Okay, well, I've been...This is hard. I don't know if I've experienced anything harder."

"Than what?"

"Than what I'm about to say to you. But the truth...the fact is, things are complicated for me." Joe exhaled and counted to three. "I could go into the whole story but I'm not sure the reasons even matter and it probably wouldn't be much of a consolation to you anyway so I won't, but the upshot is"-he paused-"babies are not in the picture for me at this point. I'm not going to have any more kids. I mean, I'm almost completely certain I won't. I've known that for a long time now. I've come to terms with it. I think in some ways, for Livvy and everything, it's probably actually better."

A ragged sound from the pa.s.senger seat. From the corner of his eye he saw her hands cover her face.

"This is exactly what I was afraid of."

"I know. f.u.c.k." He banged one hand on the wheel and his foot stamped down on the gas. The car accelerated roughly. "I'm sorry."

"I hope," she said, "you don't mind. But I need to go straight home. I need to not be around you right now."

"Of course," Joe answered in his even pract.i.tioner's voice. "Of course you do."

Meredith cried and she cried, and when she was done crying, she poured herself a bath but the smell of the lavender salts when they hit the water reminded her of their suite at the Savoy so she slid into the bath and cried some more. After a while she began to feel like a tragic amphibian. She had wept so much she could not tell the tears from the bathwater. The pads of her fingers, she noticed, were shriveled up like albino raisins, and it occurred to her that she might just die here, pickled in her own brine. Eventually the weeping exhausted itself. But she wanted to cry. When the current of tears began to slow, all she had to do was return to the source-the thought of losing him forever-and the floods would begin again, smashing through all the dikes in her chest and whooshing out over the landscape of her future-without him. It had been years since she had truly broken down and the force of it overwhelmed her. She had always secretly worried about her inability to cry as an adult and now it seemed she was making up for years of stoicism. She was secretly proud of herself, and of course she was also miserable.

She badly wanted a drink but knew she shouldn't.

Getting out of the bath and drying herself off, she sneezed from the dust that had collected in the towels during her absence. The condo felt even grimmer and emptier than usual, as if it resented her return. The purple terry bathrobe hung limp on the hook where she had left it and she wrapped herself inside it. She was afraid to put on clothes in case she might have expanded suddenly somewhere over the ocean. After months of yearning, now that she might have gotten what she wanted Meredith felt alarmingly ambivalent at the prospect. It wasn't supposed to have worked out this way. She and Joe had used a condom (at the crucial moments) and as far as she knew she hadn't even been ovulating at the time. But as Joe had laughingly pointed out to her before any of this, that was the bitter irony of biology: the more you tried to control your body the more your body controlled you.

Meredith dug into her makeup kit and found the rectangular cardboard box: the last of three she had bought in a panic at the Boots Chemist at Heathrow. The package stated it was 97 percent correct at predicting the outcome. There was always a chance. She lifted her bathrobe and crouched over the toilet, holding the stick between her legs in what was now an awkwardly familiar posture.

She'd completed the first two tests on the plane. There was turbulence and a line of people waiting outside, so she'd decided to economize and do two at once. With one hand she held the sticks under herself and then stood waiting for two minutes for the result. After an agonizing period, during which Meredith felt as though her stomach was crawling up her windpipe, her answer emerged: one stick had two blue lines and the other had one. A contradiction. She must have done it wrong-peed too much on one and not enough on the other. She tried to think which was more common, a false positive or a false negative.

If only she could phone Joe. But no, she couldn't phone Joe. Not now on this plane and maybe not ever again. If it turned out she was pregnant, he would think she was a conniving sperm bandit who had tricked him and never want to speak to her again. Probably he would think she just wanted his DNA, or worse (and this was too horrible even to contemplate), the security of a husband. Under the circ.u.mstances of their first meeting, how could she possibly explain to him that it had just been an accident, a complete fluke, if that was in fact what it was? He would never want to talk to her again, that much was certain. She looked in the mirror and made a silent promise to herself. If in fact she was carrying his child, he could never know. She couldn't bear the thought of him thinking ill of her, even if it meant never seeing him again.

Just as she was about to do the third test on the plane there was a knock on the door and an attendant's voice asking her if she was "all right in there." People must have been complaining. She wrapped the sticks in toilet paper, shoved them back into her purse and returned to her seat.

Meredith had spent the rest of the flight trying to decide whether she was feeling nauseated or not and, if she was, whether that nausea was caused by turbulence, anxiety or a subtle hormonal shift that would mark the beginning of the rest of everything. She didn't sleep, clutching her bag on her lap, anxious for the plane to land so she could run to the first airport washroom she saw and do the last test-find out the deciding vote. She had planned to wait until after she got through customs, but then Joe had turned up. She hadn't known what to say or do. How do you tell a man you've just fallen for that you're sort of pregnant? And then his terrible admission that he didn't want any more children. So the whole thing was a moot point. She could have one love or the other, but not both. Meredith felt tricked-the victim of a wicked genie who grants your fondest wishes but only in a way that leaves you miserable and trapped.

When he dropped her off at her building, he made her promise to call to say good night before she went to sleep-he didn't want to run the risk of waking her up when she was jet-lagged. Meredith knew the request was something of a test. A toe in the water to determine the depth of this strange new chill. She was blinking back the first of her tears as he pulled her suitcase from her trunk. She didn't look at him or wait to see his reaction.

"I can't promise anything," she said quietly. "I just want to be alone right now."

Meredith waited for the final results balled up on the sofa in her condo. After a few minutes she reached into the pocket of her bathrobe. The stick was fuzzy, covered in bits of toilet paper and lavender lint. The light was fading fast, but Meredith didn't need gla.s.ses to read the result: two lines. Positive.

Days pa.s.sed. Joe called several times and eventually gave up. Meredith set about tidying her life. She did not think-she merely functioned, made lists of tasks and methodically set about completing them, one by one, in the order in which they had been written.

She did her laundry and cleaned the apartment, made an appointment with her hairdresser, her eyebrow waxer, her therapist and her dermatologist, and finally repainted the kitchen cabinets.

One day she decided to drop off her things at the cleaner's. She carried a large net bag of soiled party dresses down the elevator and onto the street-the clothes she'd worn out in London and Florence now a damp burden hanging limply from her shoulder. It was a blank sort of day. Toronto weather: pallid cloud cover, empty streets, the sidewalks the same vapid noncolor as the sky. Meredith headed for the closest major intersection to her building. She had always found it a slightly disappointing corner, perfectly serviceable but devoid of excitement or life in the real sense of the word. Nothing about its angles made particular sense. On one corner was an upscale sushi restaurant in a redone national bank building, on the other was a divey old tavern with a wind-whipped patio with tables of off-hour bicycle couriers and aged, leather-faced drunks who never seemed to mix. Across from that was a McDonald's and a new wrapped-sandwich franchise she had never seen before. Meredith dropped off her clothes at her dry cleaner's, as always amazed at the high-tech efficiency of the place-the young man who took her dirty laundry wore a tiny wire headset phone and typed her phone number into a thin laptop computer. He counted her garments with latex-gloved fingers and typed out a receipt with a date for pickup. They exchanged maybe seven words, and Meredith's throat felt clogged when she smiled to thank him. She realized it was the first face-to-face conversation she'd had in three days.

Back in the vacuum of her condo, she found she had reached the bottom of her list. There was only one more thing to do. She picked up the phone and made an appointment to see Dr. Stein. All she needed now was official confirmation. Nature would take care of the rest.

She slept fitfully that night, and in the morning she felt sick. Not throwing-up sick, but greenish, as though she'd drunk a great deal the night before, when in fact all she'd done was eat half a roast chicken in front of the television. She was heavier too, but not in a fat way. It was more like an added density, as if her body was h.o.a.rding its resources, concentrating its efforts, in preparation for some monumental event, which she supposed it was.

During the months she'd been away Meredith had fallen uncharacteristically behind in her bill payments. Before her doctor's appointment, she went to the bank and settled all her accounts. She paid bills in full, with interest, not questioning the amounts, using the money Ozzie had paid her for editing Avalon. She knew she ought to consider what she was going to do for money once her current funds ran out, but she found the future impossible to think about. Should she look for a new agent? Return to script supervising? Strike out on her own and make something new as Ozzie had encouraged? Maybe try another line of work altogether? And if so, what? Whenever these questions popped into her mind she felt her brain close tight. A boulder across the entrance of a cave.

Meredith wondered why she hadn't made an appointment with another gynecologist, at a different office, in a more anonymous part of the city, or just gone straight to an ob-gyn. But something pulled her back to that uptown office-the place where it had all started. Besides, Dr. Stein had long since returned from her stress leave, so Meredith had no reason to worry about running into Joe. And why shouldn't she go to her own doctor? Surely now more than ever was a time to consult someone she knew and trusted.

Nothing in the clinic had changed. The plastic flowers were still in their vase, and Hyacinth was still jotting down notes to the same rotation of soft-rock hits. The magazines were the same bedraggled issues that had been in the wire standing rack for months, even years. Meredith selected an ancient Maclean's magazine and pretended to read.

Within minutes she had fallen asleep-something that had been happening to her with alarming regularity lately; she would just drift off in the middle of the day. She awoke to the sound of her name being called.

Once inside the small windowless room with the stainless steel desk and the reclining examination table, she realized she had not rehea.r.s.ed what she was going to say to Dr. Stein. What if she asks me who the father is? Meredith wondered. But the doctor wouldn't dare, would she? Doctors weren't supposed to ask such things, and besides, even if she did there was no reason for shock. Having children out of wedlock was practically as common as divorce these days, and certainly better for kids than enduring some horrible drawn-out custody battle. Right? Meredith realized she was going to have to become very comfortable very quickly with the social aspects of being a solitary pregnant woman-something she had hardly considered before. All she'd thought about was babies. Having one inside her. And then the outside stuff: the feedings, the gurgles, the teeny-weeny shoes. Shopping for things called "singlets." She didn't care if it was uncool-her heart warmed at the thought. But now that the fantasy was finally coming into focus she saw that there was far more to it than she had first imagined.

Dr. Stein stepped into the room and smiled, closing the door behind her.

Twenty minutes later Meredith sat two floors down in the lab, waiting for the results of an on-site blood test that would determine the course of the rest of her life. She tried hard not to think about this, which was, of course, nearly impossible.

The waiting room was full of anxious, nauseated-looking people like herself, so she stepped out into the hall for some air. It was there, while pacing the barren corridor, that she saw him get off the elevator. Street clothes. No white coat. His features sharper than before. She realized he must have lost weight. He was searching through a courier bag as he stepped off the elevator and didn't see her right away.

"Joe," she said.

He looked up, and a series of expressions pa.s.sed over his face. Delight followed by relief, then a downshift into dismay and anger, which was replaced, finally, with a cool distance.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

"I was just here picking up some things. I didn't think..."

"Me neither," she said.

They stood around for a moment looking at the floor.

"You didn't call," he said. "To say good night, the night I dropped you off. You said you would."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You wanted to, but you stopped yourself."

"That's right."

"Because you figured...what? That things wouldn't work out in the end anyway, so you might as well cut it off now, before we got in any deeper?"

"I guess." Meredith exhaled heavily. "It's more complicated than that."

"I agree," said Joe. He set down his bag and composed himself. "It is a lot more complicated than that. I know you have a picture in your head of how your life is supposed to work out, but take it from me, that picture doesn't always match up. I'm not trying to convince you to be with me forever. I'm not saying I'm perfect for you. I know you'd rather be with someone who could make you pregnant. I'm just saying, you could have given it a chance."

"But you did make me pregnant," Meredith said quietly.

"And just because you grew up without stability," he continued, "doesn't mean you have to overcompensate by controlling everything around you as an adult. I know you don't want to end up like your mother, but don't you see that by trying to keep a grip on everything she let go, you're in danger of accidentally repeating all the same mistakes?"

"Joe?" Meredith said. "You did make me pregnant."

He shook his head. "That's impossible. I have a condition..."

"I don't think you understand." She looked right at him. "I. Am. Pregnant."

"You are?" He staggered back.

"Yes."

"For sure?"

"Yes. I mean, according to those pee stick things. I'm just waiting for the results of my real test, but..."

"The pee sticks are pretty reliable." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"You're sure...it was me?"

"Oh f.u.c.k off." Meredith glared at him. "I can't believe-"

"No, Mere, I'm asking you for a reason. I have a condition. I tried to tell you that day in the car, but it came out all screwed up."

"I thought you didn't want to," she said. Her eyes burned. They still hadn't touched.

"No," he said. "I was trying to tell you, I can't. The chances of me...it's like one in ten thousand."

"Well, this is the one in ten thousand," she said.

They stood there in stunned silence.

A woman in pink scrubs opened the waiting-room door and stuck her head into the hall.

"Meredith Moore? Your test results are ready."

They looked at each other-Meredith, Joe and the woman in pink scrubs-waiting for the next part to begin.

Epilogue.

Sperm Bandits: The New Battle for Motherhood

A Doc.u.mentary Written and Directed by Meredith Moore Produced by Meredith Moore and Osmond Crouch Act 1, Scene 1 The picture opens with a microscopic close-up shot of a human sperm swimming fast along a Fallopian tube, selecting an egg and then struggling to fertilize it. The fifties song "Baby Love" plays overtop.

VOICE-OVER (A WOMAN'S VOICE)

Every year in North America millions of women become pregnant outside of wedlock or long-term, stable heteros.e.xual relationships. For many, the situation is accidental, an inopportune failing or absence of birth control coinciding with ovulation. For others, the conception is intended, even planned, a consensual act between two well-intentioned adults. But for a growing minority of unenc.u.mbered single women, the hope of pregnancy is a private quest-an independent goal that they are more than willing to lie, cheat and, yes-even steal-in order to achieve.

Close-up on the sperm successfully wiggling its way into the egg and coming to rest as the fertilized ovum begins to travel in quick-time down the Fallopian tube toward the uterus.

V.O.

One in five single mothers who are without a partner at the birth of their child say that their pregnancy was planned-the question is, planned by whom? As the bearers of children, women have for centuries carried the bulk of the reproductive responsibility for the human race. While a man may father dozens of children and never even know it, a woman's existence is forever altered by the decision to produce offspring. Does this justify a woman's decision to help herself to male sperm for the purposes of pregnancy without the explicit permission of her s.e.xual partner? What if a woman wants nothing more from a man than his DNA? Is she obligated to reveal her intentions to the male, or does nature oblige her to do what she can to satisfy an urge that many women describe as a biological hunger as strong as the need for food or water?