sweetest little part of destiny

chapter 3

Taylor picks a donor, with the assistance of an occasional snarky comment from Travis; he's in graduate school studying chemical engineering, he likes to hike, he plays the violin, no chronic illnesses run in his family. She has visions of herself walking a small person to music lessons, a little hand enclosed in hers. She imagines herself piggybacking her child the last few steps to the top of a mountain. She sees herself as the embarrassingly proud mother in someone's graduation photos.

She tracks her cycle, with the assistance of a couple boxes of ovulation tests and an app on her phone. She is fastidious about it, even tracking her basal body temperature on a little graph she's drawn in the back of her planner. She goes to the clinic before work, at the crack of dawn, to have her blood work done. At night, when she can't sleep, she reads blog posts by women who have done IUI. The algorithms at work in her internet browser notice something has changed, and ads for diapers and breast pumps start popping up even when she's looking at entirely unrelated things.

On a Wednesday in late June, she's inseminated, donor sperm injected directly into her uterus. She lays on the exam table for a few minutes afterward, as instructed, and stares up at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, her heart feeling as though it's fluttering in her chest, sweat prickling at her palms.

It doesn't take.

.
.
.
.
.

The blood stain she finds on her underwear when she gets up to pee in the morning feels like a soft blow to the chest.

You failed, says a nagging voice in her head. Really, Taylor; this isn't like you.

She shakes her head to clear it as she washes her hands, letting the water run off her palms long after all the soap suds have disappeared down the drain. She knows the stats backward and forward - there was only ever a twenty percent chance that it would work. Addison had coached her, gently, not to invest too much hope in this first try. She can do it again; her wedding savings were depleted somewhat when she had to pay her disappointed father back for the deposits he'd made on the venue and caterer and photographer, but she has enough for a couple more rounds.

Despite everything she knows, despite all the facts, her inner perfectionist reels with disappointment. She doesn't take no for an answer. She gets shit done. She makes things work. A part of her thought this would be no exception.

But it is, and it hurts.

"I got my period," she tells Travis that evening. It's not a sentence she ever dreamed she'd utter to him, and she stares down into her palak kofta rather than looking at him. He'd announced they were getting Indian food rather than asking her (Ordering Indian, how many samosas do you want?); she suspects that he'd picked up on her somber mood.

He sets down the piece of garlic naan he's been busy eating like he's never seen bread before. "Teddy." He reaches across the table and very lightly encircles her wrist with his greasy fingers. "You okay?"

"Not really," she murmurs. "I know it's stupid - "

"It's not stupid," he interrupts, a small frown forming on his face.

"It is," she says softly, drawing in a slightly shaky breath. "It was more likely to not work than it was to work, and I knew that."

"Still. It's not stupid to be sad." He tilts his head just a little. "You sure you don't just want to kidnap one of your first graders? I'll drive the getaway car."

She breathes a watery laugh and asks wryly, "Drive straight to Canada and start all over?"

"Yeah," Travis says, but the gentle, coaxing mirth in his voice is gone, and there's a funny expression on his face, one that's almost pained.