CHAPTER 14

Flashback – Some months ago – Los Angeles

The man sat beside me in the waiting room of Marcy May Clinic. He plopped on the chair with a heavy sigh and turned his head to smile at me. I looked up from my magazine, beaming in response. Around sixty, good looking, thick grey hair, light blue eyes, the man looked like the perfect grandpa of a television show.

“Good morning…”, he whispered, tilting his head towards me.

“Good morning”, I answered, smiling. Something inside of him, or on his face, conveyed an unexpected trust. Maybe it was his friendly look, or the warm smile he was giving me.

The middle aged man was moving uncomfortably on his seat, and I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Are you okay, sir?”, I asked him in a low voice, closing the magazine I was reading.

He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed, again.

“Yeah… Yeah… I guess I am just a bit nervous…”, he whispered in response, blinking his eyelids, “…Clinics always make me nervous…”.

I nodded, slowly, in understanding.

“I see… Are you here for some tests?”, I asked him. Small talk, polite and conversational.

He unbuttoned the first button of his white shirt, loosening the knot of his tie.

“…Well, my daughter sent me here. She did a fertility test a week ago, and now she’s scared to see the results… ”, he murmurs.

I nodded again and my smile widened.

“Are you here for the same test?”, he asked me, politely, and I shrugged.

“Not exactly… I am here to talk with doctor Springland about an artificial insemination”.

The man turned on his seat to look at me squarely, and his smile widened in surprise.

“Oh!”, he said, joyfully but in a low voice, careful not to disturb the other people waiting in the room, “I mean, I don’t know if I should be happy or sorry for you, because, you know… artificial insemination could mean that your husband… huh…”.

I chuckled, seeing him blushing a little, and waved my hand in the air.

“Oh no, no. That’s not the problem. The fact is that I don’t have a husband, but a wife”.

The man blinked his eyelids in surprise, then he scratched his head.