Free Vital Signs by Robin Cook

had a recommendation.”

“I’m listening,” Robert said.

“She suggested that we avail ourselves of the counseling services that the clinic offers,” Marissa said.

“I think it might be a good idea. As you said, others in our circumstances have been feeling the pressures. Mrs. Hargrave told me many people have found counseling to be a great help.” Although she’d not been excited about the suggestion initially, the more Marissa thought about it, especially seeing how she and Robert were getting IF along, the better it sounded. They needed help; that much was obvious.

“I don’t want to see a counselor,” Robert said, leaving no room for discussion.

“I’m not interested in investing more time and money for someone to tell me why I’m fed up with a process that’s guaranteed to make us unhappy and put us at each other’s throats. We’ve spent enough time, effort, and money already. I hope you are aware that we’ve already spent over fifty thousand dollars.”

They lapsed back into silence again. After a few miles, Robert broke it.

“You did hear me, didn’t you? Fifty thousand dollars.”

Marissa turned to him, her cheeks flushed.

“I heard you!” she snapped.

“Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand. What does it matter if it is our only chance to have our child? Sometimes I don’t believe you, Robert. It’s not as if we are hurting. You had enough to buy this silly expensive car this year. I really wonder about your priorities.”

Marissa faced around front again, angrily folding her arms across her chest and sinking into her own thoughts. Robert’s business mentality was so contrary to her own, she wondered how they had ever become attracted to each other in the first place.

“Contrary to you,” Robert said as they neared the house, “fifty thousand seems like a lot of money to me. And we have nothing to show for it save for some ill feelings and a disintegrating marriage. Seems a heavy price to pay, at both ends. I’m getting to hate that Women’s Clinic. I’ve never felt comfortable there. And being attacked by a distraught patient didn’t help.

And did you see that guard?”

“What guard?” Marissa asked.

“The guard who came in with the doctors when the lady was carrying on. The Asian guy in the uniform. Did you notice he was armed?”

“No, I didn’t notice he was armed!” Robert had an infuriating way of changing the subject with insignificant details. Here they were struggling with their relationship and their future, and he was thinking about a guard.

“He had a.357 Colt Python,” Robert said.

“Who does he think he is, some kind of Asian Dirty Harry?”

Switching on the light, Dr. Wingate entered his beloved lab * It was after eleven P.M. and the clinic was deserted. Across the street in the overnight ward and in the emergency room there was staff, but not in the main clinic building.

Taking off his coat, Dr. Wingate slipped on a clean white lab coat, then washed his hands carefully. He could have waited for morning, but after getting the eight superb mature eggs from Marissa that day, he was eager to check on their progress.

That afternoon, after having dealt with the unfortunate Rebecca

Ziegler affair as best he could, he’d returned to the lab to find that the nurse-technician had done a fine job preparing the sperm. By two P.M. all eight eggs had been placed in a meticulously prepared insemination medium contained in separate organ culture dishes. To each dish Dr. Wingate had carefully added roughly 150,000 capita ted mobile sperm. The eggs and the sperm had then been co-incubated in 5% CO,. with 98% humidity at 37 degrees Centigrade.

Turning on the light for his dissecting microscope, Dr. Wingate opened the incubator and removed the first dish. Placing it under the scope, he looked in.

There, in the middle of the microscopic field, was the beautiful egg, still surrounded by its corona cells. Looking more closely as he deftly handled a micro