But Diane lived ten minutes from us. Ben’s father had left when Ben was a teenager, and it had been just the two of them for a long time. She was a retired school secretary with silver hair cut in a sharp bob, and she had a way of showing up exactly when I needed someone.
The day I found out the Clomid hadn’t worked for the third month in a row, she showed up with chicken soup.
“How did you know?” I asked, standing in the doorway in my sweatpants with my eyes swollen.
“Ben called me,” she said, stepping inside. “He said you might need some company.”
She heated the soup on my stove and made me sit at the kitchen table. She didn’t push me to talk. She just sat across from me while I ate, and every few minutes she’d reach over and squeeze my hand.
“Some things are in God’s hands, sweetheart,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“No. I mean it.” She looked at me hard. “Whatever happens, none of this is because you did something wrong. Do you hear me?”
It was almost exactly what Ben had said. At the time, I thought it just meant they were a kind family. That they loved me.
I remember she glanced toward the hallway when she said it. Toward where Ben was on the phone in his office. Her face did something strange. Something tight and sad.
I didn’t understand it. Not then.
The fifth year, we started talking about IVF.
We sat with a financial counselor at the fertility clinic, and she slid a piece of paper across the desk with a number on it that made my stomach drop.
“That’s per round,” she said gently.
Ben stared at the paper for a long time.
