Mark carefully moved the Sunday paper to the left, to get a quick glimpse of his wife as she pondered herself in her vanity mirror.

He knew exactly what she was thinking. I’m broken. I’ll never have a child. what good am I, all things she’d said out loud. She’d been trying for two years to have a child.

That’s right, she. She had to have, must have, a child. End of discussion. Mark saw no reason to argue the point. Since their wedding night she moved so fast and with a ferocity it scared him. He felt as though she viewed a child as a way to anchor their marriage. So Mark secretly borrowed money from his father (his mother would never know), and got snipped.

Not surprisingly, Mark found messages about getting pregnant. One friend even suggested she find someone that looked like him. It had to be a joke. But still. He knew the day would arrive when she would have “that glow”.

She finally stood up, dropping her robe. “Baby, I want a baby” and crawled in next to Mark’s shivering body.