night.'
Valerie looked up into Dr. Fletcher's sympathetic eyes. 'I'd like to see her.' Fletcher's eyes became guarded, her entire expression stiff-ening imperceptibly. 'That isn't really possible. She's in Inten-sive Care.'
Landry, gathering up his equipment slowly in order to eaves-drop, said, 'She can look through the observation window.' He watched the doctor for her reaction, trying to maintain an innocent, helpful expression.
She shot him a troubled glance, then coolly agreed.
'
Their steps rang in Valerie's ears like hammers chiseling at glass. She and the doctor walked slowly down the corridors of the medical center, Landry behind them with the blood, pass-ing scores of patients of all ages: the aged, tired ones in Geri-atrics; the bright, struggling ones in Pediatrics; the invisible crying voices in the postpartum section; and, finally, a section of near silence.
'Infant ICU,' Landry said. He watched Valerie for her reac-tion as she stepped warily toward a large plate-glass window.
Inside the ICU stood a man and a woman bent over an in-strument-laden crib, their backs to the window. The woman's straight dark hair reached down below her shoulders to flip under in the last inch or two. She wore a violet satin robe with matching terry slippers that were expensive enough not to look unfashionable. She shook a rattle over the bubble top of the crib.
The blond-headed man next to her was swaddled in hospi-tal garb beneath which lay grey pants with cargo pockets and a soft green polo shirt. He leaned over the isolation crib, a bright yellow rubber duck in his hand. He squeezed it a couple of times, then let his hand fall to his side. The gesture of weakening hope caused Valerie's throat to tighten. She swallowed, then stepped to the far end of the win-dow for a view of the baby.
Through the window and Plexiglas she saw a tiny waxen figure. It wasn't pink the way a baby should be. It didn't move and kick the way a baby should. She had seen enough babies in the park just the other week to know what a healthy one did with its time.
'Stay here,' Fletcher said to Valerie and Landry, taking the blood bag from the technologist. The woman at cribside looked up when Fletcher entered. She said something to Evelyn as the doctor set up the IV. Then she chanced to glance at the window. Her gaze riveted Valerie's. Valerie lowered her eyes. The look felt as if it had been one of recognition. It wasn't the look one would give a stranger who was helping to save a daughter's life.
Dr. Fletcher, through the glove box, lifted Renata up in the chamber for a moment to change her diaper. Even from the distance of several feet, Valerie saw the blond hair and blue-grey eyes. She felt something tighten in her stomach, something else go cold and black in her head. The room tilted dangerously sideways. Reaching out for something to grasp, she touched Landry's wiry arms. They steadied her, guided her away from the room, away from the child.
He helped her to the cafeteria, where he bought her a large orange juice and a slice of chocolate cake. Pointing out that she needed to replenish her blood-sugar levels, he encour-aged the stunned woman to eat. After she had finished in me-chanical silence, he asked, 'Was that your daughter?'
'It's impossible,' she said, her voice dull and flat. 'I had an abortion.'
'You had your abortion the same date and hour that Mrs. Chandler had her fertility operation.' Landry leaned forward across the table, whispering with conspiratorial intensity. 'Your room was right next to hers. Dr. Fletcher performed both op-erations. She gave Mrs. Chandler your baby.'
'It's impossible,' she repeated with weary insistence. 'I had an abortion.' Landry kept at her. 'They transferred the embryo from you to Karen Chandler. You didn't want to be pregnant. Mrs. Chan-dler did. Dr. Fletcher has been performing non-surgical ovum transfer for years. That's where you impregnate a donor woman with a husband's sperm, flush out the fertilized ovum before it's had a chance to attach to her uterus, and place it in the wife's uterus where it implants itself. So the wife's preg-nant with a baby that is her husband's but not hers.'
'They do that?' Valerie only spoke out of some dimly sensed social reflex that insisted she keep up her end of the conver-sation. She stared down at the bottom of the orange juice glass.
'They've been doing it for years. But I can see that Dr. Fletcher has gone way, way beyond ovum transfer. Into the postimplantation stage, long after the five-day preimplanta-tion period allowed by non-surg-'
He reached out to seize Valerie's arm. Her pale head tilted toward the table. Fumbling in his pocket for smelling salts, he eventually found a popper and broke it under her nose. Other concerned staffers charged toward her, each reach-ing out with an ampule of ammonia salts or amyl nitrate.
'It's all right,' Landry said. 'First-time blood donor.' At that, everyone nodded and returned to their tables, some laughing with relief. Nothing worse than for a visitor to code on them in the middle of lunch.
Her eyes jerked open, her body recoiling at the sharp scent of the salts. The swimming blackish swirl was wrenched from her with unsettling swiftness. Mark put the acrid capsule in the stamped aluminum ashtray between them.
