LITMIR.BIZ

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The traffic arrow turned green and Michael turned off the highway. For ten minutes he drove east, keeping the south parklands and the cityscape to his left. Until now he had made reasonable time, but slow moving traffic merging from the city center and uncooperative traffic lights were combining to make the journey all the more frustrating. When he finally arrived at the fourth major intersection, which formed the southeast corner of the parklands, he turned left and progressed northward, once again against the rush hour flow.

       As expected, on the opposite side of the road, St. Mary’s Hospital rose into the bleak sky out of the serrated horizon of suburban rooftops. Its twin, eight-story buildings reminded him of two giant tombstones rising out of a cemetery. He stared at them as he waited for a break in the traffic to cross over. How on earth had he let himself be talked into this? he mused, running a hand through his hair. Angie knew how much he hated hospitals.

       You know damn well why you’re here, he answered himself. Because of what happened this morning. Someth’ns wrong with Angie.

       The outward-bound traffic slowed and he crossed into a side street toward the main gates. An unsmiling security guard waved him beneath an upright boom and into the visitor’s parking lot, which, to his chagrin, was looking quite full. He passed a sign welcoming him to St. Mary’s Hospital, yet the very thought of walking inside was making him suddenly apprehensive. The hospital complex was the third largest in Adelaide, though never once had he stepped foot inside its gold-brick walls. Thousands of times he had passed this hospital, and thousands of times he had wished he would never have to pass through its doors. He was not relishing the prospect of doing so now.

       Three rows from the gate he found a space, parked the car, and got out. Head down, he began to trot through the drizzle toward the eastern building until he realized it was the nurses’ residence. He halted, momentarily disorientated, then saw a sign above the sliding glass doors of the western building: ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL MAIN ENTRANCE. He hastened there now.

       Inside, the lobby was busy with patients and staff. He immediately felt irked and crowded. A woman was speaking animatedly on a payphone in the far corner near the florist and the news agency. A man was struggling on a set of crutches with his leg in plaster. A young child with a scabrous rash all over her face was holding a woman’s hand, crying. Closer, an old lady in a nightgown was wandering this way and that with a note pinned to her back: PLEASE RETURN ME TO WARD 1C. I AM LOST. It was just as he imagined a battlefield in the First World War, hectic with the traffic of wounded humanity. But it was the smell he disliked most. The lobby reeked of disinfectant and foreboding.

       He eyed the clock above the entrance. Five minutes past five. Not as late as he originally thought, but late nonetheless. He quickly scanned for his wife. She was nowhere to be seen. He tried to look behind two stern looking women with white coats and black stethoscopes heading in his direction, but as he stepped back to let them pass, he inadvertently bumped into a nurse carrying several patient files, some of which dropped from her arms and spilled onto the floor. Feeling culpable and a little foolish, Michael at once bent down to help her pick them up, but in his haste he accidentally banged his head with her elbow, causing her to lose grip of the remaining folders. This only furthered his embarrassment. Resting on his hunches, he gathered some of the loose pages together and handed them back to her, apologizing for his carelessness.

       She too gathered up the sprawled files. Like many in the room, she was stern and unsmiling. Michael briefly wondered what it would be like to work in such an environment where people were perpetually angry and depressed, and then figured he would probably end up with a long and dour face before too long. Picking up a loose leaf of paper that had slipped from a file, Michael wasn’t sure whether her brusqueness was due to frustration of being delayed or plain arrogance, but when she took the paper and looked at him he froze. She was stunningly pretty. He hadn’t been struck by a woman’s beauty since he saw Angie in her little black dress standing at the front door of her house on the night of their first date. That was over six years ago and a lot of women had passed before his eyes, but none that could match this woman. Her almond shaped eyes, deeply dark and seductive; her shoulder-length hair, as black and shiny as a still lake on a starry night; her smile, full and wide, with perfect white teeth, like petals of a daisy. She reminded him, for some unknown reason, of a young Egyptian princess, like he imagined Cleopatra would have once looked, including her delicate olive skin and the dark beauty spot above her left lip. Their eyes met briefly, then quickly away.

       He handed the last file to her. She thanked him for his help and stood up. Michael stared, unmoved from his hunched position as she walked toward the elevators with brisk strides, adjusting the white uniform on her curvaceous backside as she went. Standing slowly, he heard his name being shouted. It was Angie.

       He searched the direction of her voice and saw her waiting near the reception beneath an information sign that hung on chains from the ceiling. Like this morning, she had her hair pulled into a bun and she was wearing her blue, two-piece work suit. The suitcase, however, had been swapped for a matching handbag. Her rimless glasses were also nowhere to be seen, probably replaced with contact lenses. She seemed relieved that he was here.

       With a smile he waved and she waved in return. He was immeasurably glad to see that she was well, even more so that his earlier concerns about her wellbeing were probably nothing more than the result of an over-enthusiastic imagination. He quickly crossed the lobby to where she was standing and pecked a kiss on her red lips.

       “Are you feeling better?” he asked.

       For a brief moment she stared blankly into his eyes, misunderstanding the question, and then said, “Yeah, no more pain.” She seemed unaware that she was running her hand over the lower part of her belly. “I told you it wasn’t anything to worry about.”

       He scrutinized her face, trying to ascertain whether she was telling the complete truth or not. He decided to let it pass and took her by the elbow. “Come on, then,” he said, eager for this to be over and done with. “Let’s not hang around in here. Let’s do it.”

       They passed the shops toward a set of white double doors marking the west wing of the hospital: TO MATERNITY, NEONATAL AND PEDIATRIC WARDS, OUT PATIENTS AND ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT. Just as they passed beneath the sign, Angie stopped.

       “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” she asked. There was hesitation in her voice. “I mean, I don’t want you – us – to do anything we might regret.”

       Michael could sense her anxiety. He had the feeling that he if just said the word, she would be more than willing to leave with him right now. The idea was appealing, but he remembered what his father had said about women blaming themselves for being unable to conceive. The last thing he wanted was for Angie to spend the rest of her life mired in guilt. “I’m not going to pull out at this stage,” he said, smiling lopsidedly, “not unless you want me to.”

       She bit her bottom lip, like someone given the opportunity to finally do something they had always desired but were struggling with the reality that it was actually happening, frightened by it coming true. He could see the ambivalence in her caramel eyes. Then she shook her head, and said, “No, Mikey. I want to make sure we have done everything we can before we give up hope.”

       Five minutes later, they arrived at the outpatient department on the second floor. A plump, middle-aged nurse ushered them into a side door marked “Fertility Clinic”. Her hair, predominantly grey and streaked with black and white strands, was tied into a ponytail with a rubber band. Forty years ago, Michael thought, it would have been a pink ribbon. She had sad eyes, and thanking her with a smile and a nod he followed Angie into the waiting room. The clatter of fingers over a keyboard alerted them to a secretary with a blonde bob sitting behind the reception desk. They walked up to the desk and patiently waited for her to acknowledge their presence. She didn’t. From where he stood, peering down onto her, Michael could see dark roots sprouting out of her head like unwanted weeds. An appointment book was lying face up next to the keyboard.

       The secretary continued to type, deliberately ignoring them, so Michael surveyed the waiting room. Around its perimeter, empty green-grey seats backed the white walls. A glass coffee table bedecked with a fern pot

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