Vigil Read Free Page B

not a medical office—an impression that was only bolstered when he got to the private office with the view of the East River.
    Beth was already there, sitting on one of two chairs set up in front of the doctor’s ornate, antique desk. As Carter came in, Dr. Weston, wearing not a white lab coat, but a sleekly cut dark suit, stood up to shake his hand; the only thing in the office that even suggested medicine was a light box mounted on one wall, where, presumably, X rays were sometimes viewed.
    Carter felt distinctly underdressed.
    “Your wife was just telling me a little bit about her work at the gallery,” Dr. Weston said, sitting back down in his high-backed, red leather swivel chair. He was a lean man, who looked to Carter like one of those guys he’d see running laps around the reservoir. “I collect art myself, as it happens.” He gestured at a huge, and hideous, abstract oil hanging beside the door; Carter knew it was just the kind of thing Beth would detest.
    “It’s a Bronstein,” he added, proudly.
    Carter stole a glance at Beth, who had a pleasant, but cryptic, smile on her face. Her black hair was pulled straight back, into a tight ponytail, and the look in her rich brown eyes remained noncommittal. “I’m afraid our gallery specializes in much older pieces,” she said. “For us, Renoir is cutting-edge.”
    “Still, I’d like to see what you’ve got sometime. You never know what might catch my eye,” he said, now returning to some notes he’d been taking. “And Carter, I see here that you’re a . . . scientist?”
    “Paleontology, chiefly.”
    Dr. Weston dipped his head, as if in professional acknowledgment. “You teach, then?”
    “At NYU.”
    “Very good. I did my internship at NYU-Bellevue.”
    Weston kept his head down, glanced at a chart in the open folder on his desk. For a few seconds he was silent as he studied the information. Carter assumed the chart contained their personal stats, ages, medical histories, and so on. He’d already answered some of these questions with a nurse over the phone. Carter reached over and squeezed Beth’s hand.
    “Was I late?” he murmured.
    “Not for you,” she said, smiling. “Your lecture go okay?”
    “It’d be hard for it to go very wrong—I feel like I’ve delivered it a hundred times already.”
    “And you’ve been trying to conceive for how long now?” Dr. Weston interrupted without looking up.
    “About a year,” Carter replied.
    “Fourteen months and counting,” Beth said.
    Weston made a correction in the chart. Then kept reading.
    “Want to go to Luna’s tonight?” Carter asked Beth.
    “Can’t. We’ve got a private reception for some clients.”
    “What time’ll it be over?”
    Beth shrugged. “If it looks like they’re in a buying mood, it could go late. Eight-thirty, nine.”
    Weston looked up at them now. “During these fourteen months, how often have you had intercourse on a regular basis?”
    Even if Carter was supposed to be a fellow scientist, the question kind of took him by surprise.
    “Four or five times a week,” Beth answered.
    Was that right? Carter had to think about it.
    Weston noted it down.
    Yes, that did seem about right, now that Carter thought about it. But was that the usual rate for married couples? You could never really know.
    “Okay, then,” Dr. Weston said, sitting back in his chair and pulling on his cuff.
    Carter couldn’t help but notice that he wore gold cufflinks.
    “You’re both young, so unless we find some difficulty down the line, I believe we have a very high probability of success here.”
    “But why haven’t we succeeded so far?” Beth asked. “I mean, what kind of difficulty do you think we could find, somewhere down that line?”
    Dr. Weston brushed it off. “A lot of things can impede conception, from a blocked tube to a low sperm count, but the good news is we have ways of getting around nearly all of the problems now. Here’s what I suggest we do.”
    And for