It was Friday, overcast and wet, the type of November day most folks found unlovely. But not Judy. For her, sunshine felt stifling, and warm weather made her grumpy. She preferred the cool crispness of the air after storms. “Rainy days match my insides,” she had told her husband Nathan soon after they’d moved to Seattle, where she grew up. He had complained about the rain, wondering if the gloomy skies were giving him a bout of seasonal affective disorder—S.A.D. Judy said she doubted it and told him, “midlife situational depression” was a more apt diagnosis.
Before they moved here for Judy’s new job with D&K Architects, Nathan had been laid off from his job—which he disliked anyway—as a mechanical and electrical engineer at the big San Francisco construction consultancy where both he and Judy had worked, and where they’d met eleven years ago. Now, he does intermittent Amtrak engine repair and servicing jobs—which he dislikes even more—and the S.A.D. or situational depression, whichever it was, hasn’t improved.
Judy had taken the day off work, and this afternoon, she was meeting her friend Vita for lunch at a downtown French bistro called Bastilles. The place was packed, but they managed to get the last available booth seat. Judy and Vita had been friends since high school, and from the way Vita was biting her lower lip, bobbing her knees, and not really focusing on the menu, Judy could tell she needed to get something off her chest.
“Alright, spit it out,” Judy said.
Vita grinned. “Gerd and I are trying for a baby. We’re doing IVF.”
“What? When did you start?” Judy put down her menu.
“About three months ago. We didn’t want to tell anyone, because, well, we didn’t know how it would go. After the first round, the doctor said because I’m already 45, the few eggs they got didn’t work. Gerd and I were both really upset. I mean things got so bad we had to see a marriage counselor. Then the doctor suggested we take another route—get a donor egg, have it fertilized with Gerd’s sperm, then implant the embryo in my uterus. I’ll go through the whole pregnancy, delivery shebang, so no one has to know the egg isn’t mine.”
“Whoa! I didn’t know you wanted to be a mom. You don’t even like hanging out with your nieces and nephews. When did you change your mind?”
“Gerd said he wanted one. Then I started thinking about it and I got, well… curious. It seemed like, like a challenge, and I think Gerd and I are so good together that we can do this. Being a mother is like the most momentous thing for a woman, right? And I just thought, why shouldn’t I get the chance to experience it too, you know?”
“Not really,” said Judy with a puzzled frown. She stirred her Bloody Mary. She could tell from Vita’s raised
