“It’s unusual for the virus to activate this early,” her OBGYN said as he ran his hand down over his bald head and across his face, trying to avoid eye contact with them.
They both sat across the desk from the Doctor. Tuck sat in his chair leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He tried to keep his face emotionless, because, in reality, he wanted to scream at the Doctor: How could you let this happen? But, his reason told him it wasn’t the Doctor’s fault -her birth control pills must have failed. In such situations rationality usually prevailed, as it did on that day.
“I thought it was on a thirteen year cycle,” Tuck said.
“With the women infected early on in the third world, at the start of the plague, that has been about the average. But, it’s just an average,” the Doctor said, then added in a professorial tone to break the uncomfortable silence:
“Remember that the first reported cases of human infection only showed up for this thing about sixteen years ago, and we’ve only just started having the first round of human pregnancies within the last few years. The earlier cattle version shows a good percentage of variation in the dormancy period of the virus, even though the average for pregnancy onset from infection is about every 3 years for a female cow. However, I suspect that by the time the human version was developed, most of the kinks were ironed out, so we will see less variation from the 13 year average.”
Tuck couldn’t see Rachel’s reaction from beside him, but he suspected he knew what his wife would want to do. He wasn’t crazy about the prospect, and it might cause him some trouble come time for his next election if it ever got out, but he agreed with the choice under the circumstances.
No rational person could expect a woman to just happily have the baby of a man she had never even met. He thought. It’s still legal in most of the Northern States and out West. We can just go on a vacation.
“I understand why you would want to end it in a case like this,” Tuck said with as much empathy in his voice as he could muster.
Rachel didn’t respond from the seat next to him.
For a minute, Tuck pretended to be interested in watching their car weave in and out of traffic with the quick precision that only a computer could achieve.
“I mean, this would be like expecting a woman who has been raped to have the baby. Even a lot of people in my party get it, I think. It’s not like you weren’t careful with the pill. Quality has simply gone to hell since prescription drug price controls…”
Tuck’s voice trailed off as he realized he was stepping on his political soapbox, which he rarely did when they were alone, out of respect. His politics weren’t hers. He looked over at his wife for the first time since they had gotten into the car, and realized she was smiling.
She turned to look at him, and the smile began to disappear from her face -like she was just becoming aware of what he had been saying.
“The pill didn’t fail,” she whispered. “I haven’t been on it for over a year.”
Read the rest at Smashwords.com or Amazon.com:
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