They waited. The tension in the small room was a physical, heavy thing. They were both braced. Braced for the new battle. Braced for... chemo. Braced for... more surgery. Braced for... the end.
A young, efficient nurse came in to draw blood. She was all business. She saw the chart. 'Eunice Dowman, 47, Female.'
She tied the tourniquet. "And... just for the... the intake... what was the... the date... of your... your last menstrual period?"
Eunice, her eyes still closed, gave a small, dry, bitter laugh.
"Five years ago," she said. "October. I had a... a total... hysterectomy. In this... hospital. Dr. Aris... did it."
The nurse stopped. Clicked her pen.
"...Oh. Right. Sorry. 'Hysterectomy.' It's... it's just... a box... on the form."
She finished. She left.
An hour later, Dr. Aris came back. He was holding a printout.
His face was... baffled.
It was not sad. It was not scared. It was... confused.
"Well," he said, clipping the printout to the light-box. "It's... it's not... an infection."
Karlman and Eunice let out a simultaneous, sharp, exhale.
"Her... her white-cell count?" Karlman asked.
"Perfect," Aris said. "One... twenty. Normal. Chems are... a little... off. Dehydrated. But... no... no 'sepsis.' And... the CT scan..."
"What?" Eunice said, sitting up.
"It's... clean. It's perfect. The... the site... is... is healed. It's... it's beautiful. No... no abscess. No... no adhesions. No... nothing."
"So... so what... is it?" Karlman said. "A... a virus? The... the flu...?"
"That's... that's the thing," Aris said, scrubbing his hand over his face. "I... I don't... know. Her... her... hormone... panel... is... strange."
"Strange... how?"
"Well... your... your HCG... levels... are... well... they're not... 'zero'."
Eunice's blood ran cold. "HCG?" she whispered. "What's... that's... that's the... the IVF drug..."
"It's the pregnancy hormone, Eunice," Aris said, his voice flat.
Karlman let out a laugh. A single, dry, harsh bark.
"What? That's... that's impossible, Doctor. That's... insane. We... we have the... the jar. On the... the mantel. We... know... it's impossible. We... we watched... you... take it out."
"I know," Aris said, holding up his hands. "I know! It is impossible. It's... it's a false positive. It... it must... be. It... it could... be... something... else. A... a... tumor... a... a... pituitary... gland... thing... I... I've... read... about it..."
He was... flustered. The 'A-type' doctor... had no data.
"But... the... the protocol," he said, looking... embarrassed. "The... the protocol... for... for 'anomalous HCG'... is... I... I have... to... to run... a standard... urine... pregnancy test."
He looked at them. "Just... just... to rule it out. Just... to... to humor... me. It's... it's... protocol."
Eunice stared at him. A pregnancy test. It was... a cruelty. A joke.
"Fine," she said, her voice dead. "Humor... yourself, Doctor."
She took the cup. She came back. The nurse, the same young one, took it.
She came back, five minutes later, holding the small, white, plastic stick... like it was a snake.
She didn't speak. She just handed it to Dr. Aris.
He looked at it. His "catcher's mitt" face went... white.
He held it up.
Two... lines. Dark. Blue. Definitive."What... what is that?" Karlman said, standing up. "It's... it's broken. It's... defective."
Eunice... saw it.
She knew... that... result. She had prayed... for... that result. She had wept... over... the single... line... for 15 years.
"That's..." she whispered, her voice a ghost. "That's... a positive."
"The... the test... is... defective," Aris stammered. "The... the batch... must be... bad. Nurse... go... go get... another... brand..."
"It's not defective, Doctor," Eunice said.
Her voice was... strange. A... a cold, clear, certainty.
Karlman looked at his wife. "E... E... stop. It's... it's not... it's... it's impossible."
"Yes," she said, her eyes, for the first time, blazing. "It is."