CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Amy poked her head in the door.
"Sheldon!" she called out, alerting him to her arrival. It had been his idea to try out the new Italian restaurant across town, and since the summer session at the University wouldn't start for another couple weeks, she could afford to take a leisurely lunch without anyone missing her. As far as the restaurant went, she was keeping her expectations low, which was probably still higher than what Sheldon was expecting.
He sauntered in from the back of the house, bearing a potted peace lily. Her face begged for an explanation.
"As we have no pets and I am allergic to many animals of the domesticated variety, I imagined that having a plant would be an ideal—and considerably less expensive—exercise in care-giving."
This had been the first statement of optimism she'd heard from Sheldon in days.
"Care-giving as in… raising a child?" Amy asked.
"More or less," he answered.
Despite the tacit vote of confidence, Amy still found the idea absurd. "Plants don't defecate, cry, eat or even move."
Sheldon shrugged. "They respond to the goading of a gentle breeze."
She shook her head, amused in spite of herself, and bent over, straightening out the welcome mat. "Ready to go?" she asked.
He nodded and placed the plant on the table. Then, he took his keys out of the bowl and grabbed his messenger bag; he probably wanted to be dropped off somewhere after lunch. They walked out to the car and pulled off.
"Other than your adventure in botany," she said, making conversation, "how was your morning?"
"Uneventful," he answered; he reached into his bag. "However, a letter came for you from the sperm bank." Amy sat up suddenly, just barely repressing her alarm. "As I was perfectly sure it was nothing," he continued, "I took the liberty of opening it."
"And... what did it say?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"It was an 'exit questionnaire'" he said, "a survey that poses several questions about the quality of customer service you received and your general satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, with Central Pasadena Sperm Bank." He handed her the envelope, with a smirk. "There is nothing I enjoy more than giving my opinion about the service I've received, especially since it is almost always negative."
Amy, with a trembling hand, took the envelope from Sheldon, and then tossed it on the dashboard. "Thank you," she said, forcing herself to relax. "Although I ask that, in the future, you refrain from opening my personal correspondence." She looked at the document then back at Sheldon who was fussing with the buttons on his jacket. "Sheldon?"
"Noted," he said, still distracted.
She thought of something. "You know," she began, "if you wanted a chance to get some real-world experience with children, the University is looking for a few more tutors for their math camp."
"How would I be compensated?" he asked.
"With the satisfaction of knowing you've helped Olympia's youth," she said. "And a certificate of participation." She braced herself for a biting reply. Instead, he looked up, a pensive look on his face.
"That may indeed be an enriching experience," he said. "Molding young minds with the doctrine of science and personally ushering them into a life of inquiry and investigation." He nodded. "I'll do it."
"Great!" she said. "I'll tell the coordinators."
With that, he nodded and returned to his preoccupation with his jacket's buttons.
As they road along, Amy thought once again about the questionnaire. There was a silver lining in this news: if she had received this correspondence, than the doctor must surely have received her delivery as well. She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that it would be a short while before she would have her answer.
The phone rang. Sheldon answered it.
"Hello," the voice said. "Is an 'Amy Fowler' available?"
"I'm afraid she is not," Sheldon said. "May I ask with whom I'm speaking?"
"Um," the man hesitated. "Well, this is Olympia Medical Laboratories. We want to notify her of an appointment to review the lab results with her referring physician."
"Actually," Sheldon replied, "you can just as easily notify me, as I am the father—Sheldon Cooper."
There a pause, and then, "Um, we don't have you listed as the father, Mr. Cooper."
Sheldon found this disturbing. "Dr. Cooper. And now I'm obliged to ask who you do have listed?"
"I can't release that information over the phone," the man said.
"Yet more evidence of the complete lunacy of this entire process," Sheldon said, his voice rising. He was heading towards a rant. "I find it both fascinating and just short of infuriating that you're relaying this information through a means of communication that requires complete trust in the speaker to be honest about who he or she claims to be, and yet you are suddenly so conscientious in regards to a—clearly flawed—name on a piece of paper."
"Sir, please calm down," the man said reassuringly. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Look, I'm not supposed to tell you this but… really it just says 'unknown,' which could mean everything and nothing. It's probably just an omission or a typo or something."
"A typo?" Sheldon said, even more appalled. "Really, a typo? That certainly doesn't inspire any confidence in Olympia Medical Laboratories."
"Actually, sir," the man explained, "We get that information from the physician's office. You may want to take the matter up with them."
Sheldon just grumbled. But the man needed information.
"So, when would be a good time to call back for Mrs. Cooper?
"Dr. Fowler."
"Right, Dr. Fowler."
Sheldon's annoyance knew no bounds. "She'll be home from work shortly. You can call back in an hour or so. Whether or not we believe anything you have to say is another matter entirely."
The man sighed. "Either way, thank you."
When Amy walked through the door, Sheldon wasted no time in informing her of the call from the lab.
"Amy," he said, "I received a most bizarre phone call this afternoon."
"Let me guess," Amy said, "It was your urologist calling to tell you that you need your tonsils removed."
Sheldon looked at her a beat. "No."
"Rats," she said with a snap of her fingers.
"In reality, it was a call from the so-called 'Olympia Medical Laboratories' seeking to notify you of the appointment to get the test results."
Amy face sunk. That sounded like more bad news.
"What did they say?"
"That they could only speak with you. I made an impassioned plea, explaining that I was the father of the unborn child in question, and was met with further red tape and the laughable assertion that the paternity was unknown."
Amy's heart skipped a beat. "That's… weird."
"It's not weird, Amy; it's negligent. I have a half a mind call down there and let them know the seriousness of such calls and the importance of accuracy in matters of such gravity."
Amy tried to assuage his fears. "It was nothing, Sheldon, I'm sure. They probably get hundreds of medical records a day. Human error is statistically unavoidable."
Sheldon shook his head. "No Amy, there must have been a change—a careless omission by some clerical staff member. My name was clearly listed on the previous test results."
"How would you know that?" she asked.
"The receptionist provided us with a copy on our last visit."
Amy had never seen it.
Sheldon walked over to the phone and lifted the receiver. "I'm calling," he declared and began to dial.
"Don't Sheldon," Amy said. He looked at her with puzzlement.
"Why not?"
Her hands dropped to her side and she just stared at him. She was… exhausted and she… she couldn't do it anymore. It had to end now. She had to tell him.
Somehow.
Sheldon, however, took her silence for consent.
"Exactly as I suspected; there is no good reason not to," he said and—pushing send—held the phone to his ear.
"There is a reason, Sheldon," she said. "There's something you should know."
"About this?" he asked, surprised.
Amy nodded and steadied herself for what would probably go down as the hardest thing she would ever have to do in her life. "I haven't… been completely honest with you."
Sheldon froze with the phone in his hand. He didn't say anything. Didn't move. Coming from the receiver, Amy could hear someone repeating "Hello?"
"I didn't want to lie to you," she began gradually. "I thought that maybe if I could just get the DNA test done, and you turned out to be the biological father after all, you would never have to know."
"Amy," he said, quiet with panic, "What are you saying?"
"That after that last night in Pasadena, when we had so much trouble with… conception, I thought all the dreams I had of us having a child together would never come to fruition. I was… sad and desperate, but I had to make a decision and I had spent so much money and time and energy that it was only logical to… I couldn't just… I couldn't throw away the only chance I thought I had. In the middle of the night, I used the sperm specimen—"
Sheldon pulled away mid-sentence and walked to the other side of the room. Amy followed him, talking to his back.
"But, Sheldon, I got a fetal cell DNA test done. We can know the answer in a matter of days… maybe a week, tops."
Sheldon sat down on the couch, bracing himself with both arms. He was in perfect shock and he turned his gaze to the floor. His lips were pursed as if he was about to say something, but didn't. Amy felt terrible; she stooped down in front of him forcing him to meet her eyes.
"Sheldon, you can't imagine the emotional turmoil I was in that night. I didn't know what to do. If I'd only known that the following morning you would come back to me and—"
"Why didn't you tell me?" he said.
"I know there's no excuse, but I was so scared. I didn't know how you would react. You have to believe me when I say that it was never, ever my intention to hurt you." With each word, she sounded worse: more selfish, more sneaky, more… awful. "What are you thinking Sheldon?" she pleaded.
He turned away, and when he finally spoke, he spoke calmly.
"That explains everything."
It was a surprising response.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean that this explains our current medical conundrum—the baffling triple screen results. It is now evident that the child you are carrying is a product of inferior sperm, Amy. The donor you selected no doubt transferred to the fetus some exotic foreign malady."
Amy shook her head. "Thousands of Americans suffer from these illnesses," she said. He snapped his head back to her.
"But I don't," he said curtly. "And neither do you. Nor does anyone in our families. This Danish gentleman," he said with disdain, "is no doubt the source of this genetic quirk."
His words were so cold, so detached. The doting, caring, even affectionate man that she had watched for over a month had vanished right before her eyes. She was gripped with desperate panic. She impulsively grabbed his hand, snuggling it against her face.
"Sheldon," she said pleading. "Don't… don't give up on us. Don't give up hope."
"Hope," he began, "is not science, Amy. And ultimately, these matters are determined by cold, clinical, biological processes that operate completely independently of the fantasies of even the most 'hopeful' parents."
She slowly dropped to the floor, her mind racing. She had imagined that he would be angry, furious even, or hurt. But she hadn't imagined this. Slowly but firmly, he pulled his hand from hers.
"Excuse me," he said and, without a trace of emotion, went back to his room.
She watched, despondent, as he walked away, her heart breaking a little more with his every step.
She was lying face down on her bed when the phone rang close to an hour later. She left her room and walked out to the living room to answer it.
"Hello. Is an 'Amy Fowler' available?" the voice said.
She nodded, then remembered. "Yes."
"This is Craig with Olympia Medical Laboratories. I am calling to notify you that your doctor would like to meet with you to review your AFP test results tomorrow at 4:00 PM. Is that time agreeable to you?"
"Yes," she said.
"Very well, then," he said. "Have a good evening."
She stumbled back to her room, fell to the bed and didn't move until the following morning.
"How have you been feeling?" the doctor asked.
"Um," Amy began, "I've been a little congested."
"That's normal at this stage," she said reassuringly. "Running a humidifier at night should help with that. You might also want to drink hot, decaffeinated beverages."
Amy nodded.
The doctor lifted up a file and began rifling through the papers. Meanwhile, Amy's mind drifted back to that morning. Sheldon, cool and detached, had sat at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal while reading a book on quantum physics as if it were the most normal day in the world and not the first day of a life that was crumbling down around them. She'd been too ashamed to mention the appointment and left the house without a word.
It was her first appointment alone.
"Amy," the doctor said. She stared at Amy as if she'd called her name several times before.
"Yes?" Amy answered.
"I said I can't seem to find the results to your first sonogram."
"That's most likely because I didn't have one," Amy explained. The doctor looked surprised.
"Why not?"
"There was a power outage the day I was supposed to go in and they told me they would call to reschedule. They never did, and we," she choked on the word, "never followed up with it."
"Well then you are long overdue," the doctor said, then realized how that sounded. "For a sonogram, not delivery."
"I deduced that," Amy said. There were several more moments of paper shuffling and Amy was just close to losing her mind.
"I was under the impression that I would be getting the AFP results today," she said, not very subtly.
"Right," the doctor said, biting her lip. She took a deep breath. "They returned high."
Due to the pageantry surrounding the visit, Amy had anticipated that answer—but hearing the words was no less upsetting.
"So the next step," the doctor continued, "is to get an ultrasound. If the baby is suffering from any birth defects, they will be discernible then."
"When can I get that done?" Amy asked, determined not to cry. She was tired of crying.
"I've arranged for one Tuesday. I wanted to find one sooner, but it just wasn't possible on a weekend on such short notice." She looked at Amy with pity. "I know this is distressing, but until the ultrasound results, we still won't know. Let's hope for the best, okay?"
It was small consolation.
"There is one more thing," the doctor said, hesitantly, as if she were wrangling with the idea of even mentioning it. "The technician might be able to determine the baby's gender."
Amy swallowed. In all that had been going on, she hadn't realized that the time for that had come so quickly. "Oh," she said.
"Would you like to know?" the doctor asked.
"I… don't know." Amy shrugged. She hadn't formed an opinion yet.
"What does Sheldon think?"
Amy shook her head. "I don't know."
The doctor saw the sadness on her face. She shed just a bit of her professional reserve and placed a hand on Amy's shoulder. "Amy," she began. "I don't want to pry or assume anything, but… pregnancy, even a near-perfect one, can be still fraught with a lot of anxiety and discomfort, both emotionally and physically. Make sure that, no matter what is happening to you personally, you have a team of people around you supporting you and helping you. Those people can be a significant other, or it can be a mother, a sibling, a friend or a spiritual advisor. The important thing is… don't go at it alone." She lowered her eyes to meet Amy's. "Do you understand?" she asked.
Amy nodded.
Soon the appointment was over and Amy stepped out into the office to make her insurance co-pay. She walked out to her car, taken with how much warmer it had gotten since she'd been inside. She opened the door and got into the driver's seat, and then sat regrouping for a minute. She leaned her head against the steering wheel…
And started to cry.
Endnote: Thanks for your continued enthusiasm. Also, rounds of applause to In the dark. Follow the son.