What We Owe Each Other

The bull stood in the pasture, massive and indifferent, while Elena checked her phone again. No message from Sarah. Not since the dinner party where Sarah had promised to be their surrogate, then called two days later saying her husband wasn't comfortable with it.

Three years of fertility treatments. Three years of hopeful cycles, crushed expectations, the clinical rooms, the sympathetic nurses, the bills piling up like snowdrifts. And now their last chance — their neighbor's prize bull, the artificial insemination kit in the bathroom fridge, Elena at her most fertile, Marcus checking his work email instead of holding her.

"He's not going to text," Marcus said, finally looking up from his phone. Old Rex thumped his tail against the kitchen floor, the dog's rheumy eyes finding them both. Rex had been Elena's companion since before they'd married, since before the years of trying had carved hollows under her eyes, since Marcus had started staying late at work to avoid coming home to another negative test.

"I know." Elena's voice cracked. "I just thought — " She swallowed. "She said we were friends."

"Friends don't owe each other their bodies, El."

"No?" She turned to him. "But we owe each other the truth? Because you haven't been home for dinner in three weeks, Marcus. You haven't looked at me in months. You think I don't know you're sleeping at the office because you can't stand another round of this? Another cycle, another disappointment, another conversation about how maybe it's time to accept—"

"I'm scared," he said, so quietly she almost missed it. "That's all. I'm scared it won't work, and I'll lose you anyway. That we're already gone."

Rex lifted his head, sensing the shift. The bull outside低ed, a low sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep and ancient, something about persistence, about the weight of bodies and blood and the things we do to keep something alive.

Elena crossed to him, buried her face in his shirt. "We're not gone," she said. "We're just tired."

His arms came around her. The phone buzzed in his pocket. They both ignored it. Outside, the bull moved to fresh pasture, carrying something like hope in the heavy grace of him.