All Your Perfects

Ava moves to Europe, but first gifts Quinn with an infertility tea that Quinn finds too disgusting to drink. She decides to “try” for one or two more months before telling Graham that she’s finished trying and “really am ready to open that wooden box on my bookshelf” (63).

Quinn dresses provocatively—wearing only one of Graham’s t-shirts—and waits on the kitchen counter for him to get home from work. Graham is excited and carries her to the bedroom to make love. Quinn is detached from the act; she used to relish her sex life, but after years of being disappointed by her lack of pregnancy, she’s begun to associate sex with this devastation. She hopes Graham will be quick with the act; when he withdraws from her body and moves toward performing oral sex, Quinn stops him and tells him that she’s ovulating.

Graham is angry and hurt, and says he’s “tired of fucking for the sake of science” (66). Quinn soothes him and coaxes him into resuming, but when Graham ejaculates, he withdraws and spills onto her back instead of inside of her. She is humiliated and distraught that he’s taken the hope out of the situation.