FULL CIRCLE

Another radio show with more commercials than music, Tamara thought as she turned the knob of her car radio.
Then, “…the multiple car crash has involved seven vehicles and there are several people seriously injured. We are going to Fiona Beckett, our correspondent on the scene. Fiona…”
“Thank you Richard. I’m here at the junction of Wallbeck and First Avenue where the accident took place. Medics are attending to the victims of whom five are seriously injured. They are appealing to the public to go to the local hospital to donate blood as there is a blood shortage at present. The cause of the accident…”
Tamara wasn’t listening any more. As she approached the hospital, the same white complex of buildings she drove past everyday on her way home, she couldn’t help but think of that last line she had heard. She had never donated blood and even hated hospitals. She had been to the hospital a lot lately, but that was for the fertility tests she was undergoing to help her get pregnant.
She pulled up into one of the spots and run into the building, stopping at the reception desk to inquire as to where to go for the blood donation. Everything else happened in a blur. The ambulances screeching into the compound, the injured wheeled into the Emergency Room, the whirring air conditioning as she laid back, blood slowly being pumped out of her. She followed the story over the next few days, wanting to know if her endeavor had made any difference. All the injured were stable and fine.

“Great news Tamara,” the doctor was saying. “You are pregnant.”
Jeffrey, her husband squeezed her hand. After all the drama of tests and fertility treatments, they had finally been left with only two options; a sperm donor or adoption. It was tough but Jeffrey had come to accept it. So here they were, a new life growing within her, pulsating, respiring, living.

Joe had recovered from the car crash. For a while, the crutches and pain from the whiplash were there to remind him of how close the call had been. Still, he was now back at work and only had a few scars that were fading fast. Funny how something like that makes you sit up and reassess. On his physical rehabilitation visits to the hospital, he had always had to go past the fertility centre. All those anxious-looking couples waiting outside the unit, all wanting one thing, a child. One day, as a kind of giving back gesture, he had gone into the Fertility Centre and offered to donate his sperm. After the requisite checks, his offer had been accepted.

As Tamara and Jeffrey walked out of the hospital holding hands, big smiles plastered on their faces, they walked past a tall, good-looking man going in for his last rehab visit. There was something about him. He too seemed happy and gracious. Tamara felt a connection she could not place. For quietly growing in her belly was his seed and secretly flowing in his veins was her blood. They had gone full circle.