Summary

Chapter 10, “Choose from the Following Options” (153), begins with Natsuko rewatching the report on infertility treatments. She felt conflicted and reflected that something was keeping her from attempting artificial insemination, thinking that it might have something to do with not knowing the other person involved in producing a child. Then she began to think about all of the people who had children together who did not really know each other. She found herself unable to forget what a woman had said at the end of the special: The woman had said she was glad she had chosen to have a child through non-traditional means and that she could not imagine what her life would have been like otherwise. Watching the woman, who was blurred out in the interview, Natsuko imagined she saw her mother’s face.

Natsuko was still struggling to finish her novel...