Memory Wall

Imogene and Herb, a married couple in their early thirties, live in rural Wyoming outside the city of Laramie. Imogene is a resource allocation manager for an engineering firm, and Herb teaches molecular phylogeny to undergraduate students. In September of 2022, they’re ready to start a family and begin trying to get pregnant. As months pass without success, they feel frustrated, but they know it takes many couples a full year to get pregnant. After more than a year, while spending Thanksgiving with Herb’s family in Minnesota, they downplay what a toll the effort is taking on them.

The backstory reveals that Imogene’s parents both died in a car crash when she was 21. Afterward, Imogene moved to Morocco, where she lived in Rabat for three years. As a woman, she couldn’t wear shorts or skirts or go outside with wet hair. For a time, she works with blind women through a Peace Corps initiative. Imogene had been dating Herb for four months before her parents’ death, and they kept the relationship going while she was in Morocco, mostly through letters.

In 2004, after 16 months of trying to get pregnant without success, Imogene and Herb undergo fertility testing and learn they have “dual-factor infertility.