Husband by Choice

“Max?”

Turning on his heel, Max spun around. “Yeah, Ben....”

The doctor was pulling off his surgical gloves. “She’s going to be fine,” he said. “I wanted you to know immediately.”

“She is?” There were a million medical questions he should be asking, but he couldn’t think of anything but Meri’s sweet smile.

“She’s a very lucky woman.”

He’d said those same words himself, about a child who’d been in an accident and survived in spite of the odds, one who’d come through a surgery better than expected....

“She’ll be sore for a while, of course. She’s got a broken rib, which I’ve taped, but I could see from the X-rays that it wasn’t the first one or even the first time for that one. Someone said the man who did this to her is in custody.”

Ben asked to be called to testify. He rattled off specific medical diagnoses for each of Meri’s seventeen specific injuries. And then he said, “But there was no internal damage. I don’t see how....”

He paused. And the grin on the other doctor’s face seemed to be mixed with a bit of emotion, too, when he said, “We were able to save the baby, Max. She’ll need extra bed rest for the rest of the first trimester. And maybe throughout the pregnancy. The placenta was damaged. But not alarmingly so....”

“B-b...” Max shook his head, foggy headed, a bit unsteady—all things he recognized as symptoms of shock. “Did you say baby?”

“You didn’t know she was pregnant?”

“As far as I’m aware, Meri didn’t even know. We’ve been trying for a second child for a while, but it was taking longer than it did with Caleb....”

He was blubbering. Just like any other husband or father. And he grinned. “Is she awake? Can I see her?”

“She’s asking for you.”

“Did you tell her about the baby?”

“I thought she knew. I wanted to assure her that all was well.”

“What did she say?”

“I just told you, she asked for you.”

“Go to her, Max. I’ll see you at home later,” Chantel said. Bailey was picking her up and Chantel was leaving her car for Max.

Chantel’s and Ben’s grin

s followed him into the rest of life.

* * *

MEREDITH DIDN’T REMEMBER much about the day she’d faced her demon and won. Not even the part before she’d been beaten.

It was all a hazy nightmare that ended when Max was there with open arms, catching her as she fell.

And she knew, over the next few days in the hospital, and then at home, with Caleb so careful and sweet as he climbed up next to her in the recliner, with Max never more than a foot away from her, that she’d finally, for the first time since she’d been a twelve-year-old kid standing on the side of the highway, completely and fully woken up from her nightmare.

“You guys ready?” she asked, standing up slowly as she slid from the van and supervised as Max unbuckled Caleb from his car seat and helped him down.

They were both dressed in black suits—Caleb an exact replica of his father—with light purple shirts, dark purple ties, and deep purple high-top tennis shoes.

“You promised you’d tell me the second you start to feel tired,” Max said, one hand holding on to their son’s and the other arm around her waist as they started slowly moving forward.

“The doctor said I’m fine, Max,” she reminded him. “I’ve even been cleared to go back to work.”

“Part time. And only as long as I drive you.”