fertile! Saturday night was the high point.” She laughed, doing a little hula dance. “But if it doesn’t happen this month, there’s always next.”
“I’m just about done here. I’ll jump in the shower and meet you in the bedroom.”
He left for the bathroom, and she quickly straightened up the kitchen. Pulling her clothes off, she got into bed to wait. Five minutes later, he came out, naked, with a big hard penis.
“Wow, I missed you. I missed that.”
“My juices are at their optimum,” he said with a smirk.
“Quick,” she said, “come to bed.”
They fell asleep as soon as they were finished, a deep restorative sleep that they both needed desperately. She woke up and looked at the time, nearly eleven. Hoping he’d stay sleeping, she set the alarm for four thirty. It would give him time to chug down a coffee, and if he left at five, she could go back to bed for an hour if she needed it.
Tiptoeing out of the bedroom, she used the bathroom out in the hall so as not to disturb him. He had eight more months of this fellowship. If she was pregnant, she’d be alone. Is that what she wanted? But then she remembered the C word. It was not her timing. Cancer was the dictator.
Shutting off the lights and making sure the doors were locked, she went into the laundry room and pulled a T-shirt out of the dryer. Back in the bedroom, she carefully climbed in next to him and fell back to sleep.
During a break between cases the next morning, she looked at the screenshots from Rich’s phone, and her heart sank. It appeared the nurse was after him. His responses were what she’d hoped for, but the danger it imposed upon him to be on guard.
A bunch of us are going to R Bar after work. Come with.
And then his answer: Thanks for the invite, but I don’t think my wife would like that.
Alison laughed out loud when she read that.
Does she know how lucky she is?
His answer: I tell her every day, so I think she must know by now.
Oh well, you can’t blame a girl for tryin’. Let me know if you change your mind.
Alison looked at the screenshot, smiling. She quickly sent Rich a text.
I love you so much. I don’t think there are words that will express how much I love you. I will make everything up to you, I promise, starting this weekend. Well, starting now, but you’re up there, and I’m down here, so it will have to be later. Your wife.
He didn’t answer right away, so she went back to work, and sometime that morning, she got an answer.
Wife, I love you, too. Husband.
***
An app on her phone alarmed in the middle of pulling into the garage Friday night. Rich was already home, but she’d been held up by the case with no end in sight. Finally, the resident on call came in to relieve her a half hour late.
“I was hoping you wanted to finish,” he whispered. “My in-laws just arrived from Japan.”
“Sorry. Rich is home tonight, and I haven’t seen him since Monday.”
She gave him a report and excused herself to the attending, who nodded in acknowledgment.
“In my day, we’d stay to the end.”
“It’s a new world,” Alison said. “It’s why we are scheduled call. Trust me, if the tables were turned, old Bruce here would have had the charge nurse page me twenty minutes ago.”
She flipped Bruce the finger out of range of the attending surgeon and left the room.
Now, in the stifling garage, she got out her phone to see what the notification was about. It was from Period Tracker, and it just wanted her to know that her period was due. She’d felt a little crampy earlier and wondered if it was time. Depression swept over her. They’d been trying for four months with no luck. Dr. Pointer said to give it a year, and then they would start investigating. When she examined Alison, she said her cervix looked great. They did a pap, and it came back negative. All was in position for her to conceive. She just needed to be patient.
Since they’d been trying to conceive, she had succeeded in making it an act of her will not to obsess about it, or to freak out when she got her period, at least in front of Rich. He was stressed out enough as it was.
He walked out of the bedroom just as she came