“When will you be ovulating again?” he asked.
“Ten days or so.” If her stupid, ancient ovaries were even capable of ovulating.
“I’ll get on a plane and I’ll be there to take full advantage of you. I promise.”
She sighed and wiped the tears from her eyes on her suit jacket sleeve. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just got my hopes up too high.” And had crashed and burned over the lack of a simple blue line.
He was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “Myrna, we have to come to terms with the idea that we may never have a baby.”
“Don’t say that,” she blurted out.
“Sweetheart, I know you don’t want to hear it and I can only think of one thing more wonderful than making a baby with you.”
She couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than holding a child she’d made with the love of her life. “There is nothing more wonderful than that.”
“There is,” he said.
“What?” If he said “playing live in front of fans,” she was going to reach through the phone and throttle him.
“Loving you for the rest of my life.”
Her eyes flooded with fresh tears, and the only response she could manage was a sniff.
“You’re my heart, Myrna. I’m sure having a baby will add to my love for you, but nothing will ever take away from it. With you in my life, I’m already blessed beyond reason, so if a baby is meant to happen for us, it will happen and if it doesn’t, we still have us. You are more than enough to make me happy.”
She nodded, so glad her husband was good at this emotional stuff.
“Myrna?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Will you love me less if I can’t give you a baby?”
“Of course not!” How could he even ask her that?
“Then quit beating yourself up.”
“Okay,” she said, a feeling of serenity washing over her. Everything would work out for them whether they were gifted with a child or not, because they had each other. She wondered why that hadn’t occurred to her until he’d said it. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Brian. I love you.”
“I love you too. Now you better get all rested up, because in less than two weeks I’ll be back in your bed, fucking you senseless and trying my damnedest to make a mother out of you.”
She laughed. “I look forward to it.”
“Did you remember to lock your door and set the alarm?”
“Yes.”
“And are you smiling now?”
She was. He always made her smile. “Yes.”
“Good. I might be able to sleep tonight.”
She sighed, thinking ahead to spending the next ten nights alone in her bed. “I miss you already.”
“I miss you too. Call me before you go to bed.”
“I will.”
They said their I-love-yous and their goodbyes, and she hung up. She cradled the phone against her chest and smiled to herself. It wouldn’t be long before he came home and took her back to paradise. And they wouldn’t even have to leave her bed to find it together.
Epilogue
One month later...
Myrna could barely see the screen of her phone through her happy tears as she typed in a text to her husband.
The rabbit died.