“Exactly.” Sean grinned. Liking this woman more and more as time goes by. “But I’ve come to a conclusion that might work for both of us.”
“And that is?” Christopher stood with his hands on his hips and glared at his business partner and friend.
“Why don’t we both move to Arizona? The only thing that kept me in New York was you and our business. I have no other family anywhere, let alone here. You were my family in New York. Both my parents are gone, and I had no siblings. I have an uncle someplace, but I hadn’t heard or seen him since my Dad died when I was still in college. At first, I thought it’d be fun running the business on my own and living here. But after what happened.” He lifted his arm in the sling and winced. “I’d like to get the hell out of New York. I studied all the information you gathered, and I think I could make the upstairs of where you want to set up another business into a place to live. You already told me you were going to move in with Wanda. Why not go with you?”
When Christopher only stared at him, he drew a breath and started again. “My lease for my apartment is up at the first of the year. But I only do a month to month. I can easily get out of the lease. As much as I would have liked to live here, I think we make a good team, and I want to go to Arizona with you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but it only occurred to me after last night.”
“Okay.” Christopher grinned and held out his hand. “I think that would be wonderful. We both know how we work together, it would be great to have you there. We can work out the details, and with today’s technology, we can make the sale of this over the phone and fax. We rent the space for the business, and I’m sure I can get out of that lease. Our landlord owes us a favor.” He grinned. “So, yeah, it’ll be great you coming with me.”
“Wow,” Brian said. “This is so cool and adult. Does anyone else have something to confess? Because I’m getting hungry, and it smells like the food is almost ready.” He giggled with his sister and was shocked when his Aunt Wanda held up her hand.
“Really? I was only joking.”
“I know, but I do have something to say. I’d stand like everyone else, but.” She grinned and pointed to her casted ankle that was propped up on a footstool. “As my whole family knows, because of my past illnesses, I have to have blood work every year.”
“Why?” Both Gypsy and Trish asked. “I know you were adamant that I don’t schedule anything around your blood work, but I never understood why.”
“Because I could slip out of remission at any time. Once you have cancer, you’re never cured. But you cango into remission. That means what you have is under control and even gone, but you could relapse at any time. Blood work checks everything and indicates that you’re still in remission. With the donor's kidney, I have to be extra careful that my body doesn’t reject the organ along with keeping me in remission from the cancer. That means I could have a double whammy against me, and I take every precaution I need to.
“Anyway, over three weeks ago, I had my annual blood work done. This last Tuesday I was called into the doctor’s office to talk with him.”
“But you said nothing was wrong,” Angie said and gripped her husband’s hand. Wanda saw Fern do the same to her husband, and Douglas actually grasped Trish’s hand.
“And there wasn’t. But he was concerned about something. I arrived at Dr. Hall’s office and let me tell you, I was freaking out. I told him to just spit it out, all I could think of was that I wasn’t in remission and my body was rejecting the kidney. At one point, I almost passed out, I never saw the other doctor in the office. Not until he helped me through a panic attack.
“Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. Once I was under control, he told me who he was, and why I had been called in, but I started laughing and told both doctors that they were lying. I was immediately taken to an exam room and proved wrong.” She passed her mother an envelope. Fern and Douglas were behind her in a heartbeat, and together her immediate family opened it, causing Fern to let out the first scream.
“You’re pregnant!” she screamed, and rushed over to her and fell on the loveseat beside her and huggedher tightly. She was soon surrounded by her parents and brother.
“But how?” Angie asked with tears of joy running down her face.
“Grandma.” Eight-year-old Sarah sighed. “Don’t you know where babies come from?”
Everyone looked at her in shock, then burst out laughing. “Yes, I do. But we were told that Wanda would never be able to get pregnant. This is a miracle.”
“Why not?” Gypsy asked.
“From all the chemo and radiation and drugs she’d been on when she was young,” Douglas spoke for her.
“I know you guys probably don’t want to hear this, but since I hit puberty, I’ve only had my period a dozen times. Besides the drugs and the lack of having my period, it would be next to impossible to get pregnant. And because we’re all being honest here. I’ve never been with anyone except Christopher. The first time we were together, was when he came down before we had to go to court for the first time. On Tuesday, I’ll be thirteen weeks.”
“And the doctors know about your history?” Randall asked as he hugged her.
“Yes, my regular doctor had called in a high-risk OB to talk to me. He’s going to be monitoring me during the pregnancy. I have to see him every two weeks until the baby’s born.”
“When are you due?” Fern asked.
Wanda grinned and gripped Christopher’s hand. “April 11th.” She saw the shock on her family’s faces as they all burst out laughing.
“Why do I feel like I’m missing something?” Sean asked as he hugged her and shook Christopher’s hand.
“Because that’s our anniversary.” Christopher grinned. “Next year will be twenty-one years.”
“How’s that going to work?” Chris frowned. “You said the judge issued you a legal separation. I still don’t understand why you didn’t get an immediate annulment.”
“Because she asked if we’d ever consummated the wedding and we had to admit we had. But she told us if we needed her for anything to contact her through our lawyers. I have a lawyer in Arizona so I’ll be contacting him.”
“And I’ll contact mine, we’d like to go in and talk to the judge to see if we can get the separation thrown out. We want to see if this marriage can work.”
