coffee?”
***
Abigail relaxed against the passenger seat of Thomas’s car.
Her headache had eased some, and now she just felt bone tired and kind of achy about last night.
She wished she hadn’t been so silly, but it wasn’t as bad as it felt. It was embarrassing. And it would have been nice if it had never happened.
But it seemed like it wasn’t going to change the positive progress that had happened between them.
They still had a few months before they had to jump back into all the struggle and angst of really working on their marriage. If things kept going the way they were, maybe both of them would have grown and changed enough for them to finally settle everything that was wrong.
Praying silently over their marriage, Abigail sipped her coffee and looked out the window. They were stopped at a red light, about to turn onto the highway, which was the closest way to get to the other side of town, where Thomas’s parents lived.
The light turned green and Thomas started off.
An unspecified noise caused Abigail to look across the intersection. She stared in a blurred haze at an approaching vehicle.
A vehicle approaching way too fast.
Her final thought was that the pick-up truck would never be able to stop in time to brake for the red light.
The pick-up didn’t stop at all.
It just crashed into the passenger side of Thomas’s car, in a deafening impact of noise, metal, and glass.
Three
Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay.
She heard the words, the vaguely familiar voice, coming out of the darkness.
And then somehow she was saying them, knocking on the door to Thomas’s study, a small finished porch off the back of their rented house in Durham. It was only seven months after they’d gotten married, and she was muttering under her breath, “Please be okay, please be okay with it.”
She was so nervous her hands were shaking, but she steeled her will and knocked louder when her first faint tap got no response.
He’d been at the hospital for nearly twenty hours straight, and he’d gone right to his study when he got home.
She understood that his surgical residency program was high stress and incredibly hard work, even more so now than it had been when she’d first met him, but it felt like days went by without her ever seeing him. And she hated the feeling of being afraid to interrupt her own husband.
Her father had been that way. He’d be reading the Bible or doing devotions, and she and her mom were never allowed to bother him.
She’d sworn her own family wasn’t going to be like that.
But here she was. Knocking on the closed door. Absolutely terrified.
When he called out a monosyllabic response, she opened the door and stuck her head in. “Hey. Do you have a minute?”
Thomas looked up at her from the book he was pouring over and smiled. He looked tired and a little distracted, and stress was evident in his eyes, in the lines on his forehead.
When they’d first gotten married, she’d been determined to help him really relax when he was home, but she’d given up on that fairytale eventually. He simply wouldn’t relax.
“Hi,” he said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing a hand over his brown hair. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. I just needed to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“Sure.” Thomas glanced back at his book. “Give me five minutes and I’ll be done in here.”
Abigail let out her held breath and ducked out of the study. Restless and anxious, she paced the hall and then wandered into the one bathroom in the two bedroom house.
There, she picked up the plastic stick from the home pregnancy kit she’d been staring at for the last hour. “Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay with it,” she murmured, closing her eyes as a new wave of fear washed over her.
They hadn’t been married for very long. She was still working on her Master’s, and Thomas wasn’t anywhere close to finishing his residency. They’d talked about kids
***
Abigail relaxed against the passenger seat of Thomas’s car.
Her headache had eased some, and now she just felt bone tired and kind of achy about last night.
She wished she hadn’t been so silly, but it wasn’t as bad as it felt. It was embarrassing. And it would have been nice if it had never happened.
But it seemed like it wasn’t going to change the positive progress that had happened between them.
They still had a few months before they had to jump back into all the struggle and angst of really working on their marriage. If things kept going the way they were, maybe both of them would have grown and changed enough for them to finally settle everything that was wrong.
Praying silently over their marriage, Abigail sipped her coffee and looked out the window. They were stopped at a red light, about to turn onto the highway, which was the closest way to get to the other side of town, where Thomas’s parents lived.
The light turned green and Thomas started off.
An unspecified noise caused Abigail to look across the intersection. She stared in a blurred haze at an approaching vehicle.
A vehicle approaching way too fast.
Her final thought was that the pick-up truck would never be able to stop in time to brake for the red light.
The pick-up didn’t stop at all.
It just crashed into the passenger side of Thomas’s car, in a deafening impact of noise, metal, and glass.
Three
Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay.
She heard the words, the vaguely familiar voice, coming out of the darkness.
And then somehow she was saying them, knocking on the door to Thomas’s study, a small finished porch off the back of their rented house in Durham. It was only seven months after they’d gotten married, and she was muttering under her breath, “Please be okay, please be okay with it.”
She was so nervous her hands were shaking, but she steeled her will and knocked louder when her first faint tap got no response.
He’d been at the hospital for nearly twenty hours straight, and he’d gone right to his study when he got home.
She understood that his surgical residency program was high stress and incredibly hard work, even more so now than it had been when she’d first met him, but it felt like days went by without her ever seeing him. And she hated the feeling of being afraid to interrupt her own husband.
Her father had been that way. He’d be reading the Bible or doing devotions, and she and her mom were never allowed to bother him.
She’d sworn her own family wasn’t going to be like that.
But here she was. Knocking on the closed door. Absolutely terrified.
When he called out a monosyllabic response, she opened the door and stuck her head in. “Hey. Do you have a minute?”
Thomas looked up at her from the book he was pouring over and smiled. He looked tired and a little distracted, and stress was evident in his eyes, in the lines on his forehead.
When they’d first gotten married, she’d been determined to help him really relax when he was home, but she’d given up on that fairytale eventually. He simply wouldn’t relax.
“Hi,” he said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing a hand over his brown hair. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. I just needed to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“Sure.” Thomas glanced back at his book. “Give me five minutes and I’ll be done in here.”
Abigail let out her held breath and ducked out of the study. Restless and anxious, she paced the hall and then wandered into the one bathroom in the two bedroom house.
There, she picked up the plastic stick from the home pregnancy kit she’d been staring at for the last hour. “Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay with it,” she murmured, closing her eyes as a new wave of fear washed over her.
They hadn’t been married for very long. She was still working on her Master’s, and Thomas wasn’t anywhere close to finishing his residency. They’d talked about kids
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