Chapter 25
“Excuse me?” Christopher stared at Sean in utter shock.
“Sorry, but I’ve been up all-night thinking. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you yet, but I went into the office and gathered up all the lists that you showed me about you moving and selling the business. I came up with my own list. You know how I always messed with you and your lists?”
Wanda snorted. “You and everyone else, but they do come in handy every once in a while.”
“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 can go 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 hugged her 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.”
Christine hugged her son and then grinned. “You’re going back to where it all began.”
“What’s that mean?” Christopher asked.
“You’re moving to Arizona to be with Wanda and the baby, right?”
“Yes.”
“And she lives in Yuma.”
“Yes,” they both said.
“There’s a huge Marine base in Yuma.”
“That’s right. My husband’s stationed out of there,” Gypsy said. “He’s currently on deployment, but he left from there and god willing when he returns, he’ll be returning there. But what does that have to do with Christopher?”
“His father was in the Marines for twenty-five years. Both of us were born where we currently live. His first deployment was in Yuma. We were there for three years. That’s where Christopher was born.
When he was three, we were transferred to California.
And from there all over the world and back.
You settling in Yuma, you’re going back to your roots. ”
“Wow, I never knew. I thought I was born in California.”
“Nope.” They sat around and discussed the baby and Wanda and Christopher’s marriage. Shortly after Christine put the Thanksgiving dinner on the table and they were all thankful that their lives were moving forward in positive directions.
*****
“Let me get this straight.” The judge looked at the two people standing in front of her. “You want me to throw your legal separation out so you two can stay legally married?”
“Yes.” they both answered.
The judge studied the two before her intently. She had to say they made a good-looking couple. Miss Perkins practically glowed, and Mr. Evans had a huge grin on his face, and when he looked over at his wife, he glowed also. But she had some questions that needed to be answered first.
“What steps have you made to make this a real marriage?”
“In the last month.” Mr. Evans began. “I’ve sold my condo in New York and my business partner, and I have moved to Yuma.
I’m living with Wanda in every sense of the word of being married.
Like we share the same bed, live in the same location, share meals, split the bills, go out to dinner, everything.
My business partner is converting the space above our business into an apartment.
He’s currently staying with us until the work is done. ”
“And you agree with this arrangement?” The judge looked over at Wanda for her confirmation.
“I do. I have six bedrooms available, Sean isn’t in the way, and I have my own work downstairs. Both Christopher and Sean help me when they’re not working on their space. They’ve already gotten several clients, and it’s working out well at this time. I don’t see anything that would upset it.”
The judge was silent for a long time, trying to get her thoughts together.
“Your Honor,” Wanda said, and when the judge looked at her, she put her hand over her small baby bump.
“I don’t know if this will help you decide.
But I’m almost eighteen weeks pregnant. Christopher is the father.
You’ve read our case and see that we haven’t been together as husband and wife since the ceremony took place.
The only time we consummated the marriage was back in July the weekend before we were here.
Christopher is the single man I’ve had sexual relations with.
“This pregnancy is a miracle in itself. I know you don’t know my whole story, but you know the circumstances of our wedding.”
“Go on.” The judge was fascinated by the woman before her.
“I had seven rounds of radiation at the age of three. A round is once a day, six days a week for seven weeks. I went through those seven different times in a year. On top of that, I had about fifteen rounds of chemo. After I had the bone marrow transplant, I was told the likelihood of conceiving a child was less than two percent.” When it looked like the judge, wanted to say something Wanda held up her hand.
“When I was thirteen, I had severe lower back pain and lower abdominal pains. After extensive testing, it was found that I had one bad kidney. To this day, they don’t know if it’s a result of the radiation and chemo, or the donor marrow DNA, or what.
But I was in the hospital on dialysis for over a year before I received a donor kidney.
My fifteenth birthday was spent in the OR getting the new organ.
Afterward, and to this day, I’m on medication for life, so I don’t reject the kidney.
I was then told my chances of conceiving were slim to none.
This is a miracle baby. It belongs to my husband.
I love him, deeply. We would like to stay married and bring our miracle into this world together. ”
Wanda didn’t realize she’d been crying until Christopher walked over and used his handkerchief to wipe her tears and hug her.
With his arm around her, they looked at the judge.
“Your Honor, I would like to stay married to my wife and be with her as any married couple. I love Wanda with all my heart and welcome her and our child into our lives.”
The judge studied them for all of thirty seconds then picked up her gavel and banged it once.
“Case dismissed. I’ll make an order to tear it up and put it in your file that you’ve satisfied the court about staying married.
” She went to stand then grinned at them.
“But check back with the court periodically. Knowing your guys’ luck with the court system, some idiot will file it so that you’ll be automatically divorced at the end of the year. ”
“I’ll check diligently,” Tony Harris, Wanda’s lawyer, said.
“Thank you, your honor.” They left the courthouse and Tony declined their invitation to lunch saying he had another case coming up.
Christopher and Wanda walked hand in hand to the parking lot, and before he helped her into his SUV, he kissed her soundly.
“Let’s go pick out our wedding bands, Mrs. Evans.” He grinned then paused and frowned hard. “Do you want another ceremony? Now that we’re older and wiser we can have another ceremony.”
“No, I kind of like the one we had. Look at the stories we can tell our grandkids. We can say that the first twenty years of our marriage was perfect. If you wanted me to wear your ring, I wouldn’t say no, but know that you have to wear one also.
I don’t care if I have a diamond, because I won’t be able to wear it while I work, but I think I can get a plain band. ”
“Let’s go see what they have.” He kissed her quickly and helped her in. Later that night they had their own private ceremony, and when they were able to breathe properly again, they exchanged rings and fell asleep in each other’s arms with a smile on their faces.