End Flashback …
The Next Day …
Meg still hadn't found a way to let Benton, or herself, down easy. She dressed for the consulate, skipped breakfast and left her apartment before Ben finished walking Diefenbaker.
Fresh air. Meg needed fresh air and time alone to think. She decided to take the long way to work – the EL Train.
"I'll catch the train, let it lull me as I think," she told herself. Meg felt reasonably safe on the train, what with the crowd of Chicagoans going to work; the only drawback being the scent of perfumes, body odors and alcohol left from overnight riders. She took a deep breath of reasonably clean air before boarding.
Once on the train, Meg found a seat. She tucked her purse and briefcase close to her side. Wrapped in her stylish, but serviceable, wool coat she let the city slide by as the train jostled from side to side. Below, people moved along intent on their business, their destination.
"Mind if I sit?"
A husky, female voice interrupted Meg's thoughts. Looking up, she peered into the face of a stout, black woman in her late fifties.
"Oh, yes. Pardon me." Meg gathered her purse and briefcase onto her lap to make room.
"It's too early to have been such a long day already," the other woman said with a heavy sigh. Meg simply gave her a perfunctionally pleasant expression before going back to watching the city skyline.
"I don't mean to nose into anyone's business but are you alright? You look like you're carrying around a heartache." The woman adjusted her glasses dangling from a beaded chain onto her blue-green nurse's scrubs.
"I'm fine, thank you," Meg insisted, pasting on her best diplomatic face.
The older woman studied Meg, her brown eyes soft and seemingly all-knowing.
"I raised five children mostly by myself after my husband died. I saw it in the mirror every morning. I saw it in my children's eyes after their daddy was shot in his police cruiser," she spoke steadily.
Meg had to brush a stray tear from her cheek. This woman certainly knew something about how she felt.
"Was your husband a law enforcement officer when you met?" Meg asked, her voice coarse.
"We grew up together. Anthony always wanted to be a police officer. That was a nearly impossible thing when we were kids, especially in our neighborhood." A bright smile lit the woman's face as she reminisced.
"How could you have a family, have a marriage, knowing he may never come back? That isn't fair to you or the children." Meg pointed out.
"Anthony had lots of jobs before he got onto the police academy. None of them made him as happy as being a police officer, helping other people. He wanted to teach our children to help others and to have courage. Anthony did that leading by example."
Meg listened to the woman's words carefully, mulling them over and applying them to herself and Ben.
"I fell in love with the Anthony who loved helping others. Asking him to change would have made him into someone else, not the man I love," the woman added softly.
Ben would try to change. He would be safe but not happy. Eventually he would resent me, Meg
realized. Her heart squeezed painfully at the thought of Ben resenting her or hating her in any way.
"You want to tell me about your man?"
Meg didn't even know this woman's name yet she felt comfortable enough to tell her about her problems.
"My boyfriend," What a dumb term, Meg thought as she forced out the word, "is a law enforcement officer; a Canadian Mountie. I'm his superior officer. He's only supposed to work at the consulate; sentry-duty, paperwork, humoring the bureaucracy. Instead he spends his time saving Chicago with his deaf wolf-dog who's more tame than the detective following him around." Meg huffed a frustrated sigh.
"I love him but what if, one day, he's risking his life and something happens? How will I go on without him?" Tears welled in Meg's eyes as her words spilled. Quickly, she pulled a tissue from her purse.
"Accountants die in accidents every day; meteorologists, priests, things happen, like it or not."
"Logically I know that, but in my heart …" Meg couldn't continue for the lump in her throat.
"You love him. It's natural to want him safe. My oldest son is thirty-six; every day he calls to let me know he's safe. He's a grown man with two kids and works at a radio station."
Meg couldn't help but chuckle. Her own parents had been overprotective until she'd been promoted to a desk job. They still cautioned her to be careful living in a dangerous, American city. They saw mobsters around every corner.
"Am I overreacting?" Meg asked.
The other woman smiled. "Just a little, yeah. It's just growing pains. I bet you've never opened your heart to anyone this much."
Meg knew she'd been correctly pegged the moment her companion set eyes on her. She nodded, the most of her tears drying.
"Talk to him. If he loves you he'll understand. Tell him like it is to you."
"Thank you. I will." Meg felt shy after spilling her guts to a stranger.
People around them began shuffling toward the doors as the train stopped. Meg gathered up her briefcase and purse as well. It wasn't her stop but she felt the need to move.
"Thank you again. I didn't get your name." Meg stopped in her tracks.
"Janelle Bresbiss. Pleased to meet you." She politely shook Meg's hand who stood there dumbfounded. Was it a coincidence, Meg wondered.
Janelle Bresbiss made it through the double doors before Meg found her voice. In the press of people trying to exit she also lost sight of her.
For the best I suppose, Meg told herself.
A block from the consulate Meg stopped in her tracks. Two doors down hung a sign advertising Johnson's Pharmacy.
"It's now or never," she muttered. She tamped down her anxiety and walked into the small store. Three aisles from the door she found home pregnancy tests. She quickly chose one and paid for it in cash.
With the test safely stowed away in a brown, paper bag inside her purse, Meg walked to the consulate. Ben already stood sentry duty outside the building, his handsome face impassive.
Stopping Meg spoke low. "Meet me at my apartment for lunch. There are important things we need to talk about." She walked into the consulate hoping to get some work done before meeting him.
Meg's Apartment …
Meg met Ben outside her building just as she arrived in a cab. From the way Diefenbaker's tongue lolled they'd jogged most of the way. Ben looked as fresh as a daisy. Typical.
"Are you alright?" Ben asked before even saying hello. Meg had expected that response.
"I'm fine, thank you." She sounded strained to her won ears. "Let's go upstairs."
Together, with Dief, they found their way to her third floor apartment. As soon as she closed the door Ben put a hand on her forearm, turning her around. "Meg, what is it? You're tense."
Meg opened her briefcase, retrieved the brown paper bag and handed it to him. She watched as he pulled the white and pastel box out. Ben's gaze snapped from the box to Meg.
"You're …" he stuttered, his face chalk white.
"I don't know. I haven't taken the test yet. That's one of the things we need to talk about."
Ben, having recovered somewhat, slipped his hand into Meg's.
"Are you ready to take the test?"
I am now, she thought silently.
"Let's do this," Meg affirmed.
Dief barked, startling both humans.
Meg listened through the cracked, bathroom door as Ben read the directions to the pee test. Anxious, she had to force the urine out.
Any other time I'd piss like a racehorse, she thought to herself.
Finally, she'd hit the short, white stick, starting the countdown to the rest of her life. The gravity of that nearly forced her to the floor.
I could be pregnant. Ben's baby. Me, a mother!
"Meg, is everything alright? You're mumbling." Ben called through the slightly open door.
"Just mildly panicked, otherwise alright," she answered before she could adjust her navy skirt.
"Perhaps a cup of bark tea would help," Benton suggested, pushing the door open a bit farther.
Meg shot him a disgusted look in the mirror as she washed her hands.
"How long does it say to wait?" She gestured to the test laying on the toilet seat lid.
"Five minutes," Benton answered, referring to the instructions.
"And how long is left?" He'd been keeping a mental timer going she knew. Ben had as much at stake as she did.
"Three minutes, forty-even seconds," came his specific reply.
Three minutes to forever.
Ben stepped up behind her, slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close. Meg felt the buttons on his tunic against her back.
"Regardless of the results, I love you," he said as he leaned his cheek against her temple.
"I love you, too." Their fingers twined as they stood close. Meg relaxed, leaning into Ben's solid body.
"Until this morning I wasn't certain you and I had a future. Seeing you in the ER sent me into a panic. How could I have a future with you if you were hurt or got killed? How could I raise a family with you with that possibility? I didn't think I could go on without you. I still don't know." Meg let out a long, shuddering sigh. She felt wrung out emotionally.
"Meg, if it's a matter of …" Ben began.
"On the train this morning I met a woman who'd lost her husband, a police officer, while he was on patrol. They had five children." Meg gave him an abbreviated version of Janelle's story and how she helped Meg.
"I don't want you to change – ever," Meg said fiercely, turning to put her arms around him. She felt Ben stroke her back, felt his love for her in ways he could never express in mere words.
When Meg pulled back, her emotions on steadier footing, Ben motioned to the pregnancy test.
"According to the provided directions the result is negative. You aren't pregnant," Ben announced, searching Meg's face.
"Oh," she said softly. Happiness and sadness raced through her.
"I don't know how I feel about this. Happy, sad, disappointed?" It felt all like a frazzled rope's end, all coming from the same source but twirled in many directions.
A firm finger under her chin pulled Meg's face and therefore her gaze up to Ben.
"When we have children they will be beautiful and intelligent just like you." He smiled, making her smile in return.
"As well as wise and kind like you." Meg chuckled when Ben blushed.
After a kiss Ben said, "Come on, I'll buy lunch on the way back to the consulate."
"Or we could skip lunch and the consulate and change the results of the next pregnancy test," Meg suggested, her voice husky and her fingers toying with his lanyard.
"Why, Meg!" Ben burst out, mock scandalized.
"I'm sure the boss won't mind," she whispered suggestively as she unfastened his tunic collar.
"Well, since you put it that way."
Together they stumbled into Meg's bedroom.
THE END