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“How sure are you of that?”
“Ninety-nine.”
The tension leaving Mark’s face was visible. He smiled, but shook his head, too. “I’m an analytical sort, and I don’t like the margin of error you’ve given us. I’d feel a whole lot better about that one percent if you’d agree to marry me to give me a small measure of security.”
“Oh, Mark,” she said, laughing and crying again as she threw her arms around him. “I will. Yes, I will and if you leave me at the altar I’m going to hunt you down with a license and a judge and—”
“Excuse me…”
As the childish voice reached her consciousness, Meredith jerked back, pulling at her clothes even though they were all still respectably in place.
“Kelsey?” Mark said gently, sitting forward. “Is something wrong?”
“Uh-uh.” The little girl shook her head. She looked about five standing there barefoot in white long johns with yellow butterflies all over them. “I just woke up and heard you guys. And Meredith’s crying.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Meredith jumped up to go to the child, quickly rubbing a hand across her eyes, but Mark got there first, leading Kelsey back to sit between them on the couch.
“What’s wrong?” Kelsey asked, her face sober as she glanced between them.
“Nothing!” they said in unison, and then Meredith continued. “They’re happy tears, Kelsey. Your father just asked me to marry him.”
Kelsey hesitated, glanced at her father, and Meredith wanted to kick herself for blurting out the news like that. Where was all her so called sensitivity?
“Does this mean that we’re going to be a real family and Meredith’s going to be my mom now?” Kelsey asked her father.
Meredith’s heart stopped. Her chest ached. “Is that okay with you?” she asked the little girl.
Kelsey nodded slowly. “Because I figured out something in the hospital when I woke up and Daddy was sleeping there in the chair.”
“What’s that?” Mark asked, his arm around his daughter, holding her close against him. The little girl slid her hand beneath Meredith’s.
“That my real mom is too sick or
something to be a mom and she couldn’t really love me if she let all that bad stuff happen to me. I was trying to make her love me and be okay, but I couldn’t do it.”
Meredith blinked back more tears. “You’re right about most of that, sweetie,” she said. “But your mother does love you. Don’t ever think she doesn’t.”
Kelsey didn’t say anything for a minute and as soon as Meredith quieted her mind and heart, she understood.
“It’s all right that you love her, too, you know,” she said softly. “Children are meant to love their parents, even when moms and dads make mistakes.”
Kelsey nodded. Said nothing.
“It’s also okay if you’re really mad at her for letting you down.”
A sigh was Kelsey’s only reply to that. And then, after a silence, she reached up and hugged both of them, bringing their three heads together. “I love you,” she said, hanging on to their necks.
“I love you, too, Kelsey, more than anything in the world,” Mark said.
Kelsey seemed to be considering that. Or something else. She peered up at Meredith. “Is it okay if I love you, too?” she asked.
“Oh, baby, of course.” Meredith couldn’t hold back her tears then as she gave the child another big hug. “Because I know I already love you, Kelsey, as much as if you were my very own little girl.”
Kelsey nodded as though that made perfect sense to her.
“So it’s all over and we’re just going to be normal now, right?” she asked.
“Right,” Mark and Meredith said in unison.
