Free American Wife by Taya Kyle

any other way. But at the time, I was more than a little apprehensive about it. Once again, it worked out that Chris was preparing to leave just when I was due.
    They say God only gives you what you can handle. Chris didn’t cope with crying babies very well. So either he paid the military to deploy him with each baby, or God was looking out for him with well-timed, newborn-avoiding deployments.
    This time, the Team guy karma worked: the sonogram technician confirmed it was a girl several months into the pregnancy. She was going to be the first female born into the Kyle side of the family in eighty years. Which made her unique, and her grandparents particularly tickled.
    Chris couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease them with the news.
    â€œWe’re having a boy,” he said when he called them back in Texas with the news.
    â€œOh, how nice,” they said.
    â€œNo, we’re having a girl.”
    â€œWhoo-hoo!” they shouted.
    â€œNo, we’re having a boy.”
    â€œChris! Which is it!?”
    â€œA girl!”
    If they could have gotten away to visit us that night, I doubt they would have needed an airplane to fly.
    One of the things I loved about Chris was his sense of humor, which seemed perfectly matched with mine, even at its most offbeat. April Fools’ Day was always a major highlight. A month before our daughter was due, I woke him up in the middle of the night.
    â€œDon’t panic,” I told him, “but I think I’m going into labor.”
    â€œDo we have a bag?” he asked, jumping up immediately.
    â€œNo, no, don’t worry.” I slipped out of bed and went to take a shower.
    Chris immediately got dressed and, calmly but very quickly, gathered my clothes and packed a suitcase.
    â€œI’m ready!” he announced, barging into the bathroom.
    â€œBabe, do you know what day it is?” I asked sweetly. It was two A . M ., April 1.
    â€œAre you kidding me?” he said, disbelieving.
    I laughed and plunged back into the shower.
    He quickly got revenge by flushing the toilet, sending a burst of cold water across my body.
    In retrospect, maybe I’d been a little cruel, but we did love teasing each other. At our wedding, we’d smooshed cake into each other’s faces. That began a tradition that continued at each birthday—whether it was ours or not. The routine never seemed to get old. We’d giggle and laugh, chasing each other as if we were crazy people. Our friends and neighbors got used to it—and learned to stay out of the line of fire.
    I had a routine appointment with the obstetrician roughly a month before Angel was due. Ordinarily Chris went with me to the appointments, and this one was no different; we planned to meet at the office. But when I got to the building, he wasn’t there.
    One thing you have to know about Chris: if you set a watch by him, it would have been ten minutes early. He was never late for anything he considered important. And he considered his babies very important.
    So when I was called in and he still wasn’t there, I was concerned. I knew something must be up.
    There was nothing to worry about, I told myself. He was still in the States, far from danger. Something must have come up and he couldn’t use his phone for some reason.
    Your loved ones don’t have to be in a war zone for you to worry about them. In fact, there are all sorts of statistics on how dangerous life can be outside of a war zone. It’s just that ordinarily we don’t think about that. We don’t focus on our anxieties.
    I put all those possibilities out of my mind as I went into the exam room. I was relaxed. I’d been through one birth, and I knew what to expect. Even better, my platelets were under control this time.
    Except . . .
    They hooked me up to the ultrasound machine. The operator’s brows knitted. Before I could ask what was up, she’d gone to get the doctor.
    The