“I’ll be late for dinner.”

“Why?” I moaned. It was already velvet-dark and tummies were rumbling.

My husband explained something mysterious happened on his way home from work. While driving on a busy highway something black came out of nowhere and crashed into the side of his truck. The back window of his extended cab shattered and a large dent had been knocked into the side of the truck’s bed, above the driver side back wheel. He speculated that someone sideswiped him or something fell out of another vehicle. After making sure he was okay, I looked up the sheriff department’s non-emergency number for him. He would call back when he knew more.

Picturing him on the highway was painful. It was cold. Cars would zip past indifferently, piloted by drivers distracted by the worries of their days. Maybe it was one of those drivers who did something to my husband and his truck? I stewed and speculated. The phone rang.

“It was a deer.”

It never occured to either of us that an animal was the culprit. The highway was so busy. The timing was quite incredible. The deer managed to miss every other car, darting only feet in between cars in order to perfectly barrel into the side of my husband’s truck. The sheriff’s deputy noted the blood on the glass and hair stuck in the bumper.

After assuring me the truck was in driveable condition, my husband made his way home. Delivered pizza and a very-relieved, very-kissy wife greeted him.

Had he left three seconds earlier, he would have missed the deer. Three seconds later? The front of his truck would have crumpled and his airbag would have deployed. Losing control would have been a given.

The shudder stayed in my spine overnight. I thank God my husband is okay. When he leaves each morning there is a sense of sending him off to battle. He doesn’t meet Barbarian hordes or hairy men named Attila or Genghis. But he fights for us. The foes are clean and housed in cubicles. Office politics are flaming arrows shot his way. When he solves a problem for a client, he solves us through another day, another week, another year. It is thankless.

I am here, warm in our thicket. My eyes search the night. I wait for him to get home.