Finding a story to fit a line

A couple of days ago I woke up with the last line of this entry in my mind, so I had to send the rummage scout into the far reaches to find a story to fit the line. Here it is:

Tom and Mary have been married 10 years. Mary is 29; Tom is 32. They have a 25-acre place about 12 miles outside town.

Mary works at a bank in town; Tom takes care of the small ranch, which has 10 head of cattle, three horses, four emu and four ostrich. Six months ago, Mary’s sister Melissa, 22, had a fight with her boyfriend and moved in with Mary and Tom – temporarily, Mary told Tom, and, “After all, we do have a guest room.”

For some time, Tom and Mary have been working on having a baby. They work diligently. They consulted a fertility expert, who helped them develop a system of tracking best times of possible fertility – time of the month and internal temperature and hormone levels and such. Mary’s employer is quite sympathetic and on days when the planets properly align, she allows Mary to hurry home and take care of business.

One such time arrived around 1 p.m. recently. Mary called Tom and told him she was on her way home. Tom said he had been working with the emu, but he had time for a shower before Mary arrived. Mary said it might be more conducive to realization of fertilization if Tom were in a “ready condition” when she arrived. Because of stress from work and responsibility in the fertilization process, Tom sometimes had difficulty remaining in the ready position.

This time, though, planetary alignment was good. Tom and Mary performed with due diligence and intensity. Twice.

When things were done, when our happy couple were somewhat relaxed, Mary said, “You were quite ready when I arrived.”

(And here is the line in my head when I woke up two days ago):

“It’s a good thing your sister is staying with us.”