Their Paid Girl

Their Paid Girl - Part 38

[Re-cap]:

          “I thought I was doing such a good job that you didn’t even notice it was a distraction,” Adam shook his head.

          I smiled briefly, feeling the tension that Adam had been helping to hold off returning tenfold. In half an hour, I would know the result of Jaime’s surgery.

          And this time, we took the elevator, because I wasn’t sure if I could handle the stairs, even though Adam was beside me the whole way, keeping me together.

***

          When Adam and I returned to the waiting room, the first thing I noticed was that the Wells were no longer sitting, but were standing in the middle of the room quietly, holding hands.

          Heart hammering, I looked to Mrs. Wells. She shook her head at me. “A nurse just came by to tell us that they’ll be finished in a few minutes. We don’t know anything else.”

          “A few minutes,” I repeated, my chest feeling tight all of a sudden. “So they’re ahead of schedule?” I looked towards the clock. Technically, there was still fifty more minutes of surgery of the originally-planned eight.

          “Slightly,” Mrs. Wells nodded. She let go of Mr. Wells’ hand and hesitantly approached me, anxiously twisting her hands together.

          “Shawna,” she whispered to me once she got close, “I just want you to know how sorry we are that we believed what we did at first, and for keeping you apart from Jaime for so long.”

          A little surprised, my eyes widened at her unexpected words and as I gazed into her worry-lined face, I saw something soft and motherly in her. She’d once said that she and Mr. Wells couldn’t have children of their own, and I didn’t know the reasons for why that was. But I did know – now, at least – that she had been the best, most attentive caregiver that a broken little angel-boy could ever ask for.

          I felt my face soften as I reached my hand out to squeeze her own anxious ones. “I don’t blame you at all,” I told her, managing a smile. “And I’m so glad that you were the ones to have Jaime. No one else would have loved him as much as you do.”

          To my shock, I saw tears well up in the woman’s eyes, and she sniffed, squeezing back my own hand. “That means a lot,” she said, voice wavering, before quickly turning around to hide her emotion, joining Mr. Wells again.

          In that moment the door opened and a nurse appeared, followed by one of the surgeons that had been listening to Doctor Phelps earlier, and who had been working on Jaime for the past seven and a half hours.

          Suddenly, for one terrifying moment, the world swirled around me and I felt myself begin to sway towards the ground. Strong hands caught me and once again I felt everything else come to a stop around Adam’s steadiness.

          “Oh, Adam,” I gasped. “What if—what if he’s here to say he didn’t make it?”

          But that wasn’t it.

          “Family and friends,” the surgeon announced, acknowledging Adam as well, “I’m so pleased to inform you that the surgery has been performed successfully, and in a moment, the nurse will admit you in to visit Jaime. He’s still sleeping, however, so you’ll have to wait to speak with him, but all of you will be able to see him as soon as he’s settled in his private room.” The surgeon gave us all a tired, yet genuine smile, and left without another word, leaving the nurse to guide us.