His eyes were narrowed, but not in a bad way.
So when I turned away from Oakley when she suddenly turned toward me and caught me staring at her, I caught Trance staring at me.
He grinned then.
Not understanding the grin, I grinned back.
“I feel like I’m waiting for something and I don’t know what,” Banner muttered. “Maybe I should go listen to more chatter about the Octomom. There’s a pool going on about how many boys and girls she’s having. Apparently, they were never able to get a good gender scan.”
Everybody looked over at Banner.
“That’s…interesting,” Trance rumbled. “You could probably just slip into that OR. They have so many going that I’m sure it’ll be like you’re just another nurse.”
Banner shot his father a droll look, but before he could reply, two nurses came in.
One male, who came to my bed, and one female, who went to Oakley’s.
“I’m leaving you with my legs, Ford,” I said to the man who was looking like he was about to throw up. “Don’t lose them. They’re a part of me.”
Ford rolled his eyes hard but nonetheless nodded his head. “I’ll watch out for your legs, bro.”
Grinning, I gave him a thumb’s up. “See you when I see you.”
Then the two nurses started rolling me out of the room following the gurney containing Oakley.
The last thing I saw was Viddy’s scared eyes trained on mine.
They rolled both Oakley and me down the hall, side by side, and I couldn’t help but try to lighten the mood.
“So you know which kidney to take?” I grinned at the nurse who was pushing my bed.
The nurse grinned back and jerked his head. “The left one. Apparently, it’s the better one, correct?”
I held up a thumb high for him to see. “Perfect.”
My eyes caught with Oakley’s as she was pushed into the first operating room.
“Take care of yourself, bunny,” I teased her.
She locked eyes with me. They looked wide and fearful.
“Wait,” I said. “Hold on.”
The nurse pushing me, pulled the bed to a halt.
“Can y’all bring her closer to me and give us a second?” I requested.
The nurses looked at each other, then at us, then shrugged.
They stepped back and moved until they were standing in the hall about six feet from us. Unfortunately, that was about as far as they could go.
They might hear, but I had to get that look wiped off of Oakley’s face.
“Oakley,” I said softly, reaching for her hand.
She looked up at me.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
I squeezed her hand tighter and moved until I could press a kiss to her palm.
“It’ll be okay,” I promised.
“How do you know?” she asked. “I’m…what if…”
I squeezed her hand and talked over her. “There are no what ifs in life. Just is. Everything is going to be all right. You’ll come out with a new kidney, and I’ll come out with one less kidney. We’ll meet back in the middle at your room, and then we’ll shoot the shit and wonder when we’re going to be fed good food again.”
Tears started to fill her eyes.
“I don’t want to die,” she whispered.
Her voice shook, and the worry that’d been in the back of my mind started to rear its head.
This wasn’t a risk-free operation. This wasn’t some in and out procedure that was going to get done in an hour and then we’d both pop up again like nothing happened.
This was going to take time to heal from.
But, I knew that nothing would happen.
In my heart, just like I knew when I’d gotten out of surgery the first time, I knew that I was going to be okay. And I knew this time she was going to be okay.
So I let her see the sincerity and surety in my eyes as I said, “You’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. Then, when we’re both better, you’ll go out on a date with me.”
Her mouth fell open.
“Is that a yes, or a no?” I wondered teasingly.
She swallowed hard. “That’s a yes.”
***
Viddy
I’d seen my husband scared.
Multiple times since we’d been married, in fact.
I’d seen him sad. I’d seen him worried.
What I’d never seen was him terrified.
And right now, with our daughter being taken away to surgery, he was just that. Terrified.
Panic didn’t even begin to cover what I knew he was feeling. Because it was exactly how I was feeling, too.
I was a police officer’s wife.
I knew what it felt like to be worried and scared—all the damn time. Times were tough. I knew that it was always a possibility that one day my husband would go off to work, and that night he might not come home.
The worry was always there, at the back of my mind, where it would never go away.
Even if he wasn’t a police officer, Trance was a problem solver. He wouldn’t stand by if anyone or anything was in danger, and he’d proven that over and over again.