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A whimper escaped me, and Adrian’s arm went around me. “It’s okay. Surgery takes a while. It doesn’t mean anything bad.”
My head ducked, and I was aware of the others moving away, giving me some privacy to pull myself back together.
“How do you do this?” I asked, looking over at Adrian.
“Do what, hon?”
“This. Be so strong like this?”
“Most of us have been through this many times. I won’t tell you that it gets easier. Because it doesn’t. But you learn not to borrow grief that you might need. All we can do is say prayers and be there for one another.”
So, then, that was what we did.
We were there for one another.
Judah got passed around, Lucky and Elisa taking him back and forth to various vending machines, bringing back endless amounts of junk food that he normally wasn’t allowed to have, but I was glad it kept him occupied as we waited.
Milo brought us all several rounds of terrible coffee that we choked down as the hours passed.
Until, eventually, we saw a doctor walking toward us, looking as tired, but not… defeated.
We all jumped to our feet, Adrian holding a sleeping Judah to her shoulder with one hand, and reaching for my hand with the other.
“You’re Aurelio’s family?” he asked.
“Yes,” Adrian answered, voice tight.
Despite outward appearances, she was as anxious as I felt. She was just better at hiding it.
“Aurelio is in recovery,” he said, and I swear we all let out a collective breath.
He’d made it through surgery.
It didn’t mean he was out of the woods.
But he was still alive.
“He was very lucky,” the doctor went on. “He had a gunshot wound to the left anterior cervical region of the neck,” he said, touching his own neck where it was located, making my stomach knot.
“Neck wounds typically cause profound mortality. Aurelio was incredibly lucky. Without going into too much detail,” he said, likely sensing that most of it would go over our heads, and that we didn’t care so long as Aurelio was okay, “the retrieval surgery for his neck took three hours. But he did well.”
“What about the other wound?” Damon asked, and I noticed the way the doctor’s eyes flicked to Damon’s bloody shirt before moving back up to the lot of us.
“More evidence that someone was looking out for Aurelio tonight. Wounds to the abdominal area can be catastrophic. But the bullet wound up lodged in a bit of muscle on his lower back. That has also been retrieved.”
“How’s his prognosis?” Lucky asked.
“We won’t know for sure until he wakes up. But I’m optimistic.”
“Thank God,” Sofia said as Adrian and I both said a quiet prayer.
“When can we see him?”
“When he is out of the recovery room. Maybe three more hours,” he said.
“Thank you, doctor. Thank you so much,” Adrian said, giving him a watery smile as she jiggled a restless Judah.
I took my son, occupying him as the family talked amongst themselves. As they made phone calls. Said prayers. Cried the tears they’d been holding in.
