Chapter 41

"Oh, okay, please don't get upset Radcliff! You call her when you want and let me know what she said when you feel like it! And Cathy, thanks for doing this!" he said opening the door to the office letting her know she could go.

She thought about calling Jenny to see if she wanted to meet her for lunch so they could talk face to face, but just as she was about to reach for the phone Bennie the bike messenger approached her desk. Catherine knew this had to be the message from Vincent about Devin.

"Thanks Bennie," she said distractedly as she took the note he offered ignoring his usual cheerful prattle.

After Cathy had left her, Jenny had once again succumbed to tears. She needed time to mourn not having Devin in her life any more. She spent most of the weekend alternating between bouts of tears and eating as well as dodging calls from Joe.

Joe Maxwell was a great guy and in the end probably better for her than Devin. But Devin was so exciting while Joe was steady. Anyway, before she could go to Joe completely, she had to let her heart say good-bye to Devin.

She had planned to return Joe's many calls on Monday, but when she got to work, one of her new author's was having a meltdown about the revisions to the first draft of her book. Jenny spent all morning trying to convince her that the revisions were normal and if she looked closely they weren't really bad at all. By the time she was free it was lunch time.

Below it seemed they had barely gotten back to sleep when Geoffrey entered with their breakfast. Both of them were still so sleepy that they were only halfway through their meal when Father, Mary, and Vincent came in. Moments later, Peter also walked into the room.

While Mary cleared away food they were still trying to eat, Father explained that they were going to carefully remove Devin's cast. If the news was good, which they were all hoping for, Devin could slowly get to his feet and very possibly walk out of there. If the news went the other way then they would need the cast off in any case so they could perform the surgery.

Because they didn't want to take the chance of jarring his back in any way they couldn't break the cast apart as would usually be done. Instead they had to soak it with water and rags until they could gently remove the mushy plaster. It took nearly two hours to get Devin free.

Devin was getting cranky and impatient at the slowness of the operation. Even Rebecca's attempts to keep him calm started to fail after the first hour. Also, no one had missed the new pet names the two had for each other. Father had started to comment on the informality of it, but Mary gently elbowed him in the ribs to quiet him. The time wore on as they painstakingly removed the cast and Devin's complaints grew. It wasn't until Rebecca threatened to use some surgical tape on his mouth that he grudgingly stopped.

Finally free of the cast, ever-neat Mary, wanted to clean away all the mess, but Devin had had enough! He insisted that if they didn't get their as…Rebecca's rebuking glance stopped him mid word and he changed it to 'get the show on the road' he would get up and move the dam…dang machine himself!

Peter snickered, Father grumbled, Rebecca scolded and Mary cleaned, as Vincent moved the machine into place. The X-ray itself took no time at all and then they were all waiting again as the film developed.

The tension in the hospital chamber had been running high all morning. Everyone had been on edge from the time it had taken to get Devin out of the cast and then the wait for the results. None of that, however, was what had alerted Vincent to the change in Father's demeanor.

The others were talking quietly while Father and Peter read the X-ray. It was almost as if they thought if they ignored the two doctors maybe the news would be good.

To be continued…..