Page 89 of Rebuilding Friendship Inn

Those were words they used to describe how they felt there. Clara wouldn’t have used any of them, and as she took the first step toward the door and then up the steps to the control room, she decided it was time to banish all of her childhood demons.

It would just be part of her internal, personal renovation.

ChapterThirty

Jean’s hands would not stop shaking. Her whole body had been trembling since Miranda had called and said the baby was on her way, and Becky wanted her and Reuben to come.

“Surely she’s been born by now,” she said, not for the first time.

“Maybe,” Reuben said. That was all he’d said every time Jean had suspected the baby had been born already.

They currently rode in a cab to the hospital, and Jean swore they’d hit every red light in the city. They finally arrived, her last nerve fraying rapidly, and she was glad she wasn’t the only one with rushed footsteps. She could barely keep up with her husband as he led them toward the elevators, and then Miranda met them in the waiting area.

Jean’s heartbeat positively stopped, but Miranda shone like a diamond, and she said, “She was born literally three minutes ago.” She reached for Jean’s hand. “They’re giving her a bath, and then she’ll want her mother.”

“Me?” Jean asked, already getting towed along beside Miranda. Her feet felt so clumsy, and she wasn’t sure why she’d chosen now to forget how to walk.

“You,” Miranda said. “Becky doesn’t want to see the baby. So it’s up to you and Reuben to make sure she knows how very loved she is.”

Jean’s throat went dry, though she loved the little girl she hadn’t met yet with her whole heart.

Miranda took her through doors Jean was sure she wouldn’t have been able to go through without her, and then they arrived in the nursery. In the corner, two nurses stood at the sink, and Miranda nodded Reuben and Jean toward them.

Reuben took Jean’s hand now, and they went over to the baby. Both nurses looked over to them. “You must be the mom and dad.”

“Yes,” Jean and Reuben said together, and the nurses parted to reveal the most beautiful baby Jean had ever laid eyes on. Tears filled her vision, blurring everything, and she quickly blinked them away and brushed them back. She didn’t want to miss anything her new daughter did.

Right now, she was being held by two very capable hands while the other nurse carefully spread warm water over her scalp.

“Look,” she said as if Reuben wasn’t. “She’s bald.”

The baby opened her mouth and started to fuss, and the nurses wrapped up the bathing. Her body seemed abnormally small compared to the size of her head, which only made Jean grin wider and wider.

The nurses handled her with care and strength at the same time, and before Jean knew it, they had the baby swaddled and calmed. One of them held her while the other tugged a cap down over her head, adjusting the pale pink band so it sat just above the girl’s closed eyes.

“Here you go, Mama.” The woman smiled and passed the baby to Jean without hesitation. Jean had held plenty of babies in her lifetime, but this one was different.

This one was hers.

She smiled down at the precious little girl, tears coming to her eyes again. She let them this time, because she’d never thought she’d be standing in a hospital, holding a baby she’d get to take home with her.

“Look at her, Reuben,” she said again, this time in a whisper.

In true Reuben fashion, he put one big hand on Jean’s lower back and one on their baby’s chest, right over her heart. He practically covered her whole body, and she grunted with his touch. She turned her head toward Jean, and she tucked her in tightly, and whispered, “We’re here, baby. We love you so much.”

“Do you have a name for her?” A different nurse stood there, and Reuben cleared his throat.

“Yes,” he said. “Heidi Lynn Shields.”

The nurse’s pen scratched, and she kept asking questions for the birth certificate and legal documents for the adoption. They wouldn’t be able to put their names on the birth certificate until the court hearing in six months, but Jean’s heart didn’t care about any of that.

She loved Heidi with everything inside her, and she couldn’t wait to introduce her to everyone important in her life.

Once Reuben finished with the paperwork, Jean went with him to a separate nursery room. He sat, and Jean passed him their baby. “Smile,” she said, and she tugged her phone out of her dress pocket.

Reuben wore sunshine and heaven in his eyes as he grinned first at Heidi and then Jean. She tapped and snapped several pictures, then he bent his head to kiss the baby tenderly on the head. She captured a picture of that too, and looked at the sweetness shining from the photo.

“Let’s do a selfie,” she said. He shifted the baby to the side so Jean could sit on his lap too. She held her arm out as far as she could, and he moved Heidi up to his shoulder so she’d be in the picture too.

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