Healing Touch

Chapter Six

"I need to tell you something about Andy," Michael said.

"You don't like that she spends so much time with me, do you?" Jaime asked blatantly and Michael looked at her and nodded.

"I need to explain why," he stated and Jaime waited.

"About a year and a half ago, Andy lost her mother to cancer."

Jaime raised her eyebrow in surprise.

"Her name was Angela Summers. When we discovered she had cancer, it was in the advanced stages and there wasn't much we could do because it had spread to her vital organs. After she died, Andy felt incredibly guilty and she's never stopped blaming herself.

"Angela was the only remaining family member she had. Andy volunteered here at the hospital in hope that she could find healing, then she met you and got a second chance to do what she couldn't do for her mother," he calmly explained.

"I know it's been hard for you, and she's done her best to be there. She's motivated by the loss of her mother because she doesn't want to lose you but Jaime, if something should happen to you, it will tear her apart and this time she may never be able to recover."

Jaime could sense the pain in his words as he explained. She'd wondered countlessly why Andy could stand so much, but she'd never in a million years thought she might have gone through that horrible experience before. Now she understood everything.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Well, now you do. What you do with that information is up to you." After a moment, his expression changed from a concerned friend to a doctor and he said, "I know you've had it rough the last few months, but you've done remarkably well for an outpatient. Now that your chemotherapy is almost over, we'll need to perform a lumpectomy to remove the remaining tumor."

Remarkably well? She'd gone through hell and taken Andy with her.

"Jaime, the procedure will remove the lump and some surrounding tissue of your breast in order for us to confirm that the cancer is gone. After that, we'll do the radiotherapy to make sure that the cancer does not come back."

Jaime closed her eyes, thinking she should have been happy that it was almost over, but she wasn't. "How long afterwards can you do a breast reconstruction surgery?"

"We can do it immediately after the lumpectomy but we need to be sure that the cancer is gone, which is why I'd suggest we do the radiotherapy first then once we're certain that there are no more cancerous cells, we can do the reconstruction surgery." He sounded confident and reassuring and Jaime chose to trust him.

She didn't want to get excited over what could potentially be nothing and wished Andy was there to encourage her and tell her that everything was going to work out just fine. She'd come to rely on her so much she doubted she would have been able to fight the cancer without her constant care and provision of strength.

That was why Michael's earlier words stung her. She'd tried to turn Andy away with no success. Was there anything she could do now that would make a difference?

No, she wasn't strong enough. She needed her for the surgery and the radiotherapy. God knew she couldn't go through with it alone. But didn't that make her selfish? That she needed Andy to be present throughout the whole ordeal?

God, Andy must have gone through a hard time with her own mother trying to undo the inevitable. It was time for Jaime to let her go. Andy had kept her promise and never once wavered.

The only problem was, she couldn't be nice about it because Andy wasn't going to budge quite so easily. Jaime needed to be mean in a manner that Andy wouldn't see through or understand. She needed to hurt Andy so she could let go.