Three and a half hours later Carmen is sitting at the desk with her headphones on working on some mixes and Shane is sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of water in one hand while she stares at her phone.

Carmen looks over and sighs. Shane has been sitting there for almost three hours and looks like death warmed over, so Carmen gets up and walks over to her. She puts her hands on Shane’s shoulders and starts to massage them.

“Hey there Casper, are you hungry? I know you’re nervous but you need to eat.”

Shane gently shrugs off her girlfriend’s hands. She doesn’t feel like being touched right now.

“I’m not hungry. What’s with the ‘Casper’ thing?”

“Casper! The friendly ghost? Ghosts are pale and you’re looking really pale right now so—get it? But you aren’t acting too friendly right now so maybe it wasn’t a good comparison.” Carmen feels frustrated again so she goes over to the fridge and pulls out the orange juice.

“Sorry,” Shane mumbles, “I’m not trying to be mean its just, well why hasn’t she called? I mean she said today, what’s taking so long?”

“Babe I’m sure there is a lot of red tape and paperwork to deal with. I’m sure she will call as soon as she can.”

Shane has a frown on her face so Carmen walks over to her again and pulls the shaggy head into her chest. She gives her s soft kiss on the head and then Shane looks up at her and pats her legs.

“Come here, sit on my lap.”

Carmen smiles and gladly obliges. She straddles Shane and wraps her arms around her neck. Shane lets her head rest on Carmen’s shoulder and inhales deeply.

“How do you always smell so good?” she asks.

Carmen laughs and answers, “It’s easy when you don’t smoke a pack a day. You should try it sometime.”

Shane pulls away and is about to protest but all of a sudden her cell phone starts ringing.

Shane reaches past Carmen and answers the phone—eyes wide and body stiff.

“Hello?” She says.

“Hey Shane it’s Julie. Can you meet me at the group home in a half hour? Everything checked out so you can get him tonight if you like.”

“Yeah, no tonight works great,” She smiles up at Carmen, who cocks her head to one side and smiles back. “We will be there in a half hour. Ok bye, see you then.”

Shane hangs up the phone and then scoops Carmen into her arms and stands up.

“Shane what are you doing?” Carmen says while laughing. “You better not drop me!”

Shane smiles back. “I would never do that to you, Carmen. Are you ready to go? Can we leave now?”

Carmen chuckles and thinks about how similar this situation is to bringing a new baby home—you get the room ready and make sure all the matches and sharp objects are put away; then you wait for what seems like forever and then all of the sudden its here and it’s time to bring the new one home. She knows she shouldn’t think like this because, well Shane probably would never even want kids, but she can’t help but hope that maybe someday they will get to do this all over again with a baby of their own.

“Yeah I’m ready, let’s go.”