To Save This Child. Darlene Graham
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crossed to one of the chairs facing the desk and lowered herself into it. “I’m afraid you’ll have to find a new interpreter for the Mexico trip.”
“Really? Why?” His face was intent, serious. All hints of the teasing Dr. Bridges was gone. She had to hand it too him. The man had infallible instincts.
“I’ve got to have surgery. Doc Marshall said the sooner the better.”
“Marshall? It’s a G.I. thing?”
“Gallbladder.” Kathy felt her face heat up. Fat, fifty and flatulent, that’s what she was. “He’ll do a laparoscopy, of course. No big deal. But I thought I’d better get it over with while the office is going to be shut down for three weeks. I’m sorry. I really hate to leave you without an interpreter. And on such short notice.”
“Don’t sweat it.” His gentle, compassionate tone made Kathy feel all the worse for letting him down. She wished he’d say something smart-alecky now.
But instead he crossed to her chair and squeezed her shoulder with his large, warm palm. “Your health comes first. I’ll find another interpreter. No problem.”
But it was going to be a big problem, Kathy knew. Jason Bridges understood Spanish, of course, but the Mayan cadences of the dialect spoken in the Chiapas region were tricky. Especially when the patient was a frightened peasant or when Jason started firing off fast and furious instructions to the local help. An interpreter who could put the patients at ease was critical. Finding somebody with the right combination of medical knowledge and compassion was going to be really tough. And finding somebody willing to endure the physical discomfort of the region, the daily rigors of Jason’s mission, was going to be an even bigger problem. An enormous problem. But problems didn’t stop Jason Bridges. He plowed through them like a machete through jungle growth.
Jason didn’t want to make Kathy feel any worse than she already did, but she knew he was thinking, Where? Where on earth would they find someone who could drop everything to hop on his private plane to Mexico in only one week?
“I’m sure I can find someone,” he repeated.
“I know I shouldn’t even ask,” Kathy glanced up at him, wincing. “But I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d postpone this trip? I’ll be good as new in a couple of months.”
Jason stepped around his desk to a giant topographical map of Mexico that was anchored to the wall. Just looking at the thing made him wonder what fresh atrocities Benicio Vajaras had inflicted on the people in the Tzeltal villages around San Cristóbal.
“Right here—” he tapped the area at the bottom where Mexico funneled into Central America “—we have good old Jose and his family. And their baby girl, Chiquita.”
Kathy rolled her eyes.
“Chiquita’s a sweet-tempered child,” he went on, “even if she is named after a banana. Smart, healthy in every respect. Except, of course, for that harelip splitting her face in half.”
Kathy frowned. He knew she was seeing the parade of such children they’d treated in the past three years. And others, too. Older children who had been maimed by the faceless monster named Vajaras. Parents who had been wounded in armed combat. Sometimes Jason felt like a surgeon patching up a tide of wounded on a battlefield. Only he fought this war year in, year out. Because his enemies were not only endless disease and poverty, but the cruelty and inhumanity of a ruthless overlord.
“So—” Jason focused his gaze on the map “—at this late date, Jose and Rosita have already loaded up the rental donkey and are making the arduous trip—” he ran his finger over the mountainous region on the map in a slow, twisting path north “—in the hope of getting a miracle for their baby.” He flashed a wicked smile at Kathy. “Cancel? Don’t think so.”
“Then the least I can do is help you find my replacement. I want you to know—” she glanced over at him again, this time with apology in her eyes “—that I only found out about this on Friday.”
“Maybe I can locate an interpreter in the region,” he offered. The Miami-style hotels facing the turquoise ocean in Cancún were crawling with bright young bilingual Mexicans looking for ways to improve their economic status. But even crossing the border without a Spanish-speaking cohort could be very risky, especially when you were trafficking medical supplies and drugs and sharp instruments past Mexican customs.
“Even if you can hire some bright kid to travel across the peninsula to the Chiapas clinic, if he or she doesn’t have a medical background…” Kathy left the rest unsaid—that such a person couldn’t adequately explain the strange and frightening procedures to the patients. She stood, facing her boss. “I really am sorry.”
“It can’t be helped.” Jason walked around the desk and gave her shoulder another reassuring pat. “Now get your behind back out to salt mines.” He winked at her.
“Watch it. I’ll turn you in for harassment.” Kathy quipped as she walked to the door. She paused with her hand on the knob. “I hate leaving you with this snafu.”
“Go drown your guilt with a cookie, Martinez.” He flapped a dismissing palm at her.
“Hold it. I do know someone who speaks fluent Spanish, who might even understand the Chiapas dialects. What was that drug rep’s name? The one who brought the cookies?”
“Kendal Collins?” He’d seen the woman around the hospital. Something about Kendal Collins had definitely snagged his interest.
“Yeah.” Seeming excited, Kathy hurried back to his desk. “Could I see that card you stuck in your pocket?”
He swiveled the desk chair to his coatrack and dug in the vest pocket of the leather jacket. “Kendal Collins speaks Spanish?”
Kathy took the card. “Yeah. Can I keep this until tomorrow? I might be too swamped to call her until this evening.”
“You’re going to ask this little drug rep to go to Mexico?”
“No. I’m offering her the open brunch slot. She’s on your waiting list. You’ll at least need to make an appearance. Maybe if we do her a favor, she’ll do us one.”
He nodded. The drug reps lined up to get his ear. There was never enough time to listen to everybody, never enough time for anything, which was why he wanted Martinez to cut the blather and split.
“It’s worth a shot. Now beat it, Martinez.”
Kathy closed the door with a quiet click and a smile.
Jason finished the charts, then sank back in his desk chair with a worried frown. He wondered how long Kathy’s gallbladder had been acting up. She never missed a day of work. Sometimes he felt guilty for pushing his staff too hard.
But he didn’t push anyone any harder than he pushed himself. It seemed the only thing that gave him any peace was healing the scarred and hurting.
He closed his eyes. He had been too young, too dumb, to save Amy. The pain had dulled with the passage of time, of course, but on some level the tragedy haunted him every day. Every scarred face was Amy’s. Every broken nose, every collapsed eye socket, every deformed palette…every burn contracture. He cut and stitched and mended as if he were trying to repair the past. It was like a giant, lifelong undo. But what had happened to Amy could never be undone. No matter how hard he worked, it would never be enough.
He placed his open palm on the stack of charts before him. Still, he could save these. And the ones in Mexico. One case at a time. One life at a time.
CHAPTER TWO
ON THE NIGHT of her thirty-first birthday, Kendal Collins sank into her giant Jetta tub until the bubbles grazed her chin. After brooding for one full, uninterrupted minute, she slowly raised a limp hand from the sudsy water and picked up one of the heart-shaped gourmet cookies she’d stashed at the side of tub. She unpeeled the cellophane wrapper, then thoughtfully nibbled the sinful treat.