Heather stepped between them. “You two have got to learn to get along better. Neither Mom nor I will be here to referee.”
“Referee what?” Janet stepped into Heather’s room. She kissed her husband and he slid his arm around her.
“The dynamic duo.” Heather inclined her head toward Amber and their father.
“We’re going to be fine,” Ted said, leveling a look at Amber that dared her to disagree.
“I hope so,” Janet said. “I received my itinerary from the FACES organization today, and I’ve got quite a surgical schedule facing me. First we go to the hospital in Lwereo for two weeks.”
“Alice will be Mom’s first patient,” Heather said, waving a letter. “Paul and Jodene are thrilled. You’re going to love them, Mom.”
“I’m sure. But afterward I head to Kampala, where I’ll have four weeks straight of nonstop surgery. Not only will I have local residents, but they’re bussing in refugees from Rwanda and Sudan as well. Lots of children with deformities, but also plenty with war injuries. I hope I’m up to the task.”
Ted gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You’re up to it.”
“I wish you were going with me.”
“Next time.”
Amber’s stomach tightened. Not once had anyone in her family glanced her way as they made their plans. She was invisible.
“I’m staying with Paul and Jodene the whole time,” Heather said.
“I’d rather we weren’t separated,” Janet said, “but you really are better off at the Children’s Home. By the end of each day I’ll be ready to drop, so I really won’t be fit company for you.”
“I’ll have plenty to do in Lwereo, believe me. Boyce will keep me company.”
Amber listened to Heather and her mother make plans, heard her father interject a comment now and again. They never once looked at her, never once asked her a question. She was Amber, the Nonexistent One. Without a word she slipped from the room, and no one seemed to notice.
An unfamiliar sound awakened Amber in the middle of the night. She pulled her pillow over her head, but the noise intruded. She sat up, listened. It sounded as if someone was being sick in the bathroom. From beneath the bathroom door that adjoined her and Heather’s bedrooms, Amber saw a fine line of light breaking the darkness in her room. She threw off her covers and padded to the door.
She knocked softly. “Sis? Is that you?”
No answer, only the sound of retching.
Amber knocked a second time. “Heather, are you okay?”
The sound stopped, but the quiet sent an ominous chill up Amber’s spine. She twisted the doorknob and eased the door open. She blinked in the glaring light and stifled a scream. On the floor, Heather lay unconscious, her blood staining the toilet bowl and the pristine white tiles like a ring of bright red fire.
6
Amber had been around hospitals all her life, but she had never been so unprepared as she was in the emergency room that night waiting to hear word of her sister. Hours before, when she’d discovered Heather on the bathroom floor, she’d run yelling into their parents’ room. She’d awakened them, followed them back down the hall, listened to them as they worked on Heather, bouncing between the roles of terrified parents and seasoned medical professionals. An ambulance had been called, and Heather, still unconscious, had been whisked away.
“Stay here!” Ted Barlow had barked as he and Janet climbed into the ambulance with Heather and the paramedics.
“No way,” Amber had muttered beneath her breath as the ambulance screeched out of the circular driveway. She had hopped into her car and followed the screaming ambulance through the late-night streets to the sprawling Jackson Memorial Hospital complex, where she now paced, frightened and trembling, across the floor of the emergency room waiting area.
The wall clock told her it was three A.M., but based on the number of people waiting to be treated, it could have been the middle of the afternoon. Old people, young people, sick people, and some who looked perfectly well sat in rows of chairs, talking, crying, drinking endless cups of coffee bought from a vending machine. The admittance desk had a line of people waiting to be processed. At the end of the hall stood the doors to the triage area, which had swallowed up Amber’s family hours before.
Amber had begged a busy nurse to tell her parents she was in the waiting room, but she had no way of knowing if they’d gotten the message. She figured her father would be angry with her for coming, but she didn’t care. Surely he must realize that Amber couldn’t have sat at home waiting for the phone to ring. Surely her mom had to know how scared Amber must be. Once again she felt invisible, as if her feelings and concerns didn’t count for anything with her parents.
She had almost screwed up her courage to barge through the triage doors when she saw her father coming toward her, looking worried and exhausted. She rushed to meet him. “How’s Heather? What happened to her?”
“We got the bleeding stopped, but we still don’t know what’s caused it. She’s going upstairs into Internal Medicine’s ICU, and we’ll begin more extensive tests tomorrow.”
“Sh-She’s not coming home?”
“She’s taken a unit of whole blood since we’ve been here. She can’t go home until we get to the bottom of this.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Upstairs with Heather.”
“Can I see Heather?”
Ted raked a hand through his already disheveled hair. “I came to take you to her.”
They hurried to the elevator and rode up in silence. Amber shivered, more from tension and fear than from cold. “Are you mad at me for coming?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I know you’re worried too.”
“I am, Daddy. I really am. Th-There was so much blood. . . .” Her voice broke and she began to cry.
Her father put his arms around her and held her. “I’m mad at myself,” he said against her hair. “I should have had her in for a thorough physical exam when she returned from Africa.”
Amber lifted her head. “You think going to Africa made her sick?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible, though.”
Amber’s mind spun at the implication. Heather had lived half her life with the dream of going to Africa. How cruel it would be if the fulfillment of her dream was the source of her illness. “Maybe it’s just the flu or something,” she mumbled.
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open.
“Maybe,” her father echoed.
They walked down the dimly lit hall hand in hand, his grip telling Amber that he didn’t believe for a minute that Heather had a complicated case of the flu. Amber didn’t believe it either, but it was the only straw of hope she had to grasp at.
Three days later, after a battery of tests and no definitive answers, Heather was released from the hospital and sent home. She was restricted to bed rest and a bland diet, neither of which she welcomed. “I don’t feel like staying in bed,” she told her mother. “And I don’t want anything to eat.”
“Since when are your doctor’s orders up for debate?” Janet asked, fluffing the bed pillows.
“But I feel fine.”
Amber, who was busy sorting through a stack of videos she’d rented for Heather to watch, listened but kept her opinions to herself. Heather’s mysterious malady had given all of them a real scare, and to Amber’s way of thinking, it seemed as if Heather’s doctors had let them down by not discovering the source of her abdominal pain and bleeding. Their parents were frustrated and baffled as well, but without a diagnosis, they could do nothing more than keep a close watch on Heather. Amber knew that Heather still had pain because she sometimes saw Heather grimace. And despite Dolores’s secret recipe for delicious chicken soup, Heather still wasn’t eating properly.
Janet put her hands on her hips and in a no-nonsense voice said, “You will stay in bed, young lady, until you return for a checkup at the end of the week. If your doctor gives you permission to resume regular activities at that time, t
hen you may. End of discussion. Now, I’ve got to return to my office; I have a consultation at five. If you need anything, ring for Dolores. Or ask Amber. Once school’s out for the day, she’ll be your personal slave. Right, Amber?”
Amber curtsied. “Just snap your fingers and I’ll do your bidding, Cinderella.”
Heather made a face. “I don’t want to be waited on. I’ve still got things to do before we leave next week.”
Janet’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“But the trip—”
“Is out. Don’t argue,” Janet added firmly when Heather opened her mouth. “Even if you were well, which you aren’t, your immune system is weakened. Africa is no place for someone who isn’t one hundred percent physically healthy. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”
Amber came over to the bed, reading the shock and disappointment in Heather’s face. “How about you, Mom? Will you go?”
“I’ve got a call in to the FACES head-quarters to explain that I’m dropping out. They’ll understand.”
“But people are counting on you!” Heather cried. “You can’t cancel. Don’t you understand? You’re the hope for a normal life for Alice, for lots of children over there. You have to go!”
“I have to stay home and take care of my daughter,” Janet answered calmly.
“But I have doctors to take care of me. Isn’t that so?” Heather protested. “And Dad will be here. He won’t let anything happen to me. Please go.”
“I don’t want to go alone. I only agreed to go in the first place because you wanted it so much. I was going because of you, Heather. And because I could do some good, but you were the impetus to get me to Uganda.”
“But you gave your word. Jodene and Paul are expecting us.”
Heather began to cry, and Amber shot their mother an anguished look.
“No one expects a mother to go off and leave her sick child,” Janet said, attempting to soothe Heather. “Others will go. Someone will fill in for me. You’ll see.”
“But we already have our airplane tickets— expensive tickets. Are you going to just throw them away?”
“The money is the least of my concerns. I don’t like backing out either, honey, but you are my first priority. What kind of a help would I be if I was thinking about you day and night? Listen, I’ll make a deal with you. You get well and get your doctor’s okay, and we’ll go later.”
“But Alice can’t wait. She needs her surgery now—before she learns to talk. You know kids with cleft palates have serious speech problems. You’re sentencing her to a lifetime of ridicule.”
“That’s not fair, Heather. Don’t lay a guilt trip on me because I’m choosing you over a needy baby.”
“I’ll go in Heather’s place.” Heather and Janet swiveled toward Amber. She lifted her chin and repeated her statement.
“That’s impossible.” Janet waved her hand in dismissal.
“Wait,” Heather said, leaning forward. “Hear her out, Mom.”
Amber took a breath. “I know what you’re going to say, Mom. ‘You have school.’ Well, I only have about six weeks of classes left, and everyone knows we seniors are just marking time in our final days. As for my grades, they’re passable. B’s in everything except chemistry, and that’s a high C. What if I talk to each of my teachers and get their permission to take my finals early? If they say yes, that should take care of your and Dad’s objection about school, shouldn’t it?”
“Amber, it’s your senior year. You’re getting ready to graduate. You’ll miss out on all the fun.”
“What fun? Toilet-papering the campus for our senior prank? Having the principal threatening to hold back our diplomas until the culprits confess? I don’t mind missing that.”
“Your offer’s generous,” Janet said with a shake of her head. “But I still can’t go halfway around the world while Heather’s in a medical crisis.”
“I accept Amber’s offer,” Heather blurted out. “It’s the next best thing to going myself. And I’ll be a lot more agreeable, a lot more cooperative, if I know the two of you are going ahead with our plans.”
“I don’t know. . . . Your father—”
“Think about it,” Heather urged. “Send Dad to talk to me. He’ll agree.”
Amber stepped back, her heart hammering. Heather was doing the job of persuasion without her help, and she thought it best to leave it that way. Her offer had been genuine, and while she wasn’t all that crazy about hanging out in Africa for six weeks, she’d do anything to help her sister. She was finished with high school anyway. Just that morning she’d learned that Dylan had asked Jeannie to the prom. Not that Amber had wanted to go with him after the way he’d been treating her. However, she knew that going to Africa would not only make Heather happy, it would also release her from the social shame of being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend. Amber gave her sister an encouraging smile, knowing that while she might not be able to save the world, at least, for the time being, she could save herself.
It was Ted Barlow who came up with the solution for his wife to be in constant communication with him and Heather. “A special technically advanced satellite system phone,” he said at the next evening’s family meeting, held in Heather’s room. “How do you think journalists and disaster relief workers communicate when they disappear into parts of the world without normal means of communication? International wireless cell phones use low-Earth-orbit satellites to send and receive signals. We’ll get one for you, honey. No need for you to be cut off from us. You can call anytime to check on Heather, plus we can call you, too.”
“But what if I’m in surgery when you call and I don’t hear the phone ring?”
“We can get you an international pager if that will make you feel more comfortable. I’ll leave you a voice mail, and you can pick it up whenever you’re back to the phone.”
“Mom, it sounds like the answer to my prayers,” Heather said. “You can keep your word to FACES and stay in touch. We can talk every night if you want. I mean, after you take into account the seven-hour time difference.”
“The FACES organization did sound disappointed when I called them,” Janet said. “They said the hospitals where I was being sent were already taking applications for surgeries. Plus other doctors were coming to observe.”
“Doesn’t sound as if backing out is going to be easy,” Ted said.
“Don’t let them down, Mom,” Heather pleaded. “I’ll be the best patient in the world while you’re gone. And I’ll get well, too. I promise.”
Amber sensed that her mother was wavering, so she cleared her throat and stepped forward. “I got a verbal okay from every one of my teachers.” She didn’t mention that her chemistry teacher had insisted she turn in a theory paper before she left. Or that her English teacher had demanded a ten-page report on Chaucer.
“Now, hold on,” her father said. “I’m not in favor of you going. But there’s no reason for your mother to back out. We both know the difficulties in picking up a qualified surgeon at the last minute. So, with her commitment made and the phone problem covered, I believe she should go. As for you—”
“But I want to go,” Amber said, knowing that this had to be the most persuasive speech she had ever made. “I can help do the work Heather had agreed to do. And I can keep Mom company.” She looked her father in the eye. “I could tell you that it’s a great educational opportunity for me, but you probably wouldn’t buy it. I could promise that I’ll be perfect and not cause any problems, but you wouldn’t believe that, either. But, Dad, Mom, I want this more than anything I’ve wanted in a long, long time. I want to go with Mom to Uganda. Say yes, Dad. I’m begging you—will you please let me go in Heather’s place?”
7
It wasn’t until Amber was well over the Atlantic Ocean ten days later that she could take a deep breath and relax. She considered all that she’d had to accomplish to accompany her mother to Uganda. In school she’d finished two papers and six exams i
n five days and three all-nighters. She’d passed everything, not much caring about the grades, only wanting to leave the high-school scene far behind.
She’d gotten the immunizations necessary for travel to Africa, told her friends she’d see them at graduation, and pointedly ignored Dylan. She’d heard through the grapevine that he and Jeannie had been at each other’s throats and that he was avoiding the girl. Amber couldn’t say she was sorry to hear the news.
With school behind her, she’d spent two days shopping, then packing under Heather’s watchful and often teary gaze.
“I’d give anything in the world to be going,” Heather had said.
“You just concentrate on getting well. Who knows? If your checkup goes okay, maybe you can talk Dad into flying you over to join us.”
“Maybe.”
But Amber didn’t believe that would happen. Heather still had terrible abdominal cramps, and although her doctor had switched her medication twice, she had difficulty keeping food down.
Amber had listened to everything her sister told her about Africa—which was plenty. She learned names and faces from photographs of the people Heather cared about, the kinds of food to avoid, the way Africans kept time (“They don’t. They just show up whenever they feel like it.”) and, by poring over a map, learned the various regions Heather thought she might enjoy visiting. Amber had taken notes and made silent promises to herself never to venture any farther than she had to. She wasn’t the least bit excited about facing outdoor bathrooms and rainwater showers, but she’d never let on to her sister.
“I’ll be your eyes and ears,” she’d promised the night before leaving.
“Better yet, be my heart,” Heather had told her.
Amber and her mother had boarded a five P.M. flight to London, settled into their first-class seats, and buckled their seat belts. Amber’s last image of home had been the city of Miami spread out like colorful confetti along a shoreline of glittering green water as the plane soared toward the clouds. Her last image of Heather had been of her holding their father’s hand, sobbing and throwing them kisses from the gangway.
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