Mending the Doctor's Heart

by Sophia Sasson

  “...but I need someone who has a background in pediatrics,” Linda was saying. The sound of crying babies and high-pitched little voices made Anna freeze. Filled wall-to-wall with children of all ages, the tent suddenly spun around her. Older children were sitting on cots, while younger ones played and crawled around on the dirt floor. Mothers held tiny babies and stared at her as she took it all in. She shivered. The flash of a sweet face burned her eyes, and she jolted at the memory of a cold little body in her arms. No. No, no, no, no!

  Linda kept talking. “I have my hands full. No one has evaluated these children since they were brought here, and most of the—”

  “I...can’t.” Is that my voice? “Listen, I’m not sure what you were told, but I don’t treat children. That’s the only thing I won’t do. You can assign me to the burn unit, send me out into the field to do body recovery... I’m game for anything else, but I don’t treat children.”

  Linda put her hands on her hips. “Dr. Atao, you’re a pediatrician! Need I remind you that we’re in the middle of a disaster here? You don’t get to pick where you work, and we have a tent full of children who need attending to.”

  Anna’s chest tightened, but she forced herself to meet Linda’s eyes. “I have an understanding with the PHS that I don’t treat children anymore. I—”

  “Are you refusing an order?”

  A child’s wail pierced through her. Her muscles tightened. Technically her understanding with the PHS was just that, an unwritten agreement. Her boss knew what had happened with Lucas, and her orders usually had a note attached about not assigning her young children to work with. It had never been an issue, not once in all her deployments. And perhaps in another place she could have handled it... But not here on Guam.

  She shook her head. “I’m really sorry, I’ll do anything else. I just can’t...”

  Linda wasn’t listening. One of the staff in the tent had handed her a writhing infant. “The paramedics are a little concerned about this baby. You’re the only one who has any pediatrics training.”

  Linda extended her arms, ready to transfer the little body into Anna’s.

  Anna stepped back. There was definitely something wrong with the infant; she looked a little blue around the lips. A cold hand squeezed her heart and her brain shut down. All she could see was a still little body, his skin cold as ice.

  “Give her oxygen now, check blood gases and listen to her heart for murmurs,” she choked out.

  She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were squeezed shut, no air would go in or come out. She turned and ran outside, desperate for oxygen. As soon as she’d cleared the tent, she put her head between her knees trying to calm down enough to get air into her lungs.

  “No. No. No. No. No!” She barely realized she was chanting the words.

  Her chest burned as she gasped for air. Everything spun around her. Her knees buckled and she fell, scraping her hands. She sat on the muddy ground and closed her eyes, picturing herself in the depths of the ocean, imagining the schools of fish going about their business, corals moving with the currents. One of her PHS colleagues had suggested taking up scuba diving. The hobby had given her the muscle memory she needed to control her breathing and the ability to close her senses and focus on a visual. A way to cope. To be a functional human being again.

  Three hundred and thirty-six hours, and then she could leave.

  She opened her eyes. Linda was standing with one hand on her hip, the other holding out a little cup of water.

  Anna drank even though she wasn’t thirsty. She knew the act of swallowing would force her diaphragm to relax and slow her breathing.

  “Are you dismissing me?” Anna wheezed out.

  “I should. But besides you, I’m the only doctor here. The local nurses and paramedics have barely enough training to help. I haven’t slept in over a day.” She blew out a breath. “I have to deal with you until reinforcements arrive. But this will be noted in your record.”

  Anna didn’t care about a reprimand in her file. “I’m a competent doctor. I can deal with just about anything other than children. It’s personal.”

  Linda sighed, clearly frustrated but resigned. She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “Guess I need to go treat those kids.” She pointed to an area where people were erecting more tents. So far the camp had about twenty, but just in the time Anna had been walking around, a new one had been put up.

  “I’ve already checked on everyone to this point.” Linda gestured to the tents at the periphery. “I need you to start with those who arrived in the last two hours. They’ve been put in tent twenty-four. The paramedics who’ve been helping triage have been instructed to start putting people in tents as they’re built.”

  Linda turned to walk away.

  “Dr. Tucker, I have one more request.”

  Linda turned, her brows furrowed with impatience.

  “I have some family here in Guam, and I don’t know whether they’re okay. Can I go check on them?” Anna hadn’t meant to sound desperate, but Linda’s frown softened.

  “Start by checking the roster to see if they’re here.” She glanced at her watch. “Can you go in after seeing the backlogged patients? I need a few hours of sleep.” Her tone was almost pleading.

  Anna nodded. She’d been waiting for almost two days. A few more hours wouldn’t make a difference. Not to Nico.

  She parted ways with Linda and went to the medical command to ask the clerk for the roster of patients.

  “I’m still transferring the paper logs to the computer. Check in later.”

  “Can you see if there was anyone by the last name Atao?” she said softly. The clerk looked up, eyeing the nameplate on her right breast pocket. He nodded, then tapped on the keyboard and shook his head.

  “No one so far. I’ll come find you if I see that name appear in the paper logs or the new arrivals.”

  Anna thanked him.

  “We’re not the only medical camp around the island. I’ll ask the others when I make my status calls.”

  Tears stung her eyes at the pity in his voice. She stood straight, thanked him, then turned. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane. Couldn’t stop herself from imagining all the scenarios she would face on Guam. Still, she was alert and eager to get to work.

  The tents were filled to capacity. A standard issue tent could comfortably take twenty patients, but there were easily more than forty per tent. Each person shared his or her narrow cot with one or two others, taking as little space as they could so there was room for everyone. Anna introduced herself to the local paramedic, Jared, who was assigned to watch over the tent, and got right to work. Most people had broken bones and wounds of various sorts, which the paramedic had bandaged. A dialysis patient was worried about how he would manage. Anna figured the patient could comfortably make it another day or two before he would get toxic; hopefully resources would arrive by then. The first days after a disaster were always the hardest.

  The young paramedic with curly black hair and dark eyes followed her from patient to patient, chatting away.

  “My cousins are helping get the airport fixed,” Jared told her. “There’s so much junk on the runway, Lando—that’s my uncle—had to go get a garbage truck to haul it all out.”

  Anna knew that one of the reasons so few resources had made it to the island was that helicopters were very inefficient. They could only carry so much weight to conserve fuel for the long journey back to Japan or the Philippines. The neighboring Marshall Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands—CNMI—had also been badly damaged in the tsunami.

  “What about the military base?” Anna inquired as she drained the infected wound of an older woman.

  “They were also damaged. They’re repairing the base and sent an engineer to direct the efforts to fix up the airpo
rt, but there aren’t a lot of people on base.”

  Anna nodded. Five years ago she had pleaded with the garrison officer on the air force base and each of the two navy bases, but they hadn’t been able to help her. They’d been stretched thin with troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan and there were no helicopters to transport Lucas off the island, no cardiac surgeons at the military hospital to perform the operation that could have saved his life.

  “Have there been a lot of casualties?” Anna asked out of earshot of the patients as they went to get more supplies.

  Jared shrugged. “It’s hard to say right now. We had a brief warning from Hawaii saying they detected an earthquake off their coast, so we told everyone to take shelter inland, but not everyone made it. We’re seeing a lot of rescuer injuries.”

  Her stomach roiled. Knowing Nico, he’d be out there putting himself at risk.

  Once she was done gathering supplies, she moved on to the next tent, scanning every face for the one she knew so well. Yet another paramedic assisted her as she checked each patient in the overflowing tent. The hours sped by as more tents were put up, additional workers arrived and patients who’d been waiting in a triage area outdoors were moved to shelter.

  Anna was surprised to see it was already dark when she came out of the last tent. People were still coming in, but she’d visited every patient at least once and discharged several after bandaging their wounds. She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease out the tension. She’d been on the island for five hours and forty minutes. She wondered whether she should try to find Linda or just inform the medical command clerk that she was heading to Tumon Bay to check on Nico. He’s probably okay. Still, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach.

  A shout grabbed her attention. “We have incoming, they need a doctor. Now!”

  Anna ran to the triage area, where a group of new arrivals were gathered. A man yelled, “Ayuda, ayuda.”

  Anna stepped up and placed a hand on the man’s shoulders. “I will help you. Tell me what’s wrong,” she said in Chamorro.

  The man blinked rapidly. “A car fell on this man.” He pointed across the field. Anna turned and asked the clerk to go find Linda and anyone else who was available. The damage from the tsunami was astounding; she’d seen a boat perched on top of a tree. In such cases, secondary accidents after the disaster injured more people than the event itself. She followed the shouting man away from the camp. They got to the main road, which was blocked by a big tree. On the other side of the trunk was a farm tractor with a wagon attached.

  “Anna?”

  She turned toward the familiar voice, momentarily blinded by the lights of the tractor. Is that really her? She shielded her eyes from the glare. Her chest squeezed painfully.

  “Nana?” she said. Nana was what Nico called his mother. What Anna had once called the small woman standing before her. Nana stepped forward, blocking the light from the tractor. She looked exactly as she had five years ago, her curly gray hair pinned in a bun, standing tall in her five-foot frame.

  “Anna!” She closed the distance between them, then reached out and clasped Anna’s hands, her eyes wild. “Please, you must help Nico.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  ANNA RAN TOWARD the tractor. The giant tree that blocked the roadway lay there, dark and ominous. Branches and limbs tore at her bare arms as she scrambled over the trunk. The thin cloth of her scrub pants tore as she made her way over the top. She barely felt the sting of the scrapes on her knees. Still blinded from the glare of the headlights, all she could see were shapes of people milling about. She scooted her way down a branch; it was too high to jump down. A shadowy figure approached at a run.

  She used her hands to propel her body downward a little faster, ignoring the protests of her damaged skin. Just as she got close enough to jump the rest of the way, a pair of powerful hands grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down, slamming her into a hard chest. The smell of Irish Spring soap and sweat filled her nose, a scent as familiar to her as her own perfume. He held on to her even after she had a firm footing on the concrete.

  “Anna!” Her heart thudded against her chest. She collapsed against him, relief flooding through her like someone had hit the release valve on a pressure cooker about to blow. He was alive. His strong arms held up her boneless body. Drawing her close, he rubbed his cheek against her head and her heart flooded with warmth.

  “Oh God, Anna, it’s really you.” His voice was husky, and he pulled her even closer. The feel of his body against hers, so familiar and yet so distant, tugged her back into reality.

  She pushed away, the words out of her mouth before she raised her face to look at him. “Nico!”

  He stared down at her. His height had always been the talk of the island, a trait no doubt inherited from his white father.

  Their eyes locked, her blue-gray ones pinned to his soft brown.

  “You came back?” His voice was low, the words a little broken.

  Something burned through her. Her legs weakened, threatening to buckle underneath her.

  She stepped back, out of his reach. “I had to come for my job.” There was a slight tremor in her voice.

  His eyes shifted. She stared pointedly behind him, eager to look away. “You need to come with me, Tito is hurt.”

  She followed him to the wagon behind the tractor and climbed up to the platform. Nico’s cousin Tito was on the back of the wagon. He had an obvious open femur fracture, the bone protruding from his leg at an odd angle. Someone held a cloth to the wound, pressing on it to stop the bleeding.

  “Anna, is that you?” Tito groaned in pain.

  Anna smiled reassuringly at him. She’d been fond of Tito. He was slightly shorter than her but what he lacked in height, he made up for in width. “Yes, it’s me, Tito. Looks like I’m gonna have to save you again.”

  “You came back for Nico?”

  Anna shook her head, wishing she’d had the forethought to bring her medical bag. Her stethoscope was still miraculously around her neck. She took it off and began listening to his chest.

  “Good! ’Cause he ain’t available no more.”

  Anna took the stethoscope out of her ears. Did I hear him correctly? Tito groaned again and Anna cast around for something she could use to reduce the fracture. She spied a blanket in the corner of the wagon and pieces of rope, used to secure animals, hanging from the side rails. She picked up the blanket and wrapped Tito’s fractured leg. He howled in pain, but Anna knew there was no other way. They wouldn’t be able to safely transport him to the camp if she didn’t reduce the fracture first.

  As she untied a rope, she spoke to the group of men who had come with Tito, avoiding eye contact with Nico.

  “Okay, we need to make a manual hare traction splint.” She took the rope and tied it to the ends of the blanket. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to reduce a femur fracture in the field. The last one had been in a rice paddy in Thailand. At least she was on dry ground this time. She finished constructing the makeshift splint. “I’m going to pull on this rope. I need you men to hold Tito down.”

  “What? No! This woman is gonna kill me!” The men ignored Tito and two of them kneeled on the floor, bracing themselves on either side of the injured man.

  Anna grabbed the rope and balanced her footing. She pulled as hard as she could, keeping an eye on the bone, watching for the shift in the bulge telling her she’d snapped it back into place. She grunted, increasing the pressure on the rope. Tito screamed.

  Nico wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing his body close to her with the familiarity of a husband. Heat spread through her but she ignored how well she fit against him. He put his hands on top of hers and yanked with her. The bone fell into place and she held the rope taut. She could feel the warmth of Nico’s body against her back. The hair on his arms pricked her ski
n.

  “Okay, Nico, take this blanket and hold traction while I go arrange for a stretcher.” She was glad her voice was businesslike. Ducking, she crawled underneath his arms and over Tito’s legs. He had ceased howling and was now moaning and mumbling incoherently. Anna checked his breathing and pulse. Tito was in pain but would be okay until they got him to camp and gave him something to dull it.

  Anna stepped down from the wagon to see a few of the men had run ahead to the camp and requested a stretcher already. She instructed the men to find two pieces of wood and nail a makeshift cross to the board.

  They rolled Tito onto the stretcher and with Nico’s help, she tied her traction splint ropes to the cross to hold the fracture in place.

  Someone lifted one end of the stretcher and nearly dropped it. Nico teasingly reminded Tito to lose weight and picked up the front end. That’s when she noticed the blood on his T-shirt, right around his waist.

  “Nico, you’re hurt!”

  He shrugged and adjusted his grip on the stretcher but she heard the unmistakable groan and saw the shift of his body. He was injured.

  Two other men lifted the back of the stretcher, and a couple others held the sides as they maneuvered it down from the wagon and made the long walk around the tree trunk, since there was no safe way across. Anna followed, watching Nico shift his weight every few seconds. He was in pain.

  They found Nana on the other side of the tree and she fell in step with Anna, reaching out to squeeze her hand. Anna let the woman take it for a moment, but pulled it back on the pretense of needing to check on Tito.

  When they arrived at camp, Linda was waiting. She inspected the hare traction splint. “Not bad for fieldwork.”

  Linda took over Tito’s care, instructing Anna to manage the rest of the arrivals. Anna opened her mouth to protest but Linda was long gone.

  * * *

  NICO WOULD HAVE gone with Tito but they wouldn’t allow him. It was just as well. He had a lot to do, and that was without knowing Anna was back. What is she doing here, anyway?