Without Borders

by Amanda Heger

  Felipe tried to shut it out, willing his mind to unhear the sounds trailing in through the open window. But it was futile. He jerked out of his hammock, his feet sinking into the warm earth as he searched for the source of the retching.

  Flashlight in hand, he slipped by the old wooden panel that served as the door, expecting one of the villagers—someone who’d hiked to get there and was early. Maybe a wandering cow or a hungry, stray dog.

  It was Annie.

  She raised a hand, shielding her eyes from his flashlight beam.

  Felipe crossed the thick grass and stopped a few feet away. “You are sick?”

  “I’m fine.” She shook her head. “A stomachache. You can go back to sleep.”

  A smattering of fat raindrops hit his forearm. He stepped closer. The beam of the flashlight reflected off the grass, illuminating the flush in her face and the sheen of sweat on her forehead. “It is raining. Come inside.”

  “It’s too hot in there. I’ll wake everyone.”

  “What are your symptoms?”

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  Felipe squatted beside her. “Annie, as the doctor responsible for your health—”

  “Vomiting. Nausea.”

  “Do you have a rash?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  He took a deep breath and readied himself for the torture. “May I?”

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  Felipe dragged the flashlight beam over her legs looking for the telltale sign of dengue fever. He swiped it over her arms. Nada. “Can you lift your shirt, por favor?”

  She kept her eyes closed as she did it, and the grimace that weighed down her lips didn’t escape his notice.

  No rash.

  “You can put it down now.”

  She dry heaved.

  “You are taking malaria preventative, sí?”

  “Every Monday.” Her eyes flew open. “You think I have malaria?”

  “No.” He put on his best nothing-to-worry-about smile. “I think you ate something that did not agree with your stomach. It happens sometimes on these trips. What was the last thing you ate?”

  “Lunch, I guess. I didn’t have anything for dinner. Once we got off the boat my stomach was upset. I thought it was seasickness or whatever.” She shrugged. “So those corn tamales, I guess.”

  “Did you bring any ciprofloxacin? It is an antibiotic.”

  “It’s in my bag.” The rain was a constant drizzle now.

  “We will go inside then, yes?”

  She nodded but didn’t stand. Felipe wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to her feet. He cleared his throat and tried to ignore the feel of her skin against his as he walked her into the hut.

  Juan snored from his hammock, but the rest of the crew was silent. Only the shuffle of their footsteps on the dirt and the hum of night insects filled the tiny house. “Where is your medicine?” he asked.

  “Here.” She pointed at her bag. “I’m going—” She stood and ran back out into the rain.

  Felipe dug through the bottles and papers and pens in her bag until he found the medication. He grabbed Annie’s water and pulled a poncho from his own belongings, then darted outside.

  She leaned against the side of the house. Bent in half, her hair fell around her face like dozens of wild springs.

  “Here.” He held out the water and a pill. She gulped it, and he slipped the poncho over her head.

  “Thank you.”

  “Drink all of it, por favor.”

  “I will.”

  He stared at her a moment longer, waiting for the right words to come to him. But his mind stayed blank.

  “I’m okay.” Her voice cracked. “You can go back to bed.”

  “I know.” He waited a beat, trying to pull together the courage to say the thing he needed to say. The thing that had been pulling and tugging at his conscience for the last several days. The thing that made him so angry at himself and the world and Annie. That she was brave. Braver than him. “Do you know if anyone else ate the tamales?”

  “Me, Mari, and Juan.” She chewed her bottom lip. “Phillip didn’t have any. Said he had to watch his carbs or something?”

  Felipe shook his head. “Did he mention his washing machine when he said it?”

  “Yeah. Lifted his shirt and everything.” She took another sip of water. “But I think, really, he didn’t feel like eating.”

  “Why?” He leaned beside her, the rough logs digging into his back and the rain hitting his face.

  “He really likes Mari. But you know.” She shrugged and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “And we’re leaving soon anyway, so…”

  He nodded, but her words raked through his insides.

  Overhead, the rainclouds moved by, quick and furious, and for an all too brief second, the moonlight reflected the curve of Annie’s lips. “I can’t stopping thinking about her. About Rosa,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I wish I could throw something in with the sex ed classes. Like, if you do get knocked up, try not to abuse your kid when it comes out.” She lifted both hands to her face and rubbed her cheeks.

  The rain came down in sheets around them, and Annie’s words looped through his mind. Before long, an idea sank its roots into his chest. Five more days.

  • • •

  Annie groaned and rolled over, burying her face into the hammock. A hint of something sweet and spicy drifted into her subconscious. Felipe. She sank deeper into the fabric, clinging to the last flickers of sleep as she stretched her arms then her legs.

  “Ooof.” Her tailbone hit the floor first, and she flopped to the ground like a murder victim waiting to be outlined.

  Where am I?

  She remembered sitting outside in the rain while another storm waged its way through her intestinal tract. She remembered vomiting in front of him—again—and then taking the antibiotic, praying it would work its voodoo magic before her body could force it up. Everything after that was a dark, dehydrated blur.

  She forced her eyes open, squinting into the blazing sun coming in the windows. The hammocks around her hung empty, stiff and unmoving. Cotton-mouthed and nauseated, she crossed the room and looked out the window. A football field away, a line of patients curved around the outskirts of a thatched roof.

  She grabbed her water bottle, taking small, anxious sips until her mouth stopped feeling like it was stuffed with sand. An orange prescription bottle sat on top of her bag along with a two-pack of little blue pills. Imodium. Felipe’s scrawled handwriting was on the paper next to them. “Por si acaso.” Just in case.

  Her insides tried to climb inside themselves, as if it would make her as small as possible. “In case I want to fling myself off a cliff,” Annie muttered.

  She downed the blue pills and another antibiotic. One change of clothes, two mouthfuls of toothpaste, and a three-inch thick slather of deodorant later, she shuffled her way toward the clinic. The crowd outside had dissipated, but there were still one or two stragglers.

  “¿Clínica de Ahora?” she asked.

  They nodded, staring and smiling.

  She slipped in the open door, and a small brown hand grabbed her elbow.

  “You are feeling better, yes?” Marisol whispered. Her hair clung to the rounded edges of her face, heavy with sweat, and her sienna skin lost color before Annie’s eyes.

  “I think. Mostly. Are you okay?” she asked.

  Marisol shrugged. “I think the tamales were no bueno. But I will be fine. Nicaraguan stomach is stronger than Americana.” Marisol raised one dark eyebrow, but the rest of her expression was so droopy, it made her look like a terminally ill pirate. Minus the eye patch.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Marisol didn’t answer. The hum of voices faded into silence as Felipe stepped to the front of the room.

  “If you want to do the sex ed lecture here, you need to stop him.” Marisol nod
ded toward her brother.

  “What?”

  “He is going to do your lecture. Because you were sick.”

  She turned to the front, her eyes following Felipe as he greeted the people, shaking hands and kissing cheeks. People who knew him. Trusted him.

  He looked up, and his eyes locked on hers. “You want?” he mouthed.

  The thought of standing there in front of all those people and trying to speak Spanish while beating down nausea was too much to handle. “No,” she mouthed back.

  He jumped straight into the lecture. Annie did her best to follow, but her stomach was still full of rocks and knots. His words blurred.

  After a few minutes, Marisol groaned through pale lips. “Corn tamales.”

  “Seriously.” Annie guided her out the back door. “Come on, I’ll walk with you.”

  She dragged her friend to her hammock, praying Marisol wouldn’t throw up on the way. Annie was certain her own stomach wasn’t solid enough yet. It would be puke dominoes.

  “Here, drink.” She handed Marisol some water. “Do you want me to get something for you? Crackers? Medicine?”

  “’Lipe has them.” Marisol shot out of her hammock and ran outside. Her retching filtered in through the windows, and Annie plugged her ears, ignoring the nausea building inside her.

  “I’m going to get you some medicine.” Annie didn’t wait to see if her friend responded. She shuffled toward the clinic building, squinting and shielding her eyes from the too bright sun.

  “How are you feeling?” Felipe’s silhouette appeared in front of her.

  “Okay. A little better.” She tugged at her shorts, heat inching up her cheeks. “Mari isn’t feeling well either. She said you have something she can take? I didn’t know because of her diabetes—”

  “Sí.” He took three long strides toward the hut.

  “Felipe?” She reached for his elbow, and he froze. Her nerves frayed as she touched his warm, smooth skin. “Thank you. For taking care of me, I mean.”

  He took another step. “I am a doctor, Annie. It was for nothing.”

  Annie nodded and followed him inside, wishing it was for something.

  Day Twenty-Four

  The words ran together on the page, blurred by Felipe’s exhaustion and his own terrible handwriting. Around him, everyone else slept, but each time he closed his eyes he saw Annie. The way her nose scrunched up as she laughed. The tight line of her jaw as she scowled at him while she stood in the middle of the river. The soles of her shoes, climbing up the stairs to the plane and out of his life forever. He kept his eyes open and pushed through, scribbling more notes in the margins. More ideas. More questions. All triggered by Annie’s offhand middle-of-the-night remarks.

  One more clinic. A sharp breeze blew through the window, cooling his skin and swirling up all his mixed emotions. He folded the paper in half and tucked it into his backpack, trying to stay quieter than the din of insects and Juan’s snores.

  “Aquí.” Marisol’s voice was rumpled and heavy, and she let out a noise that was half sigh, half whimper.

  Felipe froze. He snapped his eyes shut and prayed for sleep. The deep, tumbling-into-a-dreamless-pit kind of sleep that would keep him from hearing his sister’s make up session with Phillip. But the noises carried on, slowly at first and growing louder and more excruciating as the minutes crept by.

  Felipe rolled over and reached into his bag for a spare shirt. He wasn’t sure if he intended to throw it at his sister or pull it over his ears to drown out her moans, but he never made it that far. An arm’s length away, Annie sat on her yoga mat, rubbing her eyes and squinting in Marisol’s direction.

  “I guess they made up,” she whispered.

  It would be so easy to fall back into their old conspiratorial ways, to poke good-natured fun at his sister, as if their laughter had been a rope holding them together.

  He rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “You only have to make it through one more clinic.”

  • • •

  The moonlight poured in through the window and cast shadows into every corner of the room. Annie peered into them, taking in the details of the tiny hut as she tried to forget Felipe’s words. One more clinic. That sentence echoed in her mind, filling it with promises of air-conditioning and her father’s famous homemade vanilla ice cream. Hot showers and cuddling with her cat. But it also meant going back to her boring, insignificant life. Watching reality television while people here lived without access to clean water. Worrying about classes and sorority gossip, while Felipe worried about children with dengue fever.

  Felipe. At least she’d only have to deal with his glowering for one more clinic.

  Annie rolled over, burying her face in the damp yoga mat. The foam stuck to her cheek, and she closed her eyes, hoping sleep would clean all her festering wounds. But Marisol’s grunts started again as Annie began to slip into unconsciousness.

  Again? Seriously?

  She flung a hand to her ear, debating whether she should throw something at them or take Juan’s make-your-ears-bleed approach. She began to turn away when the shadows shifted, illuminating a shock of blond hair.

  Phillip wasn’t in Marisol’s hammock. He was tucked solidly into his own, with one tanned arm dangling from the side.

  Her friend groaned again, and this time its familiarity made Annie’s pulse roar in her ears. She’d heard these noises before. And they weren’t the ones she got used to her freshman year, when her roommate would bring her long-distance boyfriend up to visit every other weekend.

  Annie sprung to her feet. “Mari? Hey, Mari?” She tried to keep her voice down as she scrambled toward her friend’s hammock.

  Sweat covered Marisol’s face and beaded on her upper lip. Her right cheek twitched.

  “Okay. Sugar. Need sugar.” Annie dropped to her knees and dug through her friend’s bag, not caring where the clothes and books landed. “Where is it?” Finally, her trembling fingers closed around the cylinder of glucose tabs. “Here, Mari.” She flipped open the lid and tried to shake an orange coin free.

  Empty.

  Annie’s fingers and toes went cold even though the humidity and the temperature both approached the hundred mark. “Felipe. Wake up.” Her voice was so sharp and frantic it shredded her throat.

  “¿Qué?” He shot up.

  “Mari. She needs sugar. Where is her icing? Does she still keep a tube of icing?” Annie knew she was loud enough to wake the entire village, but she could barely hear it over the pounding of her own heart.

  He threw his legs over the side of his hammock. “Get my bag. There is candy there. Front pocket.” He sprinted toward Marisol.

  Annie ruffled through his backpack, dumping everything into a pile at her feet. A crumpled sheet of notebook paper stuck to her ankle, and she pulled it away. Across the top, in his familiar, slanted chicken-scratch was her name.

  It made her heart thud harder, and Annie shoved the paper to the bottom of the pile. As she did, her fingers brushed the plastic bag of Smarties. “Here.” She ran the few feet to her friend’s hammock, holding a package of the candy out in front of her.

  Marisol knocked it away with a grunt and a sneer.

  • • •

  The tiny pieces of candy clattered to the ground, leaving a rainbow of sweets at Felipe’s feet. He shoved his sister to her side as she smacked at his arms and face. “Hold her arms.” In those first months after his sister had been diagnosed, he’d shot cake icing into her mouth more than once. And even a few times as adults, but usually Marisol had perfect control of her blood sugar. Especially during the brigades.

  Annie dropped the bag of candy and grabbed Marisol’s wrists, giving him a reprieve from the attack while he turned off her pump.

  “She gets like this when her sugar is too low,” he said.

  “I remember.” Annie picked up another tube of Smarties. “What do we do?” Her fingers never stopped moving, twisting and untwisting the piece of plastic in her hands.

&n
bsp; Felipe glanced at Marisol’s sweaty face. Her eyes seemed to focus on him for a half-second, then they slid up to the ceiling.

  “I will hold her, and you put some in her mouth.”

  “Won’t she choke?” Annie asked.

  He shook his head. “She is still here enough to swallow. Tuck it inside her cheek.” Felipe grabbed Marisol’s arms an inch below the elbow. She squirmed and kicked, and her sweaty skin made a good grip difficult, but he held tight. “Be careful. She might bite you.”

  Annie pinched three pieces of pink candy between her fingers. “Okay.” She pulled Marisol’s cheek and dropped the candy in.

  Half of it came up as she spat.

  “Break it,” he said.

  “Break what?”

  His voice cracked, letting some of his fear escape. He took a deep breath and swallowed it back. “The dulce. If it is powder, it is harder for her to spit out.”

  “What’s going on?” Phillip’s eyes bugged as he bolted toward them.

  “Her blood sugar is too low,” Felipe said.

  Annie grabbed a new roll and stomped on it. The sugary pieces crumbled, and she held the wrapped powder between her fingers. “Do I dump it in?”

  “Sí. Try to hold her mouth closed this time. Like,” his forehead crinkled as he remembered that picture in her photo album, “like your cat, Mr. Flowers. Do you ever give him medicine?”

  “Got it.” Annie grabbed Marisol’s lower jaw and dug her fingers into her friend’s cheeks. When her mouth opened, Annie popped the broken candy inside. She pushed up on Marisol’s chin and rubbed her throat until she swallowed.

  A handful of breaths later, Marisol’s face stopped twitching. Her eyes were still hazy, but there was less anger there.

  “You okay?” Phillip pushed the sweaty hair from Marisol’s forehead, but she didn’t answer.

  “One more?” Annie crushed another package of candy under her flip flops.

  His sister opened her mouth voluntarily, and Annie dropped the sugar inside.

  Felipe let go of Marisol’s arms and waited while her mouth worked over the sweets. Beside him, Annie shook, and the plastic bag in her hands crinkled as she trembled.