by Dianne Drake
“Stay there while I listen,” he instructed, sticking the bell of the stethoscope just slightly into the top of her scrub shirt.
“What?” she asked, her face beginning to register slight alarm. “What are you looking for?”
He held his finger up to his lips to shush her. Then listened, first to her lungs, then her heart, then her lungs from the back. “Any joint pains?” he asked when he’d finished his cursory exam. “Or vomiting?”
Now she looked totally alarmed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Any joint pains or vomiting,” he repeated, trying to sound as calm as he possibly could, when nothing inside him felt calm.
“No, and no. Now, tell me!”
“Before you came to Costa Rica, what were you vaccinated for?”
“Typhoid, Hep A and B, malaria...”
“And you’re up-to-date?” He looked down at her. “With everything?”
“What’s wrong with me, Damien?”
“I need blood tests to confirm...”
She bolted up out of her chair, but was struck by a sudden, severe dizziness, and almost toppled over. Toppled into Damien’s arms instead and, rather than pushing away from him, stayed there as he wrapped his arms around her close. “Is it malaria?” she asked, her voice now trembling.
“Your eyes are jaundiced, Juliette. And the rest of your symptoms...” Damn, he hated this. Her onset was too fast. Her symptoms growing too severe far too soon before they should have. Nothing about this was as gradual as he’d seen before, and that worried him. Malaria was bad enough, but with this kind of reaction to it—“And you’re showing all the usual symptoms.” Of all the diseases he’d treated here, he hated malaria the most.
“I can’t have malaria, Damien. I was vaccinated!”
Worldwide, malaria killed nearly half a million people every year and infected over two-hundred million.
Soon after he’d arrived in Bombacopsis, a small outbreak of it had taken eleven villagers. It had swooped in and killed them before he’d even known what was happening. But he didn’t want Juliette to know that. Didn’t want her to know that, right now, he was scared to death for her. “I’m afraid you do have it, sweetheart,” he whispered gently, stroking her hair. Wiping the fever sweat on her face onto his shirtsleeve.
“Damien...” She nestled tighter into him.
“Shh,” he said tenderly. “I’m going to take care of you.”
“But if the vaccine didn’t work...”
Then there was a good chance the limited antimalarial drugs he had on hand might not work, either. It was unthinkable. But he had to face it.
Damn, he wanted to take her to San José, put her in a proper hospital, hold her hand while she got cured there, but he was sure she couldn’t make it that far. Especially now that she was starting to tremble in his arms. Hard trembling. Paroxysms. Soon to be a spiking fever, plummeting in the blink of an eye to a below-sustainable life temperature, then spiking back up and plummeting back down again. Over and over until coma. Then death—
No! That wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t let it. “It will work,” he said, hating himself for giving her an empty promise. “I’ll take care of you, Juliette. Whatever you need, whatever I have to do, I’ll take care of you.”
“Promise?” she whispered.
“Promise,” he whispered back. But she didn’t hear him as she’d slumped even harder against him, exhaling a long sigh.
* * *
Juliette remembered being swept up into Damien’s arms, then being carried across the hall and placed gently down on the exam table. Remembered the tender way he’d examined her, started her IV, sponged her down with cool water, removed her fever-drenched clothing and put her into a hospital gown. She even remembered him carrying her out to a bed in the ward, and pulling the protective screens around her for privacy. After that, though, she remembered nothing. It was all a blank. A vague cloud in her mind that concealed something she couldn’t find.
“How long have I been out?” she asked, as Damien appeared at her bedside, preparing to change her bedding.
“You’re awake!” he said, his voice sounding almost excited.
“I think I am. Not sure, though.” She reached up to brush the hair back from her face and saw the IV running in her right arm. Saw the old-fashioned green oxygen tank sitting next to her bed. Saw the darkness coming from the window above her head. “Is this still Sunday?” Sunday night. Late. Yes, it had to still be Sunday, as she remembered working earlier.
“It’s Thursday,” Damien said, setting the bed linens down on a chair. “Thursday night, almost midnight.”
“No,” she protested, shaking her head. “It’s Sunday. I’m just tired from overworking.”
“You’re tired because you have malaria, sweetheart. And the last time you worked was four, almost five days ago.”
Nowhere in her mind was she prepared to process this. Nowhere in her mind was she prepared to accept it. “Damien, I don’t see how...” She shook her head. “You’ve got to be wrong. I haven’t been sleeping for four days!”
“No, you weren’t sleeping. Not exactly, anyway.”
“I was unconscious? In a coma?”
Damien nodded, then sat down on the edge of her bed, and took hold of her hand. “You have malaria. An advanced case of it. And you collapsed Sunday night.”
“But I remember Sunday night, and I wasn’t feeling that bad.” Medically, she understood this. Understood the gravity of it. But emotionally—she couldn’t grasp it. She hadn’t felt sick. Just tired. Down-to-the-bone tired. Nothing some proper rest wouldn’t have cured. Malaria, though? “I don’t recall that I had any symptoms.”
“You didn’t. Not up until just a few minutes before you collapsed.”
“And you’ve been treating me with?”
“Quinine and doxycycline.”
The same combination they would have used in any hospital in San José. But they’d had such a limited supply on hand. How had he sustained her for so long on what they had? “How?” she asked.
“I have my ways,” he said, offering no further explanation, dipping his hand into his pocket to finger the exorbitant bill that came with an overnight express delivery out in the middle of a jungle. A bill he’d paid himself as the hospital had no funds for it.
But she wanted to know what they were. Not that it made a difference to her one way or another, but that was what her mind was fixed on now. She was fighting to make sense of things she couldn’t... But the drugs—they made sense to her. She understood them, even though she understood little else. “Where did you get them, Damien?” she persisted.
“Why is it so important to you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m...confused. I can’t think. Can’t focus. But the drugs you used—I remember them, and I remember you didn’t have enough of them. I wanted to bring you some. I remember that. I put it on my list of things I wanted to find for the hospital.”
“You have a list?” he asked.
“Things you need.” Things that she couldn’t remember yet. But she did remember there was such a need here. A need she’d wanted to fix for some reason that had also vacated her memory.
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t?”
Damien shook his head.
“I should have. Don’t know why I didn’t.” Was she involved here in something more than merely being a doctor? Juliette studied Damien’s face for a moment. Was she involved with him?
“It’ll come back to you, Juliette. In time. Your brain is suffering a trauma right now, with the malaria, but you’re getting better.”
“I hope so,” she said, as her eyelids began to droop. “I really...” She didn’t finish her sentence. Couldn’t finish it, as she dropped back off to sleep.
So Damien waited until he was sure she wouldn’t wake up, then changed the bedsheets underneath her, and kissed her on the forehead. “You’ve still got a way to go, Juliette,” he whispered, as he pulled a sheet up over her frail body. “But you’re going to make it. I promise, you’re going to make it.” Wishful thinking? Empty promise? He didn’t know, as she was clearly not out of the woods yet. But hearing the words, even though he’d been the one to speak them, made him feel better.
* * *
Damien searched for twenty minutes before he found Marco and Ivelis. Twenty long, panicked minutes. Padre Benicio had brought them home from school, left them outside the hospital to play, and when Damien had gone to call them inside they were nowhere to be found. Frantically, he’d searched the property, looked in the supply shed, run to the church to see if they were there. But no one he’d asked knew where they were, no one had even seen them, leaving Damien to wonder if they were trying to get back to their home. Trying to get back to that one place where they felt secure.
He’d been so preoccupied with Juliette these past few days—caring for her, holding her hand, talking to her even though she was unconscious again. He hadn’t meant to neglect the children, but he had, and he felt guilty as hell. Now, he was nearing nausea, he was so worried, as he headed back to the hospital. To think Padre Benicio had actually suggested to Damien that he keep the children! How could he, when he couldn’t even keep an eye on them for a few minutes?
“No luck,” he told George, as he entered through the hospital’s front door. “I’m wondering if they’re trying to go home.”
George gave him a sympathetic smile. “There’s something you need to see,” he said, pointing into the ward. “Or two young people you need to see, rather.”
“But I searched the ward first,” Damien said, clearly perplexed.
“Not all the ward, you didn’t.”
“Then they’ve been here all along?” His heart felt suddenly lighter.
“Like I said, there’s something you need to see.” He gestured for Damien to follow him, and he stopped at the end of Juliette’s bed, on the other side of the partition. “Take a look.”
Damien pushed one of the partitions aside and there, standing next to Juliette’s bed, were Marco and Ivelis. Just standing there, looking down at Juliette. Not moving. No facial expressions. Nothing. It was a curious sight. But a nice one. Juliette surrounded by children. It suited her, and he only wished she’d wake up again so she could see what he was seeing. “Thank you,” he whispered to George, as George backed away then returned to the clinic.
Damien stepped closer to Juliette’s bed, and stopped next to Marco. But he didn’t say a word. Instead he just put his arm around the boy, and held out his other hand to Ivelis, who clasped on immediately. And they simply stood there together. For how long? Damien didn’t know. A minute? An hour? An eternity? It really didn’t matter, as he was so relieved that everything else around him faded into a blur and all his concentration was on this, right here, right now.
“Por qué la señora duerme tanto?” a tiny voice finally asked. Why does the lady sleep so much?
It was Marco asking. A voice of concern where previously there had been no voice.
A lump formed in Damien’s throat, causing his own voice to go thick. “Porque ella está muy enferma.” Because she’s very sick, he answered, trying hard not to show how affected he was by one simple sentence. But he was affected, and it was strange that he would be, as he was trying hard not to care for these children. To be custodial, yes. But to care—
“Cuando ella va a despertar?” When will she wake up?
Damien bit down on his lip.
“No sé. Realmente, no sé.” I don’t know. I really don’t know. Words he almost choked on.
Marco accepted this, and nodded. Then he reached out and took hold of Juliette’s hand. But only for a moment before he turned and walked away from the bed, and Ivelis let go of Damien’s hand and followed him.
And neither Marco nor Ivelis spoke during dinner. Or afterward, when they did their drawing assignment for school. Or later, when they went to bed.
But Damien didn’t speak either as, for the first time in his life, he felt overwhelmed. Too overwhelmed to function. Too overwhelmed to speak. Too overwhelmed to make sense of anything. Except this. Seeing Marco’s little hand in Juliette’s—this was what Damien wanted. All of it. The whole picture. Everything he’d never wanted before. And everything he so badly wanted now, yet still wouldn’t admit, for fear he couldn’t have it.
* * *
“Where is she?” the booming voice demanded from outside, on the doorstep.
Damien, who was just then exiting the clinic, spun around to the door to face the man. “Who?” Actually, he did know. Who else would have trekked out into the middle of godforsaken nowhere in crisply pressed khaki pants and a blue cotton dress shirt to find Juliette, other than her father? Asking Padre Benicio to go to Cima de la Montaña to contact the man was one thing, but standing here now and facing him—it put fear in him. A new fear. A different fear. The fear that he would take Juliette back with him. That he would never see her again.
“My daughter, Juliette. Tell me this is the place, because I’ve had a hell of a time getting out here, and I hope I don’t have to continue searching for her.”
“She’s here,” Damien conceded, pointing to the open ward behind him. “First bed on the right.”
“I don’t understand,” Alexander Allen said, still keeping his distance from the door. “What was she doing here? I’d been led to believe she was working for a company in San José, so how the hell did she end up here, with malaria?”
“How she ended up here is that she answered my ad. I needed another doctor to help me in the hospital, and Juliette was the one who came out here to do that. As for the malaria—this is Central America. People here get bitten by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes carry the parasite and Juliette was one of the unfortunate ones who had a vaccination against it that didn’t work. Look, she’s sleeping right now. In fact, she’s slept for the past several days. A fitful sleep, sometimes so close to the verge of consciousness you think that she’s simply going to open her eyes and smile as if nothing was wrong. So she might wake up if she hears your voice. Come in and talk to her.” God knew he’d been talking, and talking, and getting nothing back from her.
“Has she been conscious at all, from the start of this?” Alexander asked.
“Briefly. I explained what was happening to her and how I was treating her, and I guess that’s all she needed to hear because she went back to sleep and hasn’t woken up since.”
“What’s her prognosis?” Alexander asked, sounding very stiff about it.
“Physically, she’s stable.”
“Her vitals are maintaining?”
“Pretty much. No major problems.”
He nodded, as if taking it all under consideration. “And prior to her collapse, she was showing no symptoms?”
“She was tired, but around here we all get tired, so it didn’t seem unusual.”
“But you continued to allow her to work, even though you knew she was tired.” Stated, not asked.
“That’s just one of the facts of life in this hospital. We always work under difficult circumstances. Juliette knew that before she accepted the position, and she was good with it.”
“Why this hospital, though? That’s what I don’t understand. She chose to work here when she could have had her choice of any proper medical institution in the world. So, what is it I’m not seeing?”
He wasn’t seeing Juliette. Not at all. But Damien wasn’t going to step into that mess. It wasn’t his place. So, instead, he ignored the question, as it was Juliette’s father’s to answer.
“Juliette was sleeping lighter than she has been when I looked in on her a few minutes ago
, so go on in and...”
“You’re not worried that she’s still unconscious?” Alexander interrupted.
“Worried as hell.” Beyond worried. But that was something Alexander Allen didn’t have to know. “But she’s getting the correct medication, and we’re taking good care of her, and waiting—which is all we can do.”
“I want her transferred to another hospital. To my hospital.”
“Against medical advice, Doctor. Juliette’s in no condition to travel anywhere.”
“With all due respect, she’s not in any condition to stay here, either. In case you haven’t noticed, her illness is not manifesting itself in the normal way, which means something, or someone, is going wrong. My intention with this, Doctor, is to save my daughter’s life, not to spare your feelings.”
The thin thread of civility between them was nearing its snapping point. And Damien was nearing his own snapping point. With the exception of the past few minutes, he’d spent most of an entire shift sitting at Juliette’s bedside, holding her hand, wondering if someone else could do better by her. Wondering if, somehow, he’d gone wrong. Doubting himself. Doubting his decisions. And now, here was her father, practically throwing all Damien’s doubts in his face. Accusing him of not being good enough, the way Nancy’s father had done.
“Then we agree on something, since my intention is to save Juliette’s life, and I don’t give a damn about my feelings because they don’t matter in this.” His impassive facade was beginning to slip, and he wasn’t sure what to do to put it back in place. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to. Not for this man.
For the first time, Damien realized just why Juliette had been so keen to get away from her father. And Alexander Allen’s wealth had nothing whatsoever to do with Damien’s mounting hostility toward him. Which, surprisingly, was a step in a completely different direction for him. It made Damien wonder if it was not the wealth he hated so much as the way some people acted because of it. That eye-opener gave him a whole new perspective of Juliette. Caused him to see something in her that he’d refused to see before. The fact was, she wasn’t spoiled, as he’d first assumed. She wasn’t caught up in the trappings of wealth, but she was trying to escape the way her father was caught up in them. And he owed her an apology for that, and for all the other wrong assumptions he’d made. When she woke up—