An Open Heart

by Harry Kraus

  “She told you that?”

  “We’re friends, Jace. We went out to lunch. I thought it must be special. I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

  “My sister’s dead.”

  “Oh, Jace, I’m sorry. W-when?” she stuttered. “I mean, Heather just said—”

  “She died a long time ago. When we lived here as kids.”

  “You’re scaring me. Why would Heather say something like—”

  He sighed. “Look, it’s complicated. I’m not crazy, okay?”

  “What’s going on, Jace? If you expect me to come all the way to Africa to lend a hand, I need to know.”

  Jace began to pace, using the full length of the stretchy phone cord to walk around his little kitchen. “I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

  “No, Jace, I’m staying in Virginia unless you tell me.”

  He ran his free hand through a tangle of uncombed hair. “Okay,” he said, starting slowly and picking his words carefully. “I’ll admit, this sounds a little crazy.”

  “Try me.”

  “It was during my accident. I don’t really remember much about it.” He paused.

  “Heather told me as much.”

  “But I have one memory that I’ve been reluctant to share. I don’t know how much Heather told you about my sister.”

  “Apparently, not everything. I didn’t know she was dead.”

  “She died just before we graduated. We were twins,” he said, “very close.”

  “Jace, I’m sorry.”

  “After my accident, well, I had some sort of vision. I guess that’s what I should call it. I saw my sister. I remember her face as I was lying on the side of the road. She leaned over me and said, ‘Come back to me, Jace.’ Clear as anything. She was crying. I know it sounds weird, but that’s what got me started thinking I was supposed to do something else with my life.”

  “Other people say you’re running away from trouble.”

  “Heather?”

  “She’s worried about you.”

  “Yeah, well, it seems everyone is worried about me.” He reached the end of the phone cord and turned around again. “What do you say, Gabby? There’s no way I can start this program without a good pump tech.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this? What you just told me is creeping me out a little.”

  “I’m okay. If it makes you feel any better, it creeps me out a little too.”

  He heard her sigh into the phone. “I’ll talk to the boss. If he says I can go, I’ll work it out with Dr. Martin.”

  “Thanks.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m not crazy, Gabby.”

  Am I?

  Simeon Okayo considered himself a modern professional. This, of course was in stark contrast to his dress, a tribal garment accented by a necklace of bone. He prided himself in his fluidity. He was as comfortable in a three-piece suit walking the halls of government in Nairobi as he was in the traditional garb he wore in his little duka in Kisii.

  Tonight, he had reason to worry. The evening before, the elders in a neighboring village had blamed nine women suspected of practicing witchcraft for the lack of development in the area. Two of the women had been hacked to death, three burned alive in their homes, and four had escaped into the forest.

  His anxiety wasn’t new. Witch doctors were feared for their power, loved for their blessing, and blamed for economic hardship. So far, his political ties had allowed him a bit of protection, but ties to men in power always came at a price.

  Of course, politicians didn’t think spiritually. They wanted control. Curse this opponent. Assure this victory. But Simeon knew that the spirits demanded a resolution when a curse had been put in play. Someone wanted Dr. Jace Rawlings to die. A blood price had been purchased. But now, delays. Perhaps an animal sacrifice would provide a temporary delay on the spirits’ demand for blood.

  He stepped around his shop’s floor, one ear attuned to the street and one listening for the chirp of his cell phone. Outside, a drunk threw aside a plastic cup and propositioned a young woman. The man’s mind must have been buzzed from the effects of chang’aa, the illegal brew so popular in the slums and villages of Kenya. Simeon wished for a sip of the fermented maize drink himself, hoping to stuff away his worries of the spirits’ unrest, but he wouldn’t buy it from a street vendor. The cheap drink boiled in metal drums was often contaminated by methanol and had earned a reputation as poison because it caused blindness. Simeon would purchase his stock from a friend in the Mungiki, the cult-like political group who owed the witch doctor more than a few favors for the protection he offered.

  His cell phone sounded. He looked at the screen. The MP.

  “Jambo,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t leave messages with my secretary,” Okombo said.

  “How else am I to reach you? You do not answer your phone.”

  “I will call you when it is time.”

  “I am worried. The spirit world requires balance.”

  “Don’t worry. My need of the doctor will end soon. Then you can have your balance.”

  “It’s not that simple. You asked me if I could get the American to come.”

  “At the request of the governor’s office.”

  “That’s not important to me now. I talked to the dead. I called Dr. Rawlings to come. Now the spirits will demand blood.”

  “Soon, Simeon. Surely you are powerful enough to—”

  “Tell your friends to stop the witch hunts. They killed five yesterday.”

  “They are not my friends.”

  “You have influence.”

  “So do you. You’re the one communicating with the dead. Ask them to help you.”

  “You do not understand.” Simeon sighed. “I’ll offer a substitute. But they will still be thirsty.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  17

  When Gabby didn’t find Heather at home, she circled the neighborhood until she found her striding along beside an animal that looked more like a bear than a dog. She passed the duo, parked on the street, and got out to tag along, positioning herself with Heather between her and the monstrous beast.

  Heather brightened at her approach. “Hi, Gabby. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “What is that?”

  “Bo? He’s a mastiff.”

  “I thought you said you were a dog-walker,” Gabby said. “That’s no dog.”

  The animal seemed to be setting the pace. Gabby struggled to keep up in her heels. “Could you slow him down?”

  “I’m doing the best I can.” Heather held on like a water-skier as the mastiff pulled her along.

  Gabby slipped off her shoes. She jogged to catch Heather again.

  “We need to talk.”

  “So talk.”

  “Like this?” Gabby resumed jogging, juggling two shoes and her handbag.

  “Welcome to my world.”

  Sweat began beading off Gabby’s forehead. Richmond’s clear sky offered no relief from the bright sun. Gabby reached for the leash and pulled hard with Heather. Bo looked back and miraculously stopped.

  “There. I’m going to Kenya,” she said. “I want you to go with me.”

  Jace’s initial excitement over the possibility of getting his heart program up and running gave him hope that he might soon be taken off general surgery call. That hope dissolved when Dave Fitzgerald insisted that Jace scrub on a prostatectomy so he could learn the technique.

  Jace felt like an intern again. Each step was accomplished under Dave’s instruction.

  “Here,” he said, “slip your finger in behind mine.”

  Jace obeyed.

  “Feel that? That’s the right plane. Now work your finger back in and forth around the gland. Push more against the gland so the bladder won’t be injured. It’s all done b
y feel.”

  Everything Jace did in cardiac surgery was done with the tissues exposed so that he could see every step. Now he was being asked to operate by feel. Like my life, Jace thought. It’s like I’m feeling my way ahead through darkness.

  “I’ve arranged to have a cardiac anesthetist and my pump technician come to initiate the heart program.”

  Dave didn’t respond. “Let me feel what you have.” He lowered his hand into the pelvis and after another few moments, he lifted a prostate gland out of the bladder. It was white and the size of a small apple. “There,” he said. “You’d better get this operation down before you think about cardiac surgery.”

  “I’ve already lined up the first case.”

  “We’ll see.” He held out his hand to the surgical tech. “Chromic,” he said, asking for a suture. “The capsule needs to be oversewn along the superior edge for hemostasis. I’ll show you this time. Next time, you’re on your own.”

  “Will you assist on my valve replacement?”

  “Look around, Jace. Do you really think we’re ready for heart surgery?”

  “Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind that we’re not.”

  “We’ve yet to see how these heart cases will affect our ability to continue giving the level of care we currently embrace. One case is going to demand lots of blood, theater time, and the retraining of our staff.” He sighed. “I’m not sure we have the resources.”

  “The medical director has signed off on it.”

  “Look, the whole staff agreed to the program on a trial basis. To let you do a few cases and see what kind of impact it has on our resources.”

  “But you’re not convinced.”

  “You should know by now that I won’t keep my opinions to myself. We have enough problems just doing the present load without taxing the system even more.”

  “So you were outvoted.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Blake is in agreement to proceed with the valve.”

  “Blake seems to think a politician has backed us into a corner. Just because the staff goes along with this first case doesn’t mean the program is a go.” He paused. “Close the bladder in two layers of running zero chromic. Imbricate the second layer over the first.”

  With the instructions given, Dave stepped away from the operating table and stripped off his gown. “How much blood do you need for one open-heart case?”

  “Ten units.”

  “Yeah,” the surgeon responded. “Sometimes it takes days to just find one suitable unit, so good luck with that.” He picked up the patient’s chart. “Maybe you’re a bigger man of faith than I thought.”

  Dave exited the room, leaving Jace to close the bladder alone. A bigger man of faith? Or just a man with a crazy dream and no faith at all?

  “Look, I’ve thought about it,” Heather said. “One of the reasons I didn’t go to Africa was because Jace needed space to figure out his life. That hasn’t changed.” She lifted a glass of sweet tea to her lips. She thought about the conversation she’d had in Ukrop’s parking lot. I’ve got a life outside my surgeon husband. “Besides, I’ve got responsibilities here.”

  Gabby sat across the kitchen table from her friend. “I know. I understand. But it would be so much better for me if you’d come.”

  “I’ve been thinking about something. I want you to do me a favor,” Heather said.

  “Sure.”

  “I want you to get a sample of Jace’s blood.”

  “What?”

  “I talked to a friend down at the medical examiner’s office. He said that they could use a sample of Jace’s blood to do a DNA test to see if it matches the semen sample found in Anita Franks.”

  Gabby winced. “You can’t be serious. Jace would never—”

  “I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Heather interrupted. She stood and started to pace around the island in the kitchen. “Why else would there be ketamine in her blood? Who else would have access to that kind of drug?”

  Gabby shook her head. “I shouldn’t need to defend him to you. You should know he’s not capable of rape.”

  “I know that,” Heather responded. “But maybe, just maybe, he’s a fallible man, and in a moment of weakness, he fell into the clutches of a seductress.” She paused. “I hate doubting him, but … he refused to explain what he was doing that night.”

  “You said he didn’t remember.”

  “That’s his story.”

  “Collecting evidence should be a police matter.”

  “The police aren’t investigating Anita Franks’s death. It’s being considered an accident.”

  “Do they know about the ketamine?”

  “I don’t know.” Heather raised her hands. “I’m not even sure why I know. But someone wanted me to know this stuff.”

  “So what if they find a DNA match? What then? Are you going to go to the police with your findings? Turn in your own husband?”

  “No. I’m doing this for me. I want to prove he’s innocent.”

  “Or guilty.”

  “I don’t want that, Gabby. I want to believe in my husband again. Maybe this will help.”

  Gabby took a deep breath. “So you’re saying maybe this will prove it to you.”

  Heather bit her lower lip. “I hope so.”

  Gabby reached for her hand. “One more try,” she said.

  “One more—what?”

  “Go with me, Heather. Work it out with Jace, face-to-face.”

  Jace plodded out of the hospital lobby and into the night air. He needed to walk. To think. And spend some time under the expanse of sky.

  He’d always been the doubter. When Janice credited God, he credited circumstance. When she acknowledged divine insight, Jace claimed human wisdom. When they met an obstacle, Jace saw obstruction; Janice, opportunity.

  He walked away from the hospital, along a dark path leading through an informal soccer field. There, away from ambient light, he looked at the heavens, a mantle salted with a million stars and the brilliance of the moon. Unlike back in Richmond, where only the brightest stars could be appreciated, under the African sky he could study the Milky Way, seen on edge as a stripe of heavenly white dust.

  There, under the enormity of the starry host, Jace felt alone.

  Small.

  Stripped of the accolades of his cardiothoracic colleagues or appreciative patients.

  Facing opposition from hospital staff, threats from politicians, and questions about his motives from the chaplaincy, Jace puffed up his chest.

  I’ll show them all.

  I can save Beatrice from heart failure.

  I can …

  He raised a fist to the sky.

  18

  A few days later, Jace stood in a sea of Africans, pressed together as one mass, their eyes all focused on the scene unfolding on the other side of a wall of glass. He was in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, watching with the others to see if their loved ones would be the next to escape customs and walk through the opening from the baggage claim area into the expansive foyer leading to the parking lots beyond. Here, in the group, there was no respect for personal space. Everyone pressed together to see. It was one mass of sweaty, colorful humanity, all jockeying to get a glimpse of the people on the other side of customs.

  Jace waited for Dr. Evan Martin and Gabby Dawson, both critical members of his open-heart team. Jace had worked with Dr. Martin for the better part of the last decade. He was a no-nonsense, get-the-work-done kind of guy, a gadget lover who always had the latest technology. He was what Jace would call an übergeek, but also the kind of doctor you wanted in your corner when the deck was stacked against your patient. To Evan Martin, every patient was important. Money, title, or fame meant nothing to him. He’d been in Jace’s corner when he operated on the governor of Virginia and on hundreds of ot
hers of lesser fame but equal importance to Evan.

  From his vantage point, Jace could see the passengers collecting bags and heading to the customs officials. He stood on his tiptoes to see over a Kenyan woman wearing a tall hat. The British Airways flight from Heathrow had landed, and the first passengers, bags in tow, were just starting to filter out past the customs officials. He was anxious to see his friends, but even more anxious to see if his hunch was correct: it would be just like Gabby to convince Heather to come along. And what a delight it would be to show her his boyhood home.

  He saw Evan first. Tall and slender and lacking a tan, he stood out among the other passengers waiting beside the serpentine conveyor belt carrying the bags. He saw Gabby next.

  But no Heather. His heart sank.

  I should have known.

  When Evan and Gabby walked into the airport lobby, Jace was careful not to show his disappointment. “Karibu Kenya,” he said. “Welcome to Kenya.”

  He hugged his friends, feeling for perhaps the first time since arriving in Kenya that he had true comrades to share his misery. He found himself suddenly on the edge of tears. Wow, he thought, I hadn’t realized how alone I really felt until now. He brushed away a tear. “This way,” he said. “I hope you guys had a good flight.”

  Jace looked over his shoulder at the other exiting passengers.

  Gabby’s voice broke into his brief daydream. “She didn’t come, Jace. I tried to convince her.”

  Jace forced a smile. “You thought I’d expect—”

  “Of course,” she said. “I know you.”

  He nodded and looked at his friends. “You don’t know how glad I am to see familiar faces.”

  Gabby raised her eyebrows. “What, is your boyhood home different than you remembered?”

  “Let’s just say that I’ve gained a new appreciation for how difficult it is to get anything done in this place.” He locked eyes with them again. “It’s so great to see you.”

  Evan checked his watch.

  “We’re eight hours ahead of Virginia here,” Jace said.

  “I wasn’t checking the time,” Evan said. “This is an altimeter. Did you know Nairobi is just like Denver? Both mile-high cities. Cool.”