Healing Tides

by Lois Richer

  “Yes.”

  “But I’ve never seen debrading done the way you did this morning. Can you explain it to me?”

  Jared explained the process he preferred.

  “I’m sure you know that with current procedures it’s difficult for surgeons to tell which tissue is dead and needs to be removed and which is still alive and can heal on its own.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you’ve removed more than you need to, that makes it harder for the graft to take. It doesn’t heal as well.”

  “So that machine you were using…?” She lifted an eyebrow.

  “It combines laser and radar systems—hence the name lidar. It’s something we’ve been working with for a medical research company—trying to perfect.” He babbled on about his work, fascinated by the bloom of color on her cheeks. She was lovely.

  “Amazing,” she enthused, her smile flashing.

  “It is,” he admitted. “But it could be even better.” He went on to explain the alterations needed. “If they could perfect it, the agony of debrading would become a thing of the past.”

  “Which would be a blessing for all of us,” she muttered, making a face. Her head lifted. “But you can’t do that yet.”

  “No.” He swallowed a mouthful of hot black coffee before explaining the need for a laser component.

  “What you were doing today with the little girl—active triangulation?”

  “Yes.” He was surprised by her knowledge. “It’s good but prone to errors because light tends to scatter inside the tissue.” Jared finished munching on his apple. No point in boring her with his special interest.

  “The new machine would be useful for assessing other types of tissue damage?” Those eyes blazed with life, drawing him into them as she spoke.

  “Yes.”

  “Wow!”

  Her enthusiasm charmed.

  “It has great potential but it isn’t perfected yet, so don’t start planning any expansions for the mission. Hopefully we’ll see some advances soon.” He placed the apple core on his plate, noticed the sack at her feet. “Shopping already, Dr. Cranbrook?”

  “It’s Glory. Or GloryAnn if you must be formal.” She glanced at the bag. “I brought a few things from home—for the patients.”

  “Things?”

  “Toys, noisemakers, a couple of handheld games. Stuff like that.”

  Oh, brother. “Hardly appropriate for Agapé, Doctor.”

  “Are you kidding me?” GloryAnn surged to her feet, picked up the bag and rattled it. “It’s quite appropriate. I’ve never seen a place more in need of a little joy.”

  He would have interrupted but she held up her hand.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to criticize your work, Dr. Steele. I know it is necessary and is helping the kids. But I can’t imagine why your last pediatrician didn’t suggest doing something to animate the children.”

  “We haven’t had a resident pediatrician on staff for over a year. The last one stayed three weeks. They want everything to be jolly and happy and when it isn’t, they don’t seem able to withstand the demands this kind of work requires.”

  Okay, he could have worded that differently, but she’d been here for less than twenty-four hours and she was ready to change all he and Diana had worked so hard to achieve. The knowledge grated like seawater in a wound.

  “Maybe you should have hired a different pediatrician,” she mused aloud. “I admire your new technology, Doctor. I’ve seen you work and I know you’re diligent and precise. But my purpose in being here is to look after the kids’ needs, mental and physical, beyond their burns. I believe they need a few old-fashioned toys.”

  She picked up her tray, paused for a moment. Her face softened, her gaze followed a patient being wheeled along one of the paths.

  “I have to start somewhere,” she murmured.

  Jared’s temper flared as he watched her leave the cafeteria. The casual inference that he hadn’t done his best for his patients irritated him immensely. He rose, pushed his tray onto the appropriate rack and followed her, quickly catching up.

  “Dr. Cranbrook.”

  “Yes, Dr. Steele.” She stopped, lifted one eyebrow in that imperious manner that probably worked well with bratty five-year-olds but simply annoyed him.

  “I do not want noisemakers in my hospital.”

  She stared at him. One corner of her mouth lifted in a half smile, as if she’d caught him out in some prank.

  “Your hospital?”

  Jared swallowed.

  “At Agapé, I mean. I guess I think of it as mine because I’ve been here so long.”

  “Fresh ideas don’t hurt.”

  Meaning he was a stick-in-the-mud, afraid of innovation?

  “No, they don’t. But rest is important for these patients. The treatments are grueling, the issue of facing what they look like now can be extremely traumatic.”

  “Exactly, which is why anything we can do to ease their stress levels, to make them feel normal, is important.” She frowned. “Why are you fighting this, Doctor? Surely you must be aware of the connection between positive thinking and the healing powers of the mind.”

  “Of course. I’m also aware of the benefits of solitude, rest and recuperation and that too much excitement can lead to overexertion and setbacks.”

  “I’m not talking about too much anything.”

  Though he felt a fool for calling her tactics into question, Jared refused to back down. He’d gone through this before with eager beavers and it always ended badly. The children always lost. That couldn’t happen again.

  “I’m chief of staff, Dr. Cranbrook. These children are my responsibility and I don’t want anyone trying some crazy idea that’s going to interfere with our procedures. The patients need every ounce of strength to get through their treatments.”

  He turned to leave. Her hand on his arm stopped him.

  “Toys? Hardly a crazy idea,” she chided, tongue in cheek.

  “You know what I meant.”

  “I do. And I assure you, Dr. Steele, I’m not going to hurt the children or do anything to stop their healing progress. I only want to give them something besides a few dishes of ice cream to look forward to after their therapies are done.”

  So she’d noticed his attempt to soften the pain. Jared sprouted new appreciation for GloryAnn Cranbrook’s shrewdness.

  “The pressure suits are agony to put on.” Her voice mirrored her sadness. “To face the knowledge that even though you take it off tonight, you’ll have to do it again tomorrow—that can prey on the mind and ruin any rest they might get.”

  “But they’re necessary,” he blurted out.

  “Of course they are. And they make a difference. You and I both know that.” Her eyes misted. “But six months, a year ahead—that’s a long time for a child to wait to see results. I spoke to some of the nurses. They told me how hard they have to coax some of the older ones to wear the masks.”

  “Then you also know that the best way to keep their healing skin from drying out too quickly, and to keep out infection, is to wear Lucite masks almost twenty-four hours a day.” He was so weary of the reminder that with pain came healing.

  Pain hadn’t helped him heal.

  “They’re custom-made for each child to be as comfortable as possible.”

  “Yes, I know.” Her chin lifted, her voice lowered. “You’re doing your best to give them a fighting chance, Dr. Steele. I realize that.”

  “I—”

  “All I’m asking is that you let me do the same. I’ve talked to the physiotherapists. We’ve come up with some ideas we think will help motivate them. Kids are used to running, screaming, jumping. To be silent and quiet all the time isn’t necessarily healthy.”

  Hard to argue with truth. Jared had seen the brooding set in, watched as the will to keep going faded when the painful treatments never seemed to end.

  “There will still be periods of silence,” she assured him. “No one’s rest will be disrupted,
I promise. Maybe they’ll rest even better.”

  Jared had always left this end to Diana. He was a surgeon, used to shutting out emotions, cutting and piecing without really thinking about the patient as a person. In fact, Jared didn’t understand kids most of the time. Hadn’t really wanted to until Nicholas.

  Now whenever he lifted a scalpel, the child on the table became the son he had to save.

  “Fine.” He agreed so he could get away, stop being reminded. “You can try it your way for a week. But if it doesn’t work or if someone becomes disruptive, we go back to the way it was.”

  “Of course.”

  A helicopter broke the silence of the afternoon.

  “I hate that sound.” Jared strode back to the desk to see what new damage had been done in a world where God seemed to have fallen asleep.

  Two weeks later, after lunch, Glory climbed up the pathway from the beach feeling both refreshed and at ease.

  “I love this ocean.”

  “Oh, me, too.” Leilani poured sand out of her upturned shoe, grimaced.

  “I don’t understand how you can live in a place like this and not spend every spare moment beside the sea, if not in it.”

  “Maybe if I had hair like yours that dried in a beautiful wave, I would, but all I end up with is a frizzy mess that won’t stay put no matter what.” Leilani unwound the scarf on her head to prove her point.

  “Okay then.” GloryAnn tilted her head to one side, thinking. “Maybe you should stop having perms.”

  “And wear what—mop strings? My hair sticks out in all directions. Dr. Steele would send me home.”

  “Ha! You’re irreplaceable. Is he always so—” GloryAnn remembered who she was talking to and bit off the adverb.

  “Cranky?” Leilani giggled at her arched brow. “Well, if the shoe fits.” Mirth was edged out by a sad smile. “Ever since his family died.”

  “He had a family? I mean, I heard he’d been married once, but—” Glory gulped. “What happened to his wife?”

  “She died. Was killed, actually.” Leilani sat down on a big rock, pulled out her water bottle and took a sip. “Both Diana and Nicholas—their son. He was three years old.”

  “Oh, how horrible!” A gush of sympathy overtook Glory. She wondered how Jared could bear to stay.

  “That’s not all.” Leilani shoved her sunglasses onto the top of her head. “They were murdered.”

  At first Glory thought it was some kind of crude joke, but Leilani’s frown was deadly serious. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know if you remember—a few years back there was an uprising by rebels in Russia. They took some hostages, did some damage. It took armed forces to quell it.”

  “I recall something about that.”

  “A school was bombed, and a little boy who was badly injured was flown here for treatment. His name was Sam.” Leilani’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I was here the day they brought him in with his father, Viktor. Sam’s mother had been a teacher at the school, his siblings were students there. An entire family was gone—except for Sam and his dad.”

  A pang of loss for this man she’d never met rippled deep. Glory knew too well what it was like to lose loved ones.

  “Diana, Dr. Steele’s wife, felt Sam should be taken elsewhere, that he was too damaged for the grafting procedure.”

  “She was a doctor?”

  “A pediatrician. Dr. Steele is the boss, but she was the oil that kept everything running smoothly.” Leilani smiled. “In fact, you’re doing her job.”

  Glory almost groaned. That explained Jared’s attitude. She’d waltzed in and begun changing everything his dead wife had organized.

  “Anyway, Diana wanted to transfer Sam somewhere else, but by then Dr. Steele had done the procedure many times with great success and felt he could help. He’d heard their story, you see, and it touched him. He understood Viktor was going through a father’s worst nightmare. Jared desperately wanted to give Viktor back his son.”

  “So he did the procedure.” A sense of dread hung in the air.

  “It went perfectly. Two days later, Sam died.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “It was horrible.” Leilani’s voice dropped. “Jared couldn’t understand it. There was no warning, no sign that the boy was in trouble. Even the autopsy couldn’t explain why, only that his little heart had stopped.”

  “The father was devastated,” she guessed.

  “And furious.”

  “Oh?”

  “Viktor agreed to bring Sam to Agapé because a doctor in Moscow had told him of our success. Viktor wasn’t a religious man himself, but he thought his son would do better among those who believe in the power of God.” Leilani pursed her lips. “You know how people are—get God on your side and you’ll get a double benefit—less risk of anything going wrong if God’s involved.”

  “I’m familiar with that line of thinking.” Glory pieced together the sad story. “I’m guessing his view changed with Sam’s death?”

  “Yes. Viktor claimed Jared had talked him into it, said he would never have allowed his son to undergo the treatment if he’d known it was so dangerous.” Leilani shook her head. “He’d been told all the risks. I was there, I heard it.”

  “The poor man. To lose that last link—” Sadness overwhelmed her.

  “After the autopsy Viktor took Sam’s body back to Russia to be buried. Before he left he threatened to make Jared pay for killing his son. It was an awful time. We’d all fallen for the little sprite, you see. Sam was a heartbreaker. We prayed so hard for him to be whole again.” A tear trembled on her lashes.

  “It’s hard to understand sometimes, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Leilani sighed. “But nobody took it harder than Jared. He locked himself in his office, reviewed the tapes of the surgery over and over, searching for something he’d done wrong. Only there wasn’t anything. I should know—I assisted him. It was a straightforward surgery. It was difficult, yes, but no more so than others we’d done.”

  “Those are the hardest cases to deal with—the ones where you can’t figure out how you could have prevented it. Or accept that you couldn’t.”

  Leilani’s sad eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Diana and Nicholas were traveling home from a visit with her parents a month later. Have you met Kahlia and Pono yet?”

  Glory shook her head.

  “Lovely people. They adored Diana and the baby. And Jared. Typical Hawaiian family, lots of hugging, plenty of celebrations. They always included our staff in any party they threw. We’d become part of their family.” Leilani blew her nose. “Diana’s car went over the edge of a cliff. She and Nicholas were killed. After the funerals, Jared got a card. An eye for an eye. It was Viktor.”

  “How horrible!” Glory shuddered. “This Viktor—he’s in jail now, right?”

  “Yes.” Leilani sighed. “Not that it makes any difference. They’re still gone. I think Jared would have left Agapé, moved on and built a new life.”

  “Why can’t he do that now?”

  “If you haven’t met them, I guess you couldn’t understand.” Leilani’s troubled gaze met hers. “Pono and Kahlia won’t let go. They cling to Jared as if he’s their son. He finds it terribly difficult to say no to them, to add to the pain they’ve already endured. I think he feels guilty about little Sam’s death, but he refuses to discuss it with anyone.”

  “But you said it wasn’t his fault.” Glory frowned. “This was when?”

  “Coming up on three years.”

  “Her parents must be over the worst of it. He could leave now, couldn’t he?”

  “It would break their hearts, but I guess he could, if he made up his mind.”

  “You don’t sound sure.” Something wasn’t quite right. “Why?”

  “You should really talk to him.”

  “Dredge up his past without all the facts? How would that help?”

  Leilani tucked her water bottle back into her bag, pulled down her su
nglasses and rose. “We’d better get back.”

  “Wait.” Glory held the woman’s arm to stop her from leaving. “What aren’t you saying?”

  Leilani kept her mouth clamped closed, but a battle raged in her dark-brown eyes.

  “You can’t tell me this much and not the rest. It’s not fair,” GloryAnn pleaded.

  “If I tell you, you’ll leave.” Like the others was the implication.

  “No way. I’m not going anywhere. I promised Elizabeth Wisdom six months and that’s how long I’m here for. So you might as well tell me. I’ll find out, anyway.”

  “I guess you will.” Leilani scuffled her toes against the dirt. Finally she lifted her head. “I think Jared doesn’t leave because he can’t. He often goes to Honolulu and visits the Halawa Correctional Facility to make sure Viktor’s still there.”

  “Why?”

  “I think he wants to make sure his wife and son’s killer serves every bit of the time he was sentenced, be certain Viktor doesn’t get early parole or something.” Leilani shook her head. “Look, you really should talk to Jared about this. It’s his private business, after all.” She began walking quickly back to the mission.

  GloryAnn remained still, the sun beating down on her head as she struggled to reconcile what she’d learned. An inkling of understanding seeped through.

  Jared Steele kept a close check on Agapé to ensure nothing bad happened again. But why didn’t he walk away, leave it to someone else, find a place where he could forget the horror that had happened here and move on?

  If it took her entire six months, Glory was going to answer that question.

  Chapter Three

  Once she’d showered off the salty seawater and changed back into her work clothes, Glory hurried back to the wards.

  The warm afternoons were the most difficult times for the children in Ward A, especially the older kids who couldn’t yet get out of bed and move around. Technically she was on an extended lunch because she would be on duty all night, but since she had nothing else to do, Glory decided to help out.

  The nurses hurried as fast as they could, but it wasn’t possible to meet everyone’s demands at once. The pathetic cries of those who had to wait for relief affected the others who watched in fear or studiously looked away to avoid seeing more pain.