by Mike Jenne
After the jets roared off over the horizon and their noise dissipated, the leader of the Honor Guard came forward and carefully handed Rebecca the folded flag. He saluted it in painfully slow motion, and then quietly declared, “We present this on behalf of a grateful nation.”
After Taps had been sounded and the Honor Guard departed, Ourecky presented Rebecca with a blue leatherette case, approximately the size of a hardbound book, and explained, “Your father earned the Medal of Honor.”
“That’s been in a vault all these years,” commented the President. “We want you to have it.”
Ourecky and Bea remained long after the President and other official guests had departed. He looked toward Rebecca, surrounded by her three children, and smiled. Long ago, after he had graduated from MIT, he and Bea had returned to Ohio, where he was stationed at Wright-Patterson for almost ten years. In no time, their son became reacquainted with his best friend from childhood; the two took up right where they had left off, became fast friends—virtually inseparable—and eventually married after he graduated from the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
“I’m really sorry that Andy couldn’t be here,” said Rebecca. “He wanted to be, but they’re in the middle of a big flight test. It’s all very hush-hush.”
“I know that feeling,” commented Bea, gazing towards Ourecky.
“Sometimes I wish he was back at NASA, flying the Shuttle again,” said Rebecca. “But at least he’s home more often now. And he’s happy.”
“That’s good,” said Ourecky.
Rebecca’s youngest child, a seven-year-old boy, scampered up. The child took Ourecky’s hand and led him to Carson’s still open grave. Ourecky knelt down, and the two of them read the marker stone’s inscription together. It said simply:
ANDREW M.
CARSON
COLONEL
U.S. AIR FORCE
VIETNAM
MARCH 18 1935
APRIL 1973
MEDAL OF HONOR
COMMAND PILOT
“So, Pops, the man they buried here, he was my other Pops?” asked the boy, pointing at the stone.
“He was,” answered Ourecky. “He died a long time before you were born.”
“Really? Was he brave like you?”
“Oh, much braver than me.”
“Then was he a hero like you?” The boy reached out and touched the ribbon on Ourecky’s chest. In the bright sunlight, the child’s eyes almost exactly matched the shade of the ribbon; they were crystalline blue, almost unnaturally so, as if they had been snatched from the sky.
“No. I’m not a hero. He was a hero.” Ourecky felt a familiar twinge of pain in his shoulder, something he hadn’t felt in decades. He rubbed it, thought of Carson, and smiled to himself. Gazing at the bright eyes of his grandson, he knew that a part of his friend would be with him always.
31
EPILOGUE:
A VISIT WITH DOCTOR SOPHIE
Office of Doctor Sophie Dubuission
Grande-Rivière-du-Nord, Haiti
Present Day
Doctor Sophie Dubuission paused for a moment’s respite. One of the few doctors in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord, and the only pediatrician, her services were in great demand.
Her medical practice was housed in a simple one-story building consisting of three rooms. One served as a reception area, the middle room—the largest of the three—functioned as her office and examination area, and a small room towards the back was her living quarters. There was a little porch at the rear of the building, where Sophie periodically came for a break. The sun had set less than thirty minutes ago; she particularly enjoyed this time of twilight.
Gazing up at the darkening sky, she glimpsed a bright spot of light tracing swiftly through the stars. It did not flicker, so she decided that it must be a satellite rather than an airplane. Curious, she admired it for a moment and watched it as vanished over the horizon. Then she remembered that children were still waiting to be seen, so she could not linger here for long.
With striking features that always seemed to make men weak at the knees, a gift from her mother, Sophie was a sprite, hardly bigger than some of her patients, weighing barely more than a shadow. She had not always practiced medicine here; she had returned recently after spending several years as a doctor in Africa. In that capacity, on that bleak continent, she had been one of the busiest pediatricians on the planet, saving tens of thousands of children from disease, starvation, wounds and other trauma. In fact, she probably would not have returned to Haiti if her father had not been deathly ill, and she probably would not have stayed if he hadn’t specifically asked her to come back to care for the destitute children of Grande-Rivière-du-Nord.
Caring for children was her life and her passion. Although she was nearly forty years old, she had never married. She came close a few times, but she had yet to find a man who could truly understand or appreciate her obsession, and had scarce time to spend looking for a mate.
Her mother was always concerned that Sophie did not have a husband and family. Life is short, she insisted, you must find yourself a good man. As it was, her parents had passed away in their late fifties; longevity was not a common trait in Haiti. Her mother was right: Life is short. Now, as her life gradually settled back into normalcy, Sophie lived a very ascetic existence. This evening, after she had seen her last patient, she would sit down to a simple meal of rice and beans. Afterwards, she would curl up with a copy of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, read until her eyes could bear no more, and then lie down to sleep until dawn.
Sophie looked back up at the stars one more time and then walked back into reception area. She was surprised to see that no patients remained. Her nurse looked up, handed her a folder, and explained, “Most of the last parents decided that their children’s complaints were minor, so they will be back in the morning. I’ve arranged for them to immediately go to the front of the queue. But there’s only one more patient yet to see.”
“Really? Just one?”
“Wi. It’s Madan Madabat’s son. They’re waiting outside.”
“Ear infection again?” asked Sophie, quietly clicking her tongue and rolling her eyes.
“Wi.”
Sophie sighed, shook her head and frowned. She wasn’t particularly fond of Madan Madabat. First, her six-year-old son was particularly prone to ear problems, and to make matters worse, he seemed especially susceptible to some sort of microorganism—which Sophie had yet to isolate and identify—that resided in the river. She had repeatedly advised Madan Madabat to keep the little rascal out of the river, or at least caution him to keep his head out of the water, but every two weeks or so they showed up at the office, with the child presenting with yellow pus oozing from an ear canal swollen nearly shut.
Second, Madan Madabat was a woman of means, at least by Haiti’s humble standards. She made an obnoxious practice of putting on airs and acting superior to the impoverished mothers who frequented the clinic. But even though Madan Madabat was certainly capable of paying for a visit, such an act was obviously beneath her, because she always seemed to leave the office without opening her purse. She always insisted on receiving a bill from the nurse as she departed, but the invoices were never paid.
Sophie found it ironic, if not also aggravating. She would see any child, regardless of their parents’ capacity to pay, and often received compensation in the form of a chicken, vegetables, bananas or mangos. And although she appreciated anything she was given, it was just as likely that she would send the offerings out the door with the next patient rather than eat them herself.
She took a deep breath and reminded herself of her pledge to be cheerful and encouraging with every child and every parent. Regardless of their complaint, whether minor or most severe, she resolved herself to be patient and kind.
Sophie adjusted the stethoscope draped around her neck and sniffed a delightful odor in the air. “What on earth is that wonderful smell?” she asked, almost immediately salivating.
“Remember that boy you stitched up this morning?” asked her nurse. “His father left you some dinner.” The nurse reached under her desk and brought out a lunch carrier consisting of several nested aluminum pans held together by a metal bale. “I was going to surprise you.”
Sophie’s first thought was how much more time she would have to study without the annoyance of cooking dinner. The scent of the food was almost overwhelmingly enticing; at this instant, after tending to over a hundred suffering children over the course of thirteen hours, she desired nothing more than to immediately sit down and eat.
The nurse sniffed at the lid of the uppermost pan and excitedly declared: “There’s roast chicken in here! It smells delicious. There’s rice, beans and fried plantains as well! And pudding! A feast! I really think that man is sweet on you, Doctor Sophie.”
Sophie’s stomach growled audibly. She held her hand over it, and said, “If it’s a feast, then have some for yourself, Marie. Just leave a little bit for me, souple.”
“Mèsi anpil, Sophie.”
Sophie yawned as she reviewed the boy’s medical records. Almost assuredly, the child’s ear infection would probably be just a simple case that could be resolved by irrigating the ear canal with diluted vinegar. But if it were worse, perhaps a bacterial infection spreading from the ear to the soft tissues of the face, it might require an extensive regimen of antibiotics. She frowned; she tried to use the potent medicines as sparingly as possible.
She closed the folder, looked up and said, “Send them in.”
Nibbling on a greasy drumstick, the nurse left her desk and stepped outside. She beckoned for Madan Madabat and the child to follow her to Sophie’s office.
As they entered the room, Sophie lifted the boy and sat him upright on her exam table. The child flinched as she playfully wiggled his outer ear. Although that simple gesture was sufficient to tell her most of what she needed to know, she spent several minutes examining him, peering into his ear with an otoscope as he fussed and fidgeted.
She irrigated the inflamed ear canal with sterile saline, dried it, and then used a cotton swab to gingerly apply a topical antibiotic. Afterwards, handing Madan Madabat a sample bottle of medicinal eardrops, she recited the same litany of treatment and precautionary measures that she had told her so many times in the past.
As she stood to leave, Madan Madabat spied two pictures—a photograph and a child’s drawing—hanging in simple frames beside the door. “I’ve not seen these pictures before,” she commented.
Sophie grinned and replied, “I’ve just put them up recently, since your last visit. That photograph is of my parents.”
“They were a handsome couple,” said Madan Madabat, haughtily turning up her nose. “I’m not one to judge, Doctor Sophie, but wasn’t your mother a prostitute? I’ve heard stories…”
“Well, her past was somewhat checkered, but she was never a prostitute.” Forcing a smile, Sophie could not believe the woman possessed the gall to speak ill of the deceased.
Wrinkling her nose and squinting, Madan Madabat studied the framed drawing. “And this? It’s very crude and odd-looking. Did one of your patients draw it?”
“Non. I did, when I was as a little girl. It shows a story that my father used to tell us when we were young. See those dark spots near the bottom? Those are bloodstains. My blood.”
“You bled on this picture?”
“I did. When I was seven,” explained Sophie. “My parents enrolled me in the missionary school in Hinche. The other children were curious about my upbringing, so I drew that picture and told them the story. One of the nuns heard about it, and she was furious. She snatched the picture away from me and stuck it in her desk. She rapped my knuckles with a ruler trying to force me to recant the story. She beat my knuckles until they bled, but I would not give in. Ever.”
As Sophie took the batteries out of her otoscope so they would not corrode the interior of the expensive instrument, she added, “Last year, that ugly old nun died. I went back to the school and they let me look in her desk. I found my picture and brought it home.”
“And it was a picture of a story? What on earth could have made a nun so upset?” asked Madan Madabat, holding her son’s shoulder. “What was the story about?”
“Yon zanj nwa,” replied Sophie. “A black angel.”
“A black angel? I must hear this. Tell me about it.”
Sophie smiled, closed her eyes, and said, “Every year on March 13th, my father and my uncle would gather their families together. Before they moved closer to town, they used to live on a hilltop, all by themselves. The townspeople would not allow my father to come down from the hill, because he was a leper.”
“Lèp?” said Madan Madabat, shuddering as if a chill passed over her. “The leper on the hill? I vaguely remember hearing that story, but I thought it was just a rumor, like a ghost story to scare misbehaving children. It was true? He was your father? He lived there with your uncle?”
Sophie nodded, opened her eyes and continued. “They lived on that hill together. They were content with themselves, but they also knew that they could never marry and have families of their own. But one night, a flaming chariot fell from the sky, right into their sugarcane patch.”
“A flaming chariot?” scoffed Madan Madabat. Her young son seemed entranced by the story, tilting his head so that his good ear was pointing towards Sophie.
“Wi. Then later, angels came from the sky and descended on their hilltop. Most were zanj blan, but those white angels were preceded by a black angel. According to the story, the angels cured my father of leprosy, and later the black angel took him to Cap-Haïtian where he introduced him to my mother. And that’s how I came to be here.”
Gasping, Madan Madabat snatched her enthralled son and roughly pushed him through the doorway into the reception area. Frowning, she slammed the door shut and exclaimed “Doctor, please don’t fill my child’s ears with such silly nonsense! Flaming chariots? Angels descending from heaven? A black angel? What kind of idiot would believe such a ridiculous thing?”
Stifling an urge to sigh, Sophie smiled politely as she gazed over the many diplomas that declared her to be an educated woman. For all of her learned knowledge, she knew that the world was a mysterious place, with many aspects that simply could not be explained with logic and reason. Looking at the contented smiles of her parents, Henri and Lydie, she knew that love—even more so than hope and faith—was the most powerful force in the world. And as her father had so often told her, the real lesson of the zanj nwa was that the greatest thing we can do on this earth was simply to be kind to one another.
Madan Madabat’s question reverberated in her ears: What kind of idiot would believe such a ridiculous thing? “Mwen. Mwen kwè ke,” replied Sophie. “Me. I believe.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to Dr. John Charles, for kindly and consistently contributing his extensive knowledge of manned spaceflight, timely advice and sage counsel.
For their encouragement, friendship and enthusiastic support of the Blue Gemini series, I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Bo Canning, Frankie Fisher, Ronald G. Purviance, Dennis L. Rodgrick, Karen Weldon, Ken Klein, Tonja Klein, Dr. James Busby, James Pacheo, John Gresham, Tim Gagnon, Michael Mastin, Dan Bramos, Steve Schultz, Shannon Pettigrew, Taylor Robinson, Emily Carney, Stuart Sentell, Elliot Lounsbury, Andreas P. Bergweiler, Roy Houchin, Jose Clavell, Donald Franck, Byron Craig Russell, David Jacob Heino, Gregg Correll, Richard Johns, Paul Ryan, Christopher Rottiers, Robert Hawthorne, and BG John Scales.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the contributions of my brother Ed, who was responsible for some of the key technology described in the story. Ed has also executed an extensive collection of technical illustrations that depict some of the key equipment and facilities, like the fictional “Pacific Departure Facility” launch complex at Johnston Island, to help readers in visualizing these aspects of the story. I would also like to extend my most heartfel
t appreciation to three gentlemen—Mike Pierce, James F. Rosencrans, and John McGinley—who kindly assisted Ed in his efforts.
Last but definitely not least, I am indebted to my family and especially my wife, Adele, for their love and infinite patience.