“Jake, bring ‘em out.”
Three familiar young faces suddenly appeared from behind a doorway obscured by the bulk of the man and made a beeline for the Crowleys, the Edisons, and Galen. As they leaped and jumped into the arms of the adults like three unleashed puppies, Comer raised an eyebrow, which Todwell noticed.
“Oh, hush, Ed Comer,” she said before he could speak. “You know I’m a softy for kids and pets. I just thought—and my friends at Social Services agreed—that the children would be better off back with the Crowleys and their friends.”
As Comer took Todwell in his arms and hugged her, Galen whispered to Edison:
“I’ll bet ol’ Comer has ridden down that private elevator himself—and not alone, either.”
The other three laughed and laughed at the happy ending.
“June, why don’t you stop by my place in Virginia? I can show you Washington like you’ve never seen it.”
“I’d like to do that someday, Bob. How would you like to join Bill, Peggy and me next year? We’re going to do a medical missionary flight to Colombia. I’d love to have you come with me.”
Welcome words, but they caused the hairs on Galen’s neck to rise once more as Aunt Hattie’s voice stirred in his mind.
Bone Man’ll bite yeh and it’ll sting real bad!
She had kept her promise, stopping by Galen’s Virginia home/office after returning from a visit to her son in Florida and a stopover at the clinic to see the Crowleys and the children.
After a day of sightseeing, the two of them sat in the tiny booth of the out-of-the-way Thai restaurant, slowly sipping tea and getting reintroduced. He kept looking at her and remembering the young woman he once had loved briefly but so intensely that he even lost track of the conversation of the moment.
The years notwithstanding, June was still The Model to him. Time had just added a patina of wisdom to her classical good looks. Even more, she still had the intelligence and wit that had made working ward duty with her a pleasure.
But her next remark snapped him back to attention.
“Bob, I’m worried about Peggy. Last time I was visiting, she looked tired. I’m going to go down this weekend and help Bill out at the clinic. Want to come with me? The four of us would be unstoppable.”
The four of us. Once it had been the Unstoppable Six, the A Team.
Dave, the Country Boy, was dead and Connie had never really recovered from his tragic death. She had withdrawn into an isolated existence that none of her friends could break. So, now there were four, and that fourth had left him with self-induced scars on his soul. Could things really be picked up and started over again after all these years?
He felt like a schoolboy asking the prom queen for a date. Hell, he hadn’t felt this awkward since when? He didn’t want to lose her a second time. He had had his share of loss.
“So, wanna come with me?”
He smiled and nodded.
They got up before dawn the next day.
“Old training habits never die,” he quipped and she laughed as they both remembered the many times they would be awakened in the middle of the night for sick patients.
He had loaded his old Jeep with medical supplies for the clinic and they drove down to Bill and Peggy’s North Carolina mission and clinic. Each wondered if this would be a new beginning for them. They didn’t call ahead. They wanted to savor each other’s company as long as possible.
When they arrived in the late afternoon, they went directly to the residence next door to the clinic. It seemed a long time before the door was opened. Bill stood in the hallway and looked at them without seeming to see them. He stared into emptiness.
June moved first. She slid past Bill into the house and went back to the bedroom area. Galen took his friend by the arm, guided him to the living room sofa, and made him sit down.
“Bill, what’s wrong?”
“Bob, get back here!” June’s voice quavered.
He ran back to the bedroom where June was examining her friend. She was crying softly even as she stroked Peggy’s face.
“She’s dead, Bob. It looks like a sudden massive stroke.”
“Madre de Dios!”
Galen and June turned at the sudden exclamation and saw Mrs. Canales the housekeeper standing in the doorway. Clutching her apron, the three Hidalgo children stared wide-eyed at the bed and the woman they had grown to love as Tia Peggy.
“Is Tia sick?”
Carmelita looked up at the giant who had rescued her and her brothers, but he remained silent.
“No, little one,” Mrs. Canales said quietly, choking out the words, “your Tia is with the angels now.”
“Will she be with mama and papa?” asked Federico, who went to touch the dead woman’s hand.
“Yes, she will,” said Galen, who bit his lip to maintain control of his emotions.
“Is Tio Bill going with Tia Peggy?” Little Antonio moved toward Galen.
“No, Tonio, not yet.”
June tried to appear strong in front of the children.
“Consuela, we’ll need to make arrangements and help the Padre. Will you look after the children for us until we can straighten things out?”
“Si, senora.”
She opened her arms to gather the three and led them slowly from the room. Each looked back and waved good-bye at Peggy.
A few moments later, Galen and June exited the room as well, leaving her there in the bed she and Bill had shared those many years. They returned to where Bill was still sitting now rocking himself back and forth ever so slightly. They had to help the living. All their training cried out for that. All of their humanity demanded it.
Galen called the local funeral home to make arrangements then he and June sat with Bill through the night.
Finally they were able to coax from him the tragic chain of events. Peggy had never quite recovered from the stress of Bill’s arrest. She had worked the clinic alone the day before that terrifying court hearing. And both, in a frenzied attempt to ward off the attack on their very reason for being, had worked twice as hard afterwards.
She worked, even though fatigue and headaches began to overtake her, but she wouldn’t stop, until earlier that day when she told Bill she just had to lie down for awhile. When he went to check on her a little later, he found his whole life gone. He had sat there with her, not able to move or think rationally until, like Pavlov’s dog, he responded reflexively to the sound of the doorbell.
The ceremonies were quiet. Edison and Nancy had flown in to be with their friends. They were amazed at the large crowd standing silently in the early morning Carolina fog just to pay their respects to Padre Bill’s wife.
Then came the hard part: going back to the house that echoed with the memories and vibrations of a fruitful life and the recent happy commotion of the children. Galen and June could sense the palpable emptiness, so they stayed a week with their friend, working the clinic and keeping a close eye on Bill, while he sat silently most of the time regardless of their attempts at encouragement.
Before he left for home, Galen contacted the regional medical school and arranged for the directors of the graduate programs to circulate their interns and residents through the clinic. Then he bundled Bill and some personal basics into the Jeep and June and he drove the distance back to Northern Virginia. He knew the agony of being alone and vowed not to let that crushing despair permanently overwhelm his friend.
Slowly Bill did emerge from his depression. The loss still weighed on him, but he began to eat and talk more freely, particularly of returning to his clinic to continue his and Peggy’s life work. But Galen recognized that pattern, too, and so did June.
“Bill, let’s make that Colombia trip,” she told him. “Peggy would have wanted it. It will do you some good to get away for awhile.”
June could be very persuasive when she was younger, and Galen saw something else that had endured over the years as she talked with Bill, who at last agreed.
The three work
ed over the arrangements. June and Bill would fly down to the takeoff point in Colombia to check on the supplies and itinerary for the various stops through the outlying villages. Galen would join them later for the actual embarkation to the countryside.
The effort brought purpose back into Bill’s life and renewed determination into Galen’s. The night before she was going to leave, they strolled along the bike path near Galen’s home. He knew it was his second, and last, chance with her.
“June, remember that day when I made a fool of myself at your apartment?”
She laughed then stopped and looked into his glistening eyes.
“You weren’t a fool, Bob. I just wasn’t ready for that big a step in my life.”
“What about now?”
Dear God, what a stupid way to propose!
He waited that fraction of a second, expecting the same reply to echo over the years again.
“I’m ready now, Bob.”
He waved to them as they left the security area to board their plane then returned home quickly. He had a lot to do before his own flight in two days. He had arranged for coverage of his patients, but Nancy and Edison would keep watch over the office and stay at his place to catch the mail and important calls. He kept checking off the items on his inventory list—including that special small box, ring size, he would carry in his shirt pocket.
He sat at his desk, looking over his passport, vaccination records, and all of the other papers he would need. The classical music from WBJC filled the room with Schubert’s beautiful “Quintet in C.”
Then the music stopped.
“This is a bulletin from the WBJC news room,” a monotone male voice interrupted. “In what is being called a tragic accident, the Colombian government has announced that a plane carrying medical missionaries and supplies from the United States was fired upon by U.S. and Colombian drug-taskforce helicopters that had been tracking narcotics smuggling operations over the central highlands. There are no reported survivors. Stay tuned for further reports.”
And then there was one.
CHAPTER 15
Rebirth
He walked through the empty house next to the mission clinic that Bill and Peggy Crowley had dedicated their lives to running. He came to the small office room that both had shared and gazed at the framed documents hanging from the wall: college and medical school diplomas, board and state licenses, all attesting to the competence and knowledge of the two who had lived there. But none of that spoke to who these two people really were, what they had been, what they had meant to each other. And as his emotions twisted in agony, he spotted a small, framed photograph occupying a central place of honor among the official documents. Smiling out at him were six young faces, three couples, dressed in their senior medical year whites with stethoscopes hanging out of their side pockets, arms on each other’s shoulders.
He took the photo from the wall, set it on Bill’s desk, and sat down in front of it. Finally he did what he hadn’t been able to do since he heard that recent broadcast of the accident that had claimed his two friends—he lowered his head and began to cry.
The sound of a gentle knock interrupted his grief. He sat back upright, wiped his eyes, and softly said, “Come in.”
Mrs. Canales, the elderly housekeeper, once a refugee whom Bill and Peggy had rescued, opened the door.
“Dr. Galen, I have packed the children’s belongings. They are outside with your friends.”
“Thank you, Consuela. I appreciate all of your help these past days. I hope you will be staying on to help the young doctors coming through here.”
“Si, Doctor. It is what the Padre and his lady would have wanted. You will take good care of the children, si?”
“Yes, like they were my own.”
“Senor, they are.”
He picked up the photograph from the desk and carried it with him outside, where Edison and Nancy stood by the rented minivan holding onto the three small ones now in their charge. As soon as the children spotted him, they ran to meet him, all calling out “Tio Galen! Tio Galen!”
As they surrounded him, Antonio, the youngest, quieted down.
“Where do people go when they die, Tio Galen?”
“Why do you want to know, Tonio?”
He watched the serious-faced little boy, now staring up into the sky.
“Tio Edison said that they go to heaven. Is that where Padre Bill and Tia Peggy are?”
“Yes, Tonio, I’m sure of it.”
The round-faced little girl looked worried.
“Are we going to live with you?”
“Yes, Carmelita, you and Federico and Tonio are all coming with us. We’re going to show you where I live, and then we’ll head to your new home in Pennsylvania with Tia Nancy and Tio Edison.”
“Are you going to live with us, Tio?”
Federico looked into his eyes.
Nancy and Edison also watched their friend and waited.
Stunned, Galen stared and said nothing until three small pairs of hands took hold of his. Then he looked at his friends and said softly, “Yes, if Tia Nancy and Tio Edison will have me.”
The minivan with its cargo of six lives, three young and three old, made its way back up the coast and reached Galen’s home shortly before dusk. It had been a quiet ride, interrupted only by food and bathroom breaks.
Galen turned and called out, “We’re almost at my house, but if everyone’s not too tired, how about if we take a quick ride into the city? Washington’s lights are a sight to see.”
Nancy looked at the three kids in the back seat, their eyes still wide at the changing scenery. Edison, tired from the drive, stretched his arms and nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do a quick bit of sightseeing.”
The sun’s late-summer dusky amber light show was coming to a close as they took Dolley Madison Boulevard to the entrance of the George Washington Parkway. The road, beautifully landscaped with forest trees and plants, followed the Virginia side of the Potomac River into Washington, where the lights of Georgetown and the city’s monuments formed a kaleidoscope across the darkened water.
They crossed the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and followed Constitution Avenue past the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument—a stone-block space needle, backlit by the flood lamps around it—and the White House, gleaming from across the south lawn and Ellipse.
It was late for the children to be up, but they remained wide-eyed at the stately buildings and towering monuments.
“What are those buildings, Tio Galen?” Carmelita asked.
“These are the offices of federal agencies,” he replied. “That’s the Department of Commerce, and farther down is the Department of Justice.”
“Oh,” she said, seeming disappointed.
“But here on your right is the Museum of American History, where they keep the gowns of the First Ladies, and next is the Museum of Natural History—where they keep the giant elephant and the dinosaur skeletons.”
The three kids oohed and aahed.
“Turn right here, Edison, on Seventh Street.”
Edison complied.
“Where’re we headed, Galen?”
He pointed to the huge gray-white building with its symbol of The Freedom of Flight, the Smithsonian’s crown jewel—the National Air and Space Museum.
“We’ll visit here soon,” Galen promised.
They headed back to Virginia, and when they returned to Galen’s home the three adults carried three sleeping munchkins inside to their beds.
“Thanks, Galen. That was beautiful,” Nancy said.
Edison nodded then added, “But it doesn’t match our mountain.”
Galen just smiled.
It had been a while since he had slept in his own bed. He washed up and changed into the pajamas and robe that Cathy had given him when he turned forty-five. He sat on the edge of his bed for a time, trying to adjust to the rapid changes in his life. It felt strange, even more so when he realized there were five other
lives in his home/office. It hadn’t been that way in years. He wondered what might have been if the fates hadn’t intervened.
There might have been children with Leni. He got up and opened the upper-right desk drawer and looked at the handwritten card from long ago that had hung from the neck of the little stuffed toy dog and sighed.
Cathy and he had talked about adoption. And June, there could have been grandchildren when her son, Tom, finally settled down. Now he felt the spiritual closeness of three rescued strangers who had captured his heart. He sighed again and lay back down, the arthritic twinges in his back making him groan slightly as he tried to get comfortable. He took off his glasses, and the world blurred into the incandescence of the small night light on the shelf by his bed. He reached over and turned it off. After a while the turmoil in his mind quieted and he slept.
He had dozed off, but years of training suddenly brought him fully awake.
He wasn’t alone.
He turned the night light back on and saw a small blurred figure looking at him.
Glasses, where are my glasses—ah, there they are.
He peered into the face of little Antonio.
“What is it, Tonio?”
The boy, dressed in blue bunny rabbit pajamas, climbed up on the edge of the bed. He held a stuffed toy dog in his left hand.
Galen’s eyes widened as he sat up with a start.
“Boy … Tonio … where did you get that?”
He caught himself and tried to keep his voice down. He didn’t want to upset the child. But Antonio was holding Leni’s stuffed toy dog, the reminder of that nightmare so many years ago. Galen had kept it as a sad memento—no, more, a sacred relic of that time, but he had placed it high up on a shelf and only he knew its significance.
“The nice ladies brought it to me.”
“Nice ladies?”
“I was sleeping and then I woke up and they were standing by my bed.”
Galen’s heart was now racing, but he knew he had to remain calm in front of the child.
Requiem for the Bone Man Page 21