by Dianne Drake
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came back. And I choose all the reasons.”
“How’s she doing?” Gideon asked, bringing a fresh IV bag over to Lorna. She’d been huddled over Andreza’s bedside for the past three hours, pushing medication, looking for signs of improvement.
Three solid hours of care now, and the most she could say was that her patient was resting comfortably. The antibiotics were kicking in because her fever had slightly decreased, and the oxygen was working because Andreza was breathing easier. But her urinary output was low, and too concentrated. And her eyes were still yellow. Not as bad as they could have been…she’d seen much worse. So that was a marginal point of optimism. “Holding on,” Lorna said. “Which, all things considered, is about as much as we can expect right now.”
It was already raining. Not hard yet, but the winds were kicking up. Nothing serious predicted. The weather might even clear up later, according to the latest forecast.
“We’ll get her transferred to a hospital as soon as we can get her out of here,” Gideon reassured her. “Wish we could do it sooner, but we haven’t found a bed for her yet.”
“She stands a chance,” Lorna said. “Until four hours ago, she didn’t. Waiting a while longer isn’t going to make a difference.”
“Her husband feels bad. I was talking to him through one of the translators and he said that his wife kept telling him it was nothing. He said he could have gotten her help if he’d known, but they haven’t seen an outbreak of yellow fever here for years. Poor guy is really torn up. They’ve been married twenty-five years, and he’s really scared right now.”
An outbreak…volunteers had brought in ten more victims in the last two hours. None were quite so advanced as Andreza, but the whole lot of them were sick. “The things people keep from each other,” she said. Lorna checked Andreza’s IV, then moved on to the next bed and did a routine exam of that patient, while Gideon did the same with another patient. “Sometimes it’s just too frightening to admit,” she said, as she took a quick temperature reading. “You know, or suspect, but saying it out loud makes it real. As long as you don’t, it isn’t real.” That was the way their marriage had failed. They’d known, but they hadn’t said anything out loud about it. Not until it had been too late.
“Look, Lorna. I’m going to see Dani later today if nothing serious comes in. She’s doing pretty well, surgery was successful. Doctors are marginally optimistic about her recovery. But she…” He drew in a ragged breath. “She doesn’t know. And it’s only a matter of time until somebody tells her or she sees an account on television. So I’ve got to go.”
It wasn’t going to be an easy journey. Lorna recognized the stress written all over Gideon’s face. He wasn’t looking forward to this, and her heart went out to him. Telling Dani that Tom had died was going to be a terrible thing. “It’s never easy,” she said, instinctively reaching out and giving him an assuring squeeze on the arm.
“Come with me, Lorna.”
“What?”
“To the hospital, to see Dani. Come with me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Casualties aren’t coming in right now, everyone we’ve kept is settled in and stabilized, and the next weather front won’t set in until tomorrow, according to the forecast. We’ve got plenty of volunteers on clean-up, so it’s a good time to leave for a few hours, and I don’t want to take one of the rescuers out in case we do find more survivors. So I thought maybe you’d like to come.”
It wasn’t a journey she necessarily looked forward to, but Gideon was right. There was nothing critical going on at base camp right now. The yellow-fever victims coming in were easy care, the numbers of casualties were way down, and overall the entire operation was in a bit of a lull before the next storm. And maybe, away from all this, she might be able to have a talk with Gideon…one long overdue. One top of that, she might even get in a good interview. She still had her job to do after all. And interviewing Gideon away from the urgency of all this chaos might be a good way to go about it.
Except, two hours later, for the duration of the short helicopter ride to São Paulo, Gideon napped. Or at least he kept his eyes closed, pretending to sleep. Which was probably for the best as this little jaunt wasn’t set to be a jolly one and he did need that time to collect himself for the awful task ahead.
The helicopter set down on a landing pad not too far from the hospital and from there Gideon and Lorna took a taxi to the Albert Einstein Hospital, a slow trip through crowded streets in a city of eighteen million inhabitants. It was an exciting mix of people—Hispanic, Asian, German, Balkan, Russian, Italian—all clinging to their own bits of heritage, which gave the city a wonderfully eclectic blend. There were museums and shops for everything imaginable. And the architecture was a fascinating jumble of old colonial and Spanish, along with a nice representation of ultra-contemporary. Vendors of every imaginable kind lined the streets selling fruit and produce, and shoes, and handbags and sunglasses. And carved statuary sat on street corners overlooking the colorful bustle of everyday life. “Have you been here before?” she finally asked Gideon, as he’d not yet spoken.
“A couple of times. In and out. Haven’t stayed. Normally, our rescues don’t take us into the cities.”
“Well, from the little I’ve seen of it, São Paulo is amazing.”
“Third-largest city in the world. Me, though…I prefer my open space.”
“That’s right. You live in Texas now. Plenty of space there.” Stiff, impersonal conversation, she thought. But she was drawing him out a little. And what did she expect anyway? Intimate details of the way he’d lived his past five years without her?
“It’s convenient. Jason and Priscilla have a ranch there, and as he has the airplane…Doesn’t matter where I live, anyway.” He shrugged, drawing in a deep breath. Then he shook his head. “Do you know how much I don’t want to do this, Lorn?” he whispered.
Yes, she did. And her heart ached for him. “Yeah, I think I do.” Lorna glanced up at the green glass canopy covering the entrance as the taxi came to a stop. The hospital was large and modern. Very welcoming and warm in spite of the dreaded task ahead. To the casual observer it looked like the place in which you would want to be treated. To a physician, it looked like a valuable medical resource. Modern. Practical. Brimming with current technology. To Gideon, she was sure it was looking like a long dark tunnel through which he didn’t want to walk. “She needs to hear it from you before it makes the news. And it will, Gideon. These things can’t be stopped.”
“Spoken like a true newswoman,” he snapped, stepping out onto the sidewalk then extending a hand to help Lorna out. “The story must go on, no matter what. To hell with everything and everyone else as long as you break the story.”
She blinked her surprise over this total change in him. “That’s not fair. I could have had that story on air hours ago. But I didn’t. What I said was the truth, though. By now somebody else has it, and it’s being processed, if not already broadcast. That’s the way the world works these days, like it or not. Everything is just a breath away when it comes to technology. Bounce it off a satellite and send it anywhere in mere seconds, snap a picture of it on your phone and send it home. And, believe it or not, Gideon, I don’t have a thing to do with all that so don’t take it out on me!”
“Guilt by association,” was all he said as he held open the hospital door for Lorna, and they went inside. Then, as they crossed the lobby, he did the oddest thing. He took hold of her hand.
She didn’t flinch when he took hold. Neither did she pull away. Her hand in his…it was a fit she remembered, and one that, right now, was sending just the slightest chill up her back in spite of his dark mood. But she forgave him that, considering what he had to do. “Nice hospital,” she said for a lack of anything better.
“Full service, five hundred doctors on staff. They even have an all-doctor orchestra.”
“Maybe you could have a go playing your drums for them.”
“You remember that?”
Did she ever. On the nights when he’d come home frustrated or keyed up from his day in surgery, he’d beat out his emotions on his drum set. She didn’t know enough about music to tell if he was good at it, but he did have nice rhythms. “How could I forget it? You were the source of many good headaches.”
“But you never complained.”
“There was nothing to complain about. I rather liked hearing you beat on those things.”
He stopped, then looked at her. “I thought you hated it.”
“What I hated was that when you were banging on those things, you were leaving me alone. I think I would have liked practically anything if we could have been together.”
“When I was drumming, would you have come into the room if I’d asked you?”
Lorna chuckled. “With earplugs in.”
“We really do have a lot of swampy water under that bridge, don’t we?”
“Different life, different people. Maybe we should have stayed out of bed more that first year we were together so we could have become friends.”
“Sorry I snapped at you just now.”
“I understand. I’d probably be snapping, too, if I was the one who had to break the news to Dani. As much as you hate doing this, you’re a good friend to do it, Gideon.”
“Could we be friends now, Lorna?” he asked, just as they stepped up to the reception area.
She didn’t have time to answer, because the girl behind the desk immediately asked who they were there to see, then gave them directions when Gideon told her. After that, they were in the elevator, then hurrying down the hall to the nurses’ desk, where Dr Aldo Evangelista, Dani’s surgeon, was waiting to see them.
“She’s stable,” he said, in amazing English. “Spleen is out, fractures are repaired, and she’s sleeping comfortably now. We have her sedated for the pain, but she’s fully coherent when she’s awake. Asking about her dog. Wanting to know when her young man will be in to see her.”
“She doesn’t know yet?”
Dr Evangelista shook his head. “I thought the news would be better coming from a friend.”
“But she’s stable enough for me to tell her?” Gideon asked.
“I don’t think one is ever stable enough to hear what she’s about to hear. But physically, she’s strong enough.”
“How long will she be here?” Lorna asked.
“A month before we can transfer her to a hospital in the States. Maybe a week less, if she progresses quickly.”
Gideon nodded. “I understand,” he said. “We’ll make the arrangements when the time comes.” He followed Dr. Evangelista into Dani’s room while Lorna went to the waiting area. She could have gone, too, but somehow it felt like an intrusion. Right now Dani needed Gideon. Only Gideon. He would be strong for her, take care of her, help her through the crisis.
Pouring herself a cup of coffee from a pot in the waiting room, Lorna sat down on a chair by the window and stared outside. Could we be friends now, Lorna? Had that been a rhetorical question, or had he truly meant it?
Could she be his friend?
Could she be more?
She thought about it for a moment as she watched the people on the street below, and the answer to both questions came so quickly it shocked her.
And pleased her.
And scared her to death.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“HOW did she take it?” Lorna asked. She hadn’t gone into the hospital room while Gideon had broken the difficult news to Dani. It wasn’t her place to be there. She wasn’t even sure that being in São Paulo with him was her place, but she was pleased he’d asked her to come along. And she did want to be there to support him.
“She’s sedated. She heard the words, but I’m not sure the full impact of them sank in. At least, not right then. It’s going to take her a while to fully understand it, I think. But her parents and sister are on their way here, which will be a comfort to her, and after she has the people she loves with her they’ll help her come to terms with Tom’s death. It’s easier dealing with that kind of a tragedy when you’re with the people you love.”
“You did let her know that we have Dag, and he’s fine?” she asked, latching onto his arm as they strolled down the street.
“I told her I’d keep him with me until she’s ready to take him back. Look, we’ve still got a couple of hours before we have to go back to base camp. Do you want to have dinner with me? The paulistanos here have raised dining to an art form, so the world’s the limit—Japanese, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, African—pick your cuisine.”
They settled on Portuguese, and chose a nice little café three blocks from the hospital. It was brightly decorated in intense colors…reds, blues, greens, with parrots and flowers painted on the chairs and tables. Because in Brazil the main meal came at the middle of the day, they ordered light fare as it was early evening—palmito, a palm heart served in a salad, and aipim frito, deep-fried manioc root, with quindim, a richly sweet egg yolk and coconut custard, to follow. To relax before the meal arrived, they ordered capirnha—the favorite national drink, made from an unusually potent sugarcane rum called cachaça, crushed lime, sugar and water. It was a particularly refreshing drink, Lorna thought as she relaxed back into the banquette and took her first sip. Refreshing, but a bit surprising that she and Gideon had ordered exactly the same things. When had her taste in food become so much like Gideon’s? She thought back to the time they’d been together and realized they’d always ordered the same things. It was amazing how those details had slipped away from her.
“So, besides your rescue work, what else do you do with your life?” she asked.
“I like to go out to schools and talk to children. They respond well to Max, and somewhere in the hour they allow me I usually tell a few fun stories and teach a few survival techniques. I’ve also started a program for kids, teaching them how to get an emergency pack ready—a three-day supply of everything they’ll need during an emergency. The goal is to have them prepare one pack for every family member. We send them the empty backpack and a list of the things they’ll need. Then when they’ve got it set up, they send us back a picture and we pop out an official I will survive T-shirt to them.”
“That’s amazing!” She’d had no idea he was so involved like that. “A brilliant idea!”
“Not so much amazing as it is important. Kids are resourceful and smart. Give them a little responsibility and they’ll do a good job of it.”
“How many of these backpacks have you had stuffed so far?”
“Over a thousand. But the program is young. We’ve only been doing it a year and we’re hoping to double that number within the next six months.”
“It’s worthy, Gideon,” she said. “I’m proud of you.”
A slight smiled crossed his face, replaced by a faint blush. “What it is is a start. It’ll get better.”
He was so modest about this. Come to think of it, he’d always been modest. Another one of those details that had slipped away. But now she did remember that about him, how he’d never liked to talk about his accomplishments or successes. A truly modest man in a world where modesty was a fast-dying trait. She liked that. Sadly, though, she couldn’t remember ever thinking about it before. It was one of those things she should have loved about him, but, she’d never given it much of a thought, just like she’d never given thought to their identical tastes in food. Her loss. And in so many ways those losses were beginning to add up. “Can I talk about it on air?” she asked. “Run a special feature on it, something apart from the rescue operation? Perhaps follow you to a school for one of your talks, then interview several children who have made their survival kits?”
“That’s all it ever is with you, isn’t it?” he snapped. “Take what you can so you can turn into a story for television. Do you ever get away from that?”
She blinked back her surprise over this sudden change in him. “We all do what we have to do, Gide
on,” she said, as the waiter placed the platter of aipim frito in the middle of the table. “And I’m so sorry you don’t approve of the way I choose to be a doctor. But you never did, did you? From that very first day when I decided to take the television job, you hated it, and resented me for taking it. But guess what, Gideon? While what I do might not be seen as applaudable as what you do, I do serve my patients, and my audience, in my own way.” She turned to the waiter. “I’d like to change my order to salgadinhos.” A small pastry stuffed with meat and cheese, and something completely different from what Gideon had ordered just to prove that the two of them weren’t alike. Not at all! Ordering the same things from a restaurant menu didn’t make them that way, no matter how sentimental she was getting about it.
“All those times you ran off and left me alone while you were out on a search and rescue, I never complained. I supported you in your choices, but when I made a choice for myself, what did I get? Arguments. A demand to quit. Little barbs about how I was wasting my time. It was fine for you to do what made you happy, but in your opinion I wasn’t entitled to do the same.” So much venom coming out, but maybe it was time. “So yes, that is all it ever is with me. Because, like you, what I do is who I am. It used to bother me that you couldn’t accept that…” She shook her head. It still did bother her. More than she’d realized. But instead of arguing any further, she reached for her capirnha, took a long drink of it and tried to relax to the nice mellow feeling it caused.
“I never told you about my parents, did I?” he said, his voice low, and stiff.
Actually, he hadn’t. They’d died before she’d met Gideon, and whenever she’d asked about them he’d changed the subject. “Not much,” she conceded.
