by Jane Porter
“And many come on foot?”
“They’ll take buses as far as they can, but if buses aren’t running, they walk, crossing the flooding rivers on foot, too, with their babies on their backs. And mind you, this is Africa. Those rivers are filled with crocodiles.” She’s smiling, but I see she’s extremely worried.
“What would it take to get the mission under way? How many staff members are you short?”
“The doctors here— O’Sullivan, Kapoor, Danovich, and Voskul— and then there are five ER nurses still stranded in Lilongwe, Malawi. The nurses flew there instead of Lusaka as it’s a shorter bus trip from there, but no buses are running to Katete, not with the flooded roads.” She pauses to consider logistics and then nods firmly. “Once those nine arrive, we could probably begin, as medicine, supplies, and surgical equipment arrived weeks ago.”
I wish I could do something. I feel compelled to do something, and then I realize I can. I have a pilot, and he has a plane. Instead of taking Howard and me to the Falls, I can have Chance flying Michael and the other surgeons to Katete and then, if possible, zipping to Lilongwe to grab the nurses. If the weather breaks today… if the weather holds for the day…
“Maybe I can help,” I say, and tell her that I have access to a pilot and a plane.
Meg listens intently. “I can’t tell you how much I love your generosity. But would your pilot fly into Katete? The commercial pilots we’ve talked to say the airstrip is in too poor a condition and they won’t risk their aircraft.”
I think about Chance and his swagger. He should be up for a challenge. “I guess the only way we’ll know is if I ask.”
It’s a go.
I have to cajole Chance a bit and offer him a bonus, but he promises to fly everyone there the moment the weather breaks, and it breaks that afternoon.
Now the doctors and Meg are filing into Chance’s car.
“Have a great trip,” I tell Meg as she climbs into the car.
“We’ll see you day after tomorrow?”
“As soon as Chance can get us there.” I smile. “You’ve got my number. Call me if you need anything. Otherwise we’ll see you at the end of the week.”
She climbs in, leaving just Michael on the curb with me. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and olive green cargo-style pants and looking very rugged and very male. It’s a good look on him. Maybe even better than the expensive Italian suits.
“Look who saved the day,” he says, gazing down on me. “Major brownie points, Tomlinson.”
“Thanks, Doc. That means a lot coming from you.”
He grins, white teeth flashing. “Do I detect a note of sarcasm?”
“Just a bit.”
His expression sobers. “All kidding aside, we appreciate this, Tiana. You’ve done a good thing.”
I flush, uncomfortable. I didn’t do this to curry favor. I really did just want to help. “Get in the car, Hollywood, it’s time to go.”
Chance lays on the horn.
“I’ll see you in Katete,” Michael says, shouldering his duffel bag. “I’ll look forward to your arrival. We do have some unfinished business.”
And then he’s in the car and the door is shut and Chance is pulling away. I stand at the curb and watch them go. I’m excited they’re on their way, yet I feel this strange emptiness now that Michael’s gone.
This has to stop, I think. I don’t like Michael. I don’t.
Or do I?
Howard and I spend the next morning with Jean from the PSI office, visiting the children’s ward of the local hospital. Michael’s friend Dr. Paul Zarazoga takes us on the rounds. The beds are filled with very young children, their mothers sitting on the floor since there aren’t enough chairs. Despite the ceiling fans spinning, it’s stiflingly hot. The large plain ward looks more like an army barracks than a hospital. In one bed at the far end of the room, a mother lies across a small blanket-covered body, weeping.
“Her five-year-old,” Paul tells us. “It’s her third child she’s lost.”
“HIV?” I ask, horrified.
“Diarrhea.”
I stop abruptly, and Jean, who sees my horror, nods. “Twenty percent of children in Zambia die before they’re five. Most die from malaria and contaminated water.”
And both are preventable.
I gesture around the ward. Dozens of little bodies are dying in front of me. “Is that why they’re all here? They don’t have the medicine and clean water they need?”
“Pretty shocking, isn’t it?” Paul agrees.
I swallow hard. My stomach is doing mad flip-flops. What I feel is inarticulate. It’s beyond sad. It’s revulsion. People are dying. Children are dying. And they could all be saved.
“The oral rehydration products… are they expensive?” I ask unsteadily.
“No. But we need the private sector— companies and people like you and me— to reach out. People think they can’t do anything, that it’s too much, but they aren’t here. They don’t see the difference one water purification kit or one mosquito net makes.”
“One net can make that much of a difference?”
Paul explains, “Mothers sleep with their children, couples sleep together, sometimes grandparents sleep with grandchildren, so you can see how one net can save many lives.”
“One net,” I repeat.
Jean presses one hand into the other. “But it takes outreach and education to teach people how the nets help, and what they need to do. The same is true for water and reproductive health. Nothing’s impossible. Not if we work together.”
We just need to work together.
Just imagine what we could do with our love.
The night is stormy, and the sky explodes white with electric forks of lightning. Thunder booms and rolls as I sit on my bed, writing in my journal.
The thunder grows louder and closer, rattling the windows. One violent boom follows another. And then everything is black. Power outage. I’d heard it was common during the rainy season, but it hadn’t happened yet. Fortunately, this is a four-star hotel, and the hotel should have a generator.
Within thirty seconds there’s a blip and the lamp next to my bed fills the room with light again.
Power on.
I set aside my notebook and pen and leave my bed to go to the window and look out at the city, which normally is bright with streetlamps and traffic lights and buildings. There are no lights in Lusaka now. The city outside my window is almost pitch black, and the rain slashes down in relentless sheets. Thunder booms, and booms again. The thunder sounds so close.
Back at my bed, I pick up the hotel phone and call the front desk. “Yes, Miss Tomlinson?” the front desk answers.
“How long does the power outage last?”
“We have our own generator,” he says proudly.
“I know, and that’s very good, but for the rest of the city, for those who don’t? How long will the power be out?”
“Could be an hour, could be all night,” he continues cheerfully. “Our power comes from South Africa, and sometimes they shut it off.”
“So the whole country is dark?”
“Yes.”
“And the South African power company shuts it off, or the storm cuts it off?”
“Yes,” he agrees happily. “Anything else I can help you with, Miss Tomlinson?”
He doesn’t understand, and I don’t have the energy to make him understand. “No, thank you. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Sunday morning, Howard and I are having breakfast when my international phone rings. It’s Chance, calling from Katete to say he’s on his way for us now. We’re to meet him in two hours at the Lusaka airport, where he’ll land and refuel. Then we’ll take off immediately.
We do, too, and within forty minutes after taking off from Lusaka, we’re flying low over the lush river valley, just three hundred feet above the ground. We can see the path of the dark blue Luangwa River and its tributaries and lakes. Then suddenly Chance is diving lower. He
points to a herd of elephants crossing the river. There are at least three babies in the herd and two bull elephants.
They’re huge and beautiful and mythic, and I can’t believe I’m here, in a little Cessna, doing this. Just two weeks ago I was in Los Angeles, wondering if my career was over, but now I can feel my energy recharging. I feel new again.
Sometime between waking up and landing in Katete, Howard is hit with intestinal distress. He writhes near the end of the flight, the cramps hitting hard and harder. He’s desperate for us to land. I’m desperate for us to land. Chance radios ahead to let them know that Howard isn’t well. Landing in Katete, we discover one of the hospital’s beat-up ambulances waiting for us. Michael O’Sullivan is also waiting at the airstrip.
“How are you?” Michael asks me, one of his arms moving toward me as though to protect me, making me feel as though I’m the most fragile thing on earth.
Strange, because men don’t treat me gently, and I’m not sure why. Not even Keith was protective. In fact, he was the one who put me into the fire.
“Fine,” I answer, putting a hand to my cheek to push hair back from my face. Clouds blanket the sky. It’s suffocatingly warm, the air so thick with moisture that I find myself praying for rain just to lessen the humidity. “But Howard… I don’t know. He was groaning pretty bad the last thirty minutes of the flight.”
“We heard, and we’ve got the world’s best nurses, doctors, and medics gathered here. Howard couldn’t get better care at home than he will here.”
Even as he’s talking, two medics are lifting Howard from the plane and onto the gurney. A freckle-faced nurse takes Howard’s pulse, and then, after a quick check of the rest of his vitals, she begins an IV.
Chance has unloaded our luggage and Howard’s cameras and lights from the back of the plane and has stacked everything into a pile. “Is all that yours?” Michael asks.
I nod sheepishly. “Howard’s and mine, but mostly mine. I overpacked.”
Michael’s eyes gleam. “Why am I not surprised?”
Once the gurney is in the back of the ambulance, Michael offers to give me a ride into town. We load the bags and cameras into the trunk of the ancient Renault Michael has borrowed for the airport run.
I turn to Chance to see if he needs a ride, but he’s going to stay and tend to his plane. He promises to check in with me tomorrow to see what my plans are.
In the Renault we bounce along the rutted road, the earth a bright muddy orange brown and the trees a scrubby olive green. Michael frequently swerves to avoid puddles that threaten to swallow the car the same way they’ve swallowed the road.
I’m tired but relieved, and in the bumping, jostling car I close my eyes and just concentrate on breathing.
I was so afraid for Howard.
I was so scared that something would happen to him before I got him to Katete.
“You okay?” Michael asks.
Eyes shut, I nod, shoulders and back tight with tension. I take a deep breath, exhale, and force myself to relax. “This trip’s harder than I expected.”
“Why?”
“A couple months ago, Glenn, my show’s executive producer, told me no one in America cared about real Africa. He said real Africa is depressing, and America doesn’t care about the suffering in Africa because they’re too busy suffering at home. Inflation, recession, school shootings, domestic violence, date rape— ” I break off and glance at Michael. “I didn’t agree with Glenn. I told him that Americans care. The problem is, they’re overwhelmed by the news we get from Africa, all so negative.”
“And now you’re overwhelmed?” Michael guesses.
“I thought I could come here and do some stories and show the wonderful things being done.”
“And you are.”
“But it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would. It doesn’t seem like it’s enough.”
“You’re looking at the continent, not the child.”
“There’s so much dying here. So many children who won’t make it.”
He reaches over, covers my hand with his. “You can’t lose sight of the miracles because of the shadows. Light is light. Every good thing matters. Just wait until you see the children we’re screening. Wait until you see all the lives we change.”
With Howard being taken care of at St. Francis Hospital, Michael delivers my luggage to the community center’s guesthouse, where I’m to stay while here, taking a few minutes to give me the general lay of the land. According to Michael, most of the medical team is housed in hospital dormitories, tents, and the community center bunk beds. Meals are served cafeteria style in a central dining tent on the hospital grounds.
Tour ended, Michael is ready to head back to the operating room, where he’s scheduled to be in surgery this afternoon.
“Can I go, too?” I ask, already digging through my bags for a notebook and pen.
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Each surgery to correct a cleft palate takes roughly an hour, and I wish I had one of Howard’s cameras as I stand off to the side and watch the medical team work together to perform these life-changing procedures.
After three surgeries, Michael leaves the operating room and another doctor prepares to take his place. But Michael isn’t on a break. He’s just shifting to another role and, still dressed in his green scrubs, heads outside to meet with the children and parents who have been scheduled for surgery tomorrow.
I listen as Michael talks to nervous parents about the procedure. He’s using a translator. No food or liquid after midnight. No liquid or food in the morning. The baby will sleep during the surgery and will not feel pain. But food or liquid could make him sick during the operation.
The translator tells Michael the mother is afraid. She’s afraid her baby will die in surgery, but if he doesn’t have the surgery, she’s afraid he’ll die anyway.
Michael assures her that her baby will not die and that it is a very short surgery. He will be out of surgery in an hour, and the moment he goes to the recovery room she can join him.
The mother nods. Wipes her tears. Asks if her baby will have a normal boy face when the surgery is done.
Michael answers yes.
The mother’s tears fall faster.
Five minutes later, the mother goes and the scene is enacted again, and yet again, as he meets with the rest of the parents who have children scheduled for surgery tomorrow.
When the last of the waiting parents has been seen, Michael rises slowly, stretching, the thin green shirt clinging to his torso, revealing muscles and damp skin. He’s hot and tired, but you wouldn’t have known by the way he interacted with the parents and children. I’ve never seen a doctor so patient. He didn’t rush anyone, and he took as much time as necessary to calm the parents’ fears and answer the questions they had.
Michael turns his head and glances in my direction. “You’re still here.”
“That was incredible.” And then because I can’t help it and I’ve got a case of hero worship at the moment, I blurt, “You’re incredible. You were wonderful with them. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“Now you’re gushing.”
I blush and I can feel my cheeks go hot. “And you’re back to horrible.”
“But that’s how you like me. Bad.” He winks wickedly, and I shake my head and tuck my notebook and pen beneath my arm and walk out of the tent.
“Oh, and Ms. America,” he calls after me.
I pause and turn to face him, one eyebrow arched.
“You look beautiful without all that makeup you wear in L.A. I like you natural.”
“Thanks, Doc.” And lifting my nose, I turn around and walk away even as my heart skips a beat.
I’ve got it all wrong, I think, pushing through the tent and stepping into the scorching heat. Michael was never the bad guy. Michael just might have been Prince Charming.
I check on Howard. He’s still hooked up to an IV, but his color is better and they’ve given him a p
owerful antidiarrheal drug to try to calm his body. Still, it could be a few days before he’s up and around.
He apologizes for letting me down, and I tell him that it’s not a problem and then put a look of terror on his face when I ask if he’ll allow me to use his camera tomorrow so I can film the assessments, preops, and surgeries.
“You want to film?” he asks.
I nod. “It won’t be as good as anything you do, but I’ve used cameras before. Years ago I was a reporter in a one-person band. I can do it again.”
“But you haven’t had to light or photograph a story in years,” he reminds me unhappily, struggling to sit up.
“Lie down. You’re not strong enough to be sitting up.”
“Maybe I can get up in the morning to film— ”
“You’re not going to do anything tomorrow but get fluids, maybe some food, and plenty of rest.”
He groans as he settles back against his pillow. “I feel like I got hit by a truck.”
“In the morning I’ll familiarize myself with the camera and film my stand-up before the first interview. We can edit it all later.”
Howard’s not happy, but he reluctantly agrees.
Later that evening, after a simple dinner that reminds me of meals at Epworth, my South African boarding school, Michael invites me to join him and some of the other volunteer medical staff as they sit around the large dining tent relaxing after a long day working. The rain comes down, yet no one minds.
Michael’s group is a collection of doctors, nurses, and staffers, and Michael is in his element, kicking back in his shorts and T-shirt, telling stories, making everyone laugh. Watching him, I get a strange fizz in my insides. A nervous but excited fizz that makes me feel and hope, and I’m not even sure what I’m feeling or hoping for.
Michael turns and looks at me. Our eyes meet. I get that nervous fluttery feeling again, and my hearts beats a little faster.
I like this Michael. He reminds me more than a little of Keith, casual, rumpled, relaxed. Happy. If I hadn’t seen Michael in Armani suits in Los Angeles, I wouldn’t have believed this is the same person. As it is, I’m having a difficult time reconciling this ruggedly handsome, very masculine surgeon with smooth, sophisticated Dr. Hollywood.
