The Doctor's Courageous Bride

by Dianne Drake

  “Friends,” she said affirmatively. “That all we can be.”

  Sighing wistfully, a deep regret was beginning to seep into his pores that he hadn’t met Solange Léandre at another time in his life. Every fiber of his being told him it could have been good…would have been good. “I respect that.” He respected it because he understood it.

  So, as Paul reconciled himself to the way he would spend his late afternoon, sitting amongst the donkeys, waiting for the rain to stop, thinking about Solange, trying to fit together all the pieces of her that he’d gathered up, she reached across and slipped her hand into his. So unexpected, and so shy. And so delicately, as he would expect from Solange. The hand of a friend, if that’s all she would allow him.

  He took her hand and held it gently, even though to him it felt more like a lifeline to which he wanted to cling. Then they watched the rain together.

  “It’s so nice when it’s quiet like this,” she said. “Quiet and gentle. Solaina and I played outside in the rain sometimes, when Papa wasn’t around. We had a swimming pool, and we weren’t far away from the beach. But the rain was different. Special.” It was so good to get off the subject of uncertainties. And that’s what their relationship was—a big uncertainty. She liked it better when they stayed in the moment. Like now. All they had was the moment, so why waste it?

  “Where is she…your sister?”

  “She’s living in a little country called Dharavaj. Originally she went there to work in the hospital as the director of nursing. Then she went to a clinic to brush up on her nursing skills. Now she’s settling into practice as a nurse in a little hospital with her new husband.”

  “And she’s happy there?”

  “Happier than she’s ever been. But I think it has more to do with her husband than anything else. So what about you, Paul? Brothers, sisters?”

  “Only child. No one to play with in the rain. But I never minded playing alone. And my family life was pretty typical of the average American family, I think. We weren’t wealthy. We didn’t travel, except to visit family. My mother had a part-time job, and was at home to greet me every day after school. My father was a doctor. A country GP. Simple man, simple medical practice, and always happy.”

  “Was?”

  “He died when I was away in medical school. Never got to see me complete it.”

  “And that makes you sad, doesn’t it?”

  “It did, because who I was when he died wasn’t who I finally became. And he would have liked me much better now. I think he probably knew what kind of a man I’d become when I finally let myself do it. He was smart like that. Insightful. Always my example. Kind, generous…he didn’t turn people away if they couldn’t pay for his services. If they needed medical treatment and had only a dozen fresh eggs to offer in payment, he’d take the eggs and we’d have omelets for supper.” Paul chuckled. “And trust me, early in my career it was never my intention to take eggs in payment for anything. I wanted the opposite of what my dad had, because I mistakenly thought it was wrong to work so hard and spend your life with so little the way he did. But now my biggest regret, I think, is that he never saw me once I was through with all the grandiose ideas.”

  Such a nice, normal family. She envied him that. The way she and Solaina had traveled back and forth when they had been children, never staying in one place more than a month or two…she would have loved the stability. That was then, however. Now she was on the move constantly, and it suited her. A legitimate reason to keep running away… “He would have been proud, Paul. You’ve carried out his legacy quite nicely, chicken eggs or not. And I think that somehow he knows that.”

  “That’s kind of you to say.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She sells real estate. Very good at it. Just last month she was the top in sales in her company.”

  “So you’ve inherited the best of both your parents.”

  “Funny how that worked out, isn’t it? I always knew I was going to be some kind of a doctor. Never knew I would actually be a better salesman.”

  “You’re a good doctor, too.” This would have been a good afternoon to cozy up in bed with him, read the newspaper together, sip tea, make love. It wasn’t often that she missed the life where she could do that, but today she did miss it. Sadly, the closest they were going to get to anything like it was this, sitting in the open doorway, dangling their feet outside and watching the rain splash into puddles on the ground.

  It was good, though. The nicest afternoon she’d had since she couldn’t remember when. “Thank you,” she said wistfully.

  “For what?”

  “For being here.”

  Paul turned over the little girl’s hand and looked at the tiny scratch on her thumb. Then he squatted down so he was eye to eye with her. “Looks to me like you’ll need a bandage,” he said.

  Her wide brown eyes weren’t frightened so much as hesitant. It had taken great courage for little Ghislaine to come to them, and Paul was doing splendidly with her. Ghislaine didn’t understand him, neither did he understand Ghislaine. But the body language between them was obvious, and warm.

  “You’re good with children,” Solange said, handing him a tube of ointment and a bandage.

  He smiled at Ghislaine as he answered Solange. “I’ve always loved children, and once, a long time ago, I considered going into pediatrics, but I got sidetracked into infectious diseases.”

  “And you and Joanna didn’t have children?” Funny how she’d never considered that. Paul, as a father. Seeing him with Ghislaine, it made perfect sense because he’d be a wonderful father.

  “We talked about it at the start. I wanted a dozen, and she wanted…well, with me, none. She was all career…”

  “And there’s something wrong with that?” Solange snapped. “A woman wanting a career?”

  “You’ve had this argument before, haven’t you? With Mauricio?”

  “Didn’t mean to be so snappish,” she said. This was Paul. He hadn’t done anything to deserve that, after all. “But Mauricio did want children eventually, and I wanted…what I got.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting her career, but Joanna should have been honest with me at the start. And who knows? If we’d had a child the outcome might have been different between us. But we didn’t and it wasn’t. Of course, she found the man she truly loves and now she has two children. So, as it turns out, it was me she didn’t want, not the children.”

  “Regrets?”

  “No, not really. I’d still love to be a father. Every man wants his legacy carried on, doesn’t he? But it’s not a practical idea with me away from home so often. Maybe someday…” He dabbed a spot of antibiotic ointment on Ghislaine’s scratch, then covered it with a bandage. Before she left the guest house, he fished a piece of candy from his pocket and handed it to her. Then, within two minutes, every child in the village was lined up at the door, awaiting their examinations.

  “Looks like you’ve really stirred things up here.” Solange laughed, dumping candy out of her pack into a bowl. “The children are usually more apprehensive. I think, Dr Killian, you are a natural with them. Papa Paul, perhaps.”

  “To your Maman Solange? I’d be honored,”

  No more injuries were apparent in the children, and by the time all the candy was passed out, Louise Babin was standing outside, waving at her.

  “I think you’re being summoned,” Paul commented, standing back up. “Need any help?”

  Solange shook her head. “She’s shy around men. I’ll be fine.” She ducked out the door and he watched her until she disappeared into the Babin hut, then he sat back down in the doorway.

  “I don’t understand you, Solange,” he whispered. “Don’t even come close to understanding you.” Even so, the feelings churning around in him didn’t need that full understanding. They were for Solange, as she was.

  “Doktè!” a woman from across the compound screamed.

  Paul glanced around to see her franti
cally waving at him with one hand, grasping an infant to her chest with the other. He jumped up.

  Slipping and sliding through the mud, Paul held his breath, fearing that the baby was the one he would see sick, judging from the way the woman was acting…pacing around in small circles until he reached her. The she broke into a rush of Creole, which he didn’t understand. So he reached out to take the baby from her arms so he could have a look, but she slapped at his hands, stepped back, and launched into another, more frantic outburst of Creole.

  “I don’t understand,” he said simply, trying to steer himself into a view from which he could have a speedy little glance-over of the child, but she merely snatched the baby out of his sight.

  Finally, when the woman was sufficiently convinced that Paul wouldn’t advance improperly upon her once her back was turned to him, she gestured for him to follow. Which he did, to the edge of the village and on through a little thicket of vegetation where a scruffy nanny goat was caught up in a clump of branches, kicking, pulling and crying desperately to free herself.

  “A goat?” He chuckled. Solange was off doing something as noble as taking care of a woman with rheumatoid arthritis, and his patient was a prickly goat caught up in a patch of brambles. “Why not?” he quipped, approaching the choleric beast. She was pawing the ground now, and if not for the fact Paul absolutely knew that goats didn’t breathe fire, he would have sworn he saw smoke streaming from her nostrils. Death by she-goat. Not a fitting obituary, even for a city boy. Solange would find the irony, and humor, in that, he supposed.

  Paul took a couple of steps forward, then the goat screamed. She screamed again as he took a few more steps. Behind him, he could hear a small crowd gathering. Probably to laugh at him. But who could blame them? He’d be laughing, too, watching himself go after a goat. “OK,” he said to the beast as he got closer, “make me look like a hero here, will you? And be gentle with me.”

  At his words, the goat tilted her head in curiosity, then stretched out her neck to Paul’s pants pocket as he stepped alongside her. Smelling the candy apparently, she rolled up her lips, grabbed hold of the pocket and ripped the fabric away before Paul could push her aside. Once the fabric was torn, the goat nosed right on in for her treats. In that instant Paul cleared away the brambles, then took a step back. The goat went right with him, determined to have a look in his other pocket. “No, you don’t…” he said, still backing away. When he was several paces away from the animal, he turned to the woman who’d asked for his help, and as he did that, several people in the crowd yelled and pointed at the persistent nanny, who now had her head lowered and seemed to be taking aim on her target…Paul.

  “Great,” he muttered, as the beast start her charge. Paul’s immediate reaction was to turn and run, but two of the villagers stepped out, grabbed the goat and tied a rope around her neck. Then the incident was over and both goat and rescuer walked away unscathed.

  Quickly, he looked to see if Solange had watched any of his failure at goat herding, but thankfully she was nowhere to be seen. It was amazing how, even in the small things, what Solange thought about him mattered so much. “Maybe it’s the challenge,” he said aloud, since no one was there to listen. “The more she doesn’t want me, the more I want to be wanted.”

  Halfway back to the village, Paul heard soft, frantic cries coming from somewhere nearby. He whipped around, surveying the area around him, but saw no one. “Hello,” he shouted.

  The muffled cries grew louder. Definitely not another goat.

  “Please, let me help you,” he called, even though he knew whoever was out there probably couldn’t understand him. But maybe by the tone of his voice… “Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

  Still no answer, so Paul started walking in the direction from which he believed the sound was coming. First straight ahead, then to the right and to the left. It took a minute, but eventually he did find a woman lying underneath a tree in the mud, her face twisted in agony. She was a large woman, young, and very obviously unhappy over the fact that he was the one to find her. Had she not been propped with her back against the tree, she would have scooted backwards, completely away from him. Like Solange, calling out then backing away when he answered.

  “My name is Paul,” he said, walking slowly toward her, much the same way he’d approached the goat—cautiously. “Doktè Paul. My name is Doktè Paul.” As if that meant anything to the woman.

  She recoiled as he drew closer, and shook her head, then closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

  “I’m here to help you, and I promise that I won’t hurt you,” he said, trying to make his voice sound as gentle as possible. But the reality was, no matter how he sounded, the woman was afraid of him. Scared to death, actually, judging by the way she was shaking.

  Knowing that, he could go no closer. “Look, I’m going back to get Solange.”

  She opened her eyes at the mention of Solange’s name, and pointed to her left shoulder.

  “You’ve hurt your shoulder?” He nodded, smiling. “I’ll be right back.” And he was, two minutes later, with Solange right behind him. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with her. I couldn’t get close enough to have a look, but I’m betting she might have dislocated her shoulder, judging from the way she’s favoring it.”

  Solange bent down in front of the woman, said a few words, probed the tender area, then nodded her agreement after her quick examination. “She slipped in the mud and fell on it. And I think you’re correct about it—it’s dislocated. An X-ray would be nice right about now, but since we don’t have one…” Her voice trailed off as she laid her hand gently across the woman’s and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

  “Since we don’t have one,” Paul supplied, “we’ll take care of it ourselves. Do a reduction.” He winced, thinking how painful that could be. But there wasn’t another choice, and this was one fix that would be quick and effective. What was so painful for the woman now would be virtually pain-free in another minute or two.

  Without discussing what to do between them, Solange instructed the woman, called Doucet, to stand, then bend at the waist. Solange supported her at the chest while Paul took hold of Doucet’s wrist. “Tell her I’m going to pull down on it then rotate it, and that it might hurt.”

  “I already did,” Solange said.

  “Reading my mind?”

  “No. Just anticipating you.” She smiled at him. “And Doucet said to tell you that you did a good job rescuing the goat, and now she trusts you to take care of her because of that.”

  “Saved by the goat?”

  As he spoke, Paul applied steady, downward traction then an external rotation to Doucet’s arm. “I missed the day they went over goat rescue in medical school. Pity, because these were my favorite pants.” While maintaining traction, he began to flex Doucet’s shoulder as Solange applied thumb pressure to Doucet’s scapula. Next, Paul rotated the woman’s shoulder, and within seconds there was a little pop, the one that meant the shoulder joint was back in its proper place.

  “We do good work together, Doctor,” Solange commented, helping Doucet stand back up. She took a few seconds to explain to their patient how to favor that arm for a couple of days, then sent her on her way.

  “Just keep in mind that I was the one she wouldn’t let come near her.”

  “Because she’s never seen a white man before. Not because she sensed you were a bad doctor. And as I said, she did admire your goat skills.”

  As Paul tried to step around Solange, she blocked his path, smiling. “So did I, Paul. Your goat skills, and your skills with the villagers, are very good. And the children here adore you. They can’t wait for Doktè Candy, as they’re calling you now, to return.”

  She was standing so close to him he could feel the warmth from her body, smell the antiseptic of the handwash she’d used before she’d treated her patient. And, yes, those little jolts of electricity arcing back and forth between them…

  This was the poi
nt where he should have kissed her. In a movie, he would have pulled her into his arms and to hell with everything else they had to contend with. The kiss…that magical moment where full awareness should dawn…the kiss that would not happen.

  But he couldn’t do that. And he wouldn’t, no matter how much the moment called for it, no matter how much he wanted to feel her lips pressed to his, to feel her desire as he was feeling his own right now.

  The call would be Solange’s. It had to be. And he had no idea if she would make it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I KNOW you’re probably going to argue with me over this, Paul, but I’m going back to my infirmary tonight. It’s another hour from here, maybe two, because it’s going to be a tough hike from all the rain making the trail muddy. But I’m going to try it.”

  “Does it make that much difference?” he asked. “One more night away?”

  “Probably not. Except I’ve got open clinic in the morning, meaning people will be trooping in from all over. And most likely a good many of them are already there. They tend to do that—come in the night before and camp out.”

  “But I thought you traveled out to them.”

  “I do. But I also have set days when they know they can come to me, since I don’t make it to every region as often as I would like. I’ll be at the infirmary for a day, then I’ll go back out for two. Then I’ll come back for a day, and go out for three.”

  “And in an emergency?”

  “Ayida and Keskeya always know where I am, and Frère Léon has a relay system of sorts set up. Word travels fast up here.” She laughed. “You’d be surprised how fast.”

  “It sounds like you’re prepared for just about every contingency.”

  “Except getting you up the mountain in the dark in the mud. It’s a tough hike, Paul.” Solange grabbed up her packs from the floor, slung one over her shoulder and carried the other in her hand. “It’s better this way. When I catch up to Frère Léon, I’ll have him bring Louise down for her tests, and you can do your yearly physical on him at that time, if you’re there. If not, he’ll catch up to you at some point because he’ll be the one bringing the villagers in for any test I prescribe, so you two will eventually run into each other.”