by Patti Lacy
Officer Moore nodded. “We’re basically a holding tank for juvies. Doris down in receivables is an RN, and she’s checking things there. Near as she can tell, we don’t need 9-1-1. They’re swamped anyway.” Mr. Moore scratched his neck. “So far I’ve just seen minor stuff. No signs of trauma.”
Minor? Without attention, minor became major. Kai held out her hands, hoping that Pete would hand over the kit before she yanked it from him. “Despite no signs of trauma, we will need to assess everyone. If I can just have that kit . . .”
Pete straightened and shoved the kit at Kai. “You need a towel? Water? Soap?”
“Yes,” Kai called over her shoulder as she walked to the center of the room, pausing to pull gloves from the kit and put them on. “My name is Kai,” she announced, raising her voice in hopes that all could hear. “As I said earlier, I am a medical doctor and would like to help you.” As she spoke, she pivoted, hoping her words would be heard by everyone in the room. “If you are experiencing dizziness or chest pain, please call out.”
When no one responded, Kai stepped toward a woman who sat cross-legged, her head buried in her lap. “Are you okay?” she asked.
The woman raised her head, managed a bleary nod. Kai knelt beside her, checked her vitals. “It will be okay.” She patted the woman’s shoulder, then stood. “If you have cuts or abrasions, however superficial, please call out. If you are able, please check the status of those in close proximity. Other than that, please stay where you are.”
“Ma’am?” someone called. A man’s voice.
Kai whirled to her left.
“I think she’s cut.”
Kai’s gaze riveted to a sweatshirt, pressed against a woman’s arm. A blue sweatshirt, with no telltale red stain. Most likely a minor injury.
“Thank you, sir.” She hurried to the woman and knelt by her. “What is your name?” she asked as she unwrapped the sweatshirt.
“Anna,” the woman said through tears. Kai kept talking while examining the woman’s arm. The tip of what looked to be a triangular glass shard protruded from the woman’s wrist. Kai’s heart pounded. No wonder the poor thing is crying. Inches more, and there would be arterial compromise. A red river seeping across this floor. Kai inhaled her little secret. “I know it is painful.” She kept eye contact with the woman. “But please keep still.”
“Can’t—” The woman’s teeth chattered. “Can’t you get it out?”
Not for all the tea in China. Kai pursed her lips, as if it were a possibility, but recalled her ER training. “Patients like to think their opinion deserves consideration. Do not send them into shock by reeling off dreadful ‘what-ifs’ or alienate them by spouting medical gobbledygook.” Kai smiled, both for Anna and the memory of old Dr. Ward. “It would be best done in a hospital. You have insurance, no?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” The woman’s chest heaved with her eagerness to help.
Involve the patient. Another of Dr. Ward’s techniques, to the rescue.
“So we’ll just tape this up—”
The woman pointed at her foot. “I’ve got a place down there too.”
Without letting go of the woman’s hand, Kai leaned close enough to spot a laceration the size of a dime.
Kai furrowed her brow, as if she were in deep thought. “I am glad you showed that to me. However, I believe it will be fine. As soon as I get water and soap—”
“It’s right here. Drinking water too.”
Kai froze. That was Joy’s voice. But it couldn’t be . . .
Joy knelt beside her. A bucket and a soap dispenser thudded onto the floor. So did a crate of bottled water.
“J-Joy. Are you . . . okay?”
“I got up when you made the announcement.” Something like a sparkle highlighted Fourth Daughter’s eyes. “When I saw you working, I asked the man if I could help. He said for me to take these to my mother.” She giggled, and it was a beautiful thing. “I didn’t bother to explain.”
As Joy handed Kai the soap dispenser, Kai noted a dramatic change. Gone were Joy’s sullen eyes, pooched-out lip, imperious demeanor of— When was it? A lifetime ago? Kai checked her watch. It had been two hours since she’d first seen the sister whom she’d lost in order to save, the sister with an attitude the size of this state, the sister who just might be changed by a Texas twister.
As they finished up with Anna, another man called for help.
Kai turned to Joy. “Tell them I am on my way. Try to make them comfortable. Offer them a drink.”
With a nod, Joy hurried across the room.
As workers continued to clean up the mess, Joy helped Kai bandage minor cuts and became a water girl. When they had seen the last clerk in the room, suffering only from a splinter in her finger, Kai began filling out the incident report given her by Mr. Moore. A spate of folks seemed to be on the phone, hanging up the phone, or getting out their phone.
The sight of people calling loved ones brought David to mind. Kai closed her eyes and imagined his strong jaw, his tapered, smooth hands. How she longed to spill out her heart to him, to let his gentle voice energize her, inspire her.
“Um, Dr. Kai?”
Mr. Moore clicked off his walkie-talkie and shifted his weight nervously.
Kai set the first-aid kit by Joy, who had collapsed into a chair near the door. “Yes, Mr. Moore.” She mustered a smile. “What can I do for you now?”
“We have a problem. In the detention area.”
Kai nodded. Joy’s eyes got wide. In other words, the jail.
11
Another first in America . . . visiting a “holding tank” for youth. Noting Joy’s wide eyes and sucked-in cheekbones, Kai took her sister’s arm. They trailed Pete, who led them out of the elevator and onto the third floor.
Fluorescent lights cast a greenish tint on a room walled by cold cement blocks and a steel entry door with an eye-level window so thick, Kai suspected it was bulletproof. Pete pushed an intercom button and peered through the glass, drumming his fingers impatiently. While they waited by a drinking fountain, Kai shivered to think of Joy in such a place.
“Hey, open up, Hank.” Pete’s finger-drumming morphed to knocks and a wave at the window.
The door opened. Out stepped a guard, wearing the now-familiar jumpsuit, a holstered gun at his waist. Kai grimaced. Men with guns had whisked away Father and Mother and murdered Old Grandfather. Guns spoke a language of control, of power. Oh, that these officers would speak the language with the utmost of caution.
“Purpose for visit?” growled Holster Belt.
Pete threw up his hands and rolled his eyes. “It’s Moore’s doings.”
“Well, I’ll be—”
Holster Belt restrained his words but not his disdain. Kai felt her mouth go dry. Soon she and Joy would stand on Holster Belt’s side of this enclosure. That thought trembled Kai more than the thought of prisoners.
Behind the Plexiglas wall, youths wearing blue shirts and trousers huddled in a corner of the room as if seeking warmth in a dank cave. Was that fear or despair in their eyes?
“Hey, tobacco breath.” Pete tapped his boot against the floor. “She’s a doctor.”
“You’re a doctor?” The man fiddled with his belt and squinted, whether out of disbelief or to mock her eye shape, Kai did not know. “That one a nurse?” His squint zeroed in on Joy as he slicked back his hair. “You two are gonna take care of this?”
“Never forget that you are a servant. That you must do whatever it takes to bring healing.” Dr. Ward’s words helped Kai mask her emotions. She must retain her dignity, honor her oath as a doctor, as a citizen. If it meant ignoring a rude guard, so be it.
“Only until the EMTs get through.” Kai smiled grimly. “Mr. Moore says it won’t be long.” She cleared her throat, eager for the distraction of work. “In the meantime, Mr. Moore sent me here. Apparently someone needs attention.”
“Waste of time, but go ahead.” Holster Belt stepped aside.
“Hey, save your lip for someone
who cares.” Pete motioned for Kai and Joy to enter the restricted area. “After you, ladies.”
Kai again pictured her sister inside this place. Welcome, Joy, to the land of the not-so-free. Perhaps this assignment will prove enlightening to you . . . in more ways than one.
Joy in tow, Kai stepped across the threshold. The door clanked shut.
One of the room’s three barred windows had been smashed. By the storm? A man pushed a broom across the floor, collecting glass splinters. Bleach worked double-duty but failed to neutralize the smell of sweat, urine, and mold Kai knew so well from working at health care facilities. Sickness, death, and misery cannot be easily scrubbed away.
Breathing shallowly, Kai sneaked glances about the room.
Two additional guards stood, their legs spread out, their arms folded behind their backs, and gave curt nods from their position just inside the door.
Kai forced a smile. “Where is the patient?”
“Patient, my eye.” Holster Belt nodded over his shoulder.
A lone plastic chair sat in the corner farthest from the windows. On the floor near the chair sprawled a young man with stringy dark hair. Like the other confined youth, he wore a baggy blue cotton shirt and pants. One pant leg had been pushed up. A cloth knotted his muscular calf. With his head cradled in his arms, Kai could not see his face. Perhaps he had something to hide . . . or was hiding from Holster Belt.
As Kai approached the detainee, Joy’s shuffles . . . and snuffles . . . dogged her. To concentrate on the patient, she ticked off a checklist. Blood stained the makeshift tourniquet but did not pool above or below. Kai’s heartbeat slowed. Signs pointed to nothing serious, at least with his body. Here was the serious question: Why did guards not bandage this wound?
Something slammed. A fist against the wall?
Kai cringed; the detainee jerked up his head to reveal a scarred face and dark goatee. His neck whipped to stare at her. “Told you, I don’t want no . . .” Curses, and a reference to Kai’s ethnicity, filled the air.
A movement niggled Kai’s peripheral vision. Kai turned.
Holster Belt’s hand hovered near his gun.
So the detainee refused treatment. I am sure Holster Belt did not mind in the least. Keeping her eyes on the detainee, Kai backtracked and took the water bucket and first-aid kit from Joy. “Stay here,” she whispered, though Joy’s stiff limbs indicated little chance of her moving. Kai forced herself to breathe slowly, yet her heart galloped as she retraced her steps to the chair.
Kai stopped three feet from misery.
“Please.” She crouched down. “I mean you no harm.”
Hissing, her patient raised his head. With an arch of his neck, he flung hair out of hate-glazed eyes.
Kai shivered and then squared her shoulders. Stop. Do not heap emotions on the situation. There is no reason for fear, not with guards and their guns steps away. The right hand pulsated its yearning to help.
“Don’t you touch me, you—”
Kai knelt by his side. “Fine.” Her vantage point showed the words Death Wish, Eduardo and a skull and crossbones tattooed on her patient’s leg. “You take it off.” She pointed to the bloody strip. “We’ll do this together.”
An eternity passed as the boy—yes, he was a boy, now that she could see youth and hurt in his speckled eyes—scrutinized every inch of her. Then he slumped against the wall. The wrap slipped to the floor.
Kai motioned for Joy to pull rubber gloves from the kit. Kai stretched them over her hands, noted a deep laceration in the leg, and took a water bottle and towel from Joy, who shook visibly. I know how you feel, dear sister. After slipping the towel under the boy’s leg, Kai gently poured water on the wound to wash away blood. She squinted. Blinked.
No debris. She bent close enough to see a tiny mole on the boy’s calf. There would be debris. Never had she seen broken glass make such a precise, deep cut. Unless . . . He is a cutter.
Her windpipe constricted. She stretched as a ruse to look for clues. . . .
Two meters away, a bloody shard glinted red on the waxy linoleum floor.
Kai swallowed bile. Flying debris hadn’t inflicted this wound. The boy had used a tornado’s afterbirth to cut himself. Had he attempted suicide or tried to ease pain by a release of endorphins? Most likely the latter, as suicide victims generally preferred the more effective wrist-slitting. Kai shuddered. If it were suicide, what power had shouted, Enough! Could it be the storm whisperer who had earlier calmed her? Dared she believe in such a thing?
“You ’bout done?” snarled Holster Belt.
The boy wrapped his arms about his legs. His head dipped to meet his knees.
Order him to stop hurting himself.
A tic worked in Kai’s jaw. Again she’d heard the voice. But to whom it belonged, she did not know. Kai extended her hands and covered the boy’s fists with power infused by . . . that voice. “Do not do it again,” she hissed, borrowing the boy’s earlier tone. “It is a travesty to the body, soul, and mind.” Her right hand trembled with a desire to smooth back the boy’s most unmanageable strands of hair, which again veiled those eyes.
The boy snapped to attention. Stared at her.
A strange heat radiated from Kai and manifested itself like the beating of a thousand swallow wings. Something powerful. Inexplicable.
The boy was the first to look away. Power welled in Kai. The air seemed to whoosh with relief.
Eager to utilize the uncanny release of pressure, of strength, Kai treated and covered the wound, which would need sutures. As she worked, she murmured encouragement. When she was finished, she tweezed the glass from the floor, picked up the bloody wrap, stuffed it into a plastic bag, and stashed it in the kit. “Another will be in contact,” she told the boy. “Someone who can help.”
Kai motioned for Joy to follow her past the guards, through the door, and into the foyer. Back on the side of freedom, or the illusion of such. Back by the drinking fountain, where they waited for Pete, who apparently had returned downstairs.
“That was cool, what you did in there.”
Though haunted by the boy’s expression, Kai managed to shrug and smile at Joy. Drained, her back aching, Kai let the wall support her. Faces of patients flashed through her memory, patients she had treated with skills taught by Harvard’s greats, perhaps her own bent for healing. Yet never had she experienced a presence like today, when a voice had instructed her in medicine. How could that be quantified or dissected? She was not sure if she would speak to David . . . or anyone . . . about this. Perhaps Dr. Duncan . . .
“Why didn’t you tell the guard?” Joy asked in a husky whisper.
“Tell? Tell what?”
“That he cut himself.”
Ice water raced through Kai’s veins. How could a pastor’s daughter detect a cutting episode that guards had not even seen? She struggled to recall what the policeman had said about Joy. Yes, this was her first arrest.
Joy leaned close. “They would’ve used it against him, you know. Badgered him into doing it again.”
Kai’s spine went rigid. Her fists tightened. First arrest or not, Joy knew things an innocent would not know.
“You don’t look so hot.” Joy offered her a water bottle, which Kai accepted with numb hands.
“I don’t feel so hot.” Kai swallowed, unaccustomed to bringing attention to herself in such a way. The emotions rushing through her were eroding her composure. It was an entirely foreign feeling.
“I tried it once, you know.”
Joy’s words swallowed the air in the foyer. The water bottle plunked against linoleum and poured out onto the floor. Kai opened her mouth. Closed it. Every cell in her body screamed, Why? When?
Fourth Daughter, whom they had saved from certain abortion; Fourth Daughter, whom they had nursed in the orphanage; Fourth Daughter, to whom she had come to test for PKD. There had been no more precious gift to the Chang family than Joy! To think she would end her life with a single slit! “How?” Kai hissed. “H
ow did you do this thing?”
“With a razor.” Eyes dulled—by remorse? Desperation?—met Kai’s. Otherwise, Joy just stood there, as if she were dead. Her passiveness spurted adrenaline through Kai, who grabbed Joy’s arm and shoved a mass of beads and metals off her wrist.
A plastic band snapped. Blue beads flew into the air and bounced off the tile floor, as if in rebellion to the insult. As well they should rebel! Life was sacred. How could a Chang do such a thing?
The pale scar, neat as an inseam in a garment, cut an acute angle into Joy’s creamy skin. A scant two centimeters . . . yet enough to drain a body of its lifeblood.
Another miracle . . . or had Joy intentionally failed in her attempt?
Kai released her hold on Joy. One question answered, a million to go. How best to get answers? Her instincts screamed that the Powells must be present during such a discussion, yet Joy must know this instant what she thought. “We will address this, Joy. You must get counseling. This is not—”
As Kai stood, trembling and openmouthed, the elevator doors opened and spat out Pete and two men with a stretcher. Without comment, Pete picked up the water bottle and entered the holding tank, followed by the other two men.
Before Kai could broach the topic that had sucked the air from the hall, Pete returned, pulling a mop bucket. The other two men carried her patient on the stretcher, stopping near Joy. Kai stepped close enough to see her patient’s speckled eyes, which seemed to beg her to do something.
The EMTs carried her patient into the elevator. Doors whined shut.
After Pete mopped up Kai’s spilled water and returned the mop bucket to Holster Belt, he rejoined them in the hall. “We’re done here.” Pete wiped his hands on his trousers. “I’m taking y’all down.”
“One moment.” Kai strode to the holding tank and pushed the intercom button. Pete followed. Did he sense that Kai needed a monitor to deal with the guards?
Holster Belt swaggered to the glass. “Yeah?” Despite an air of indifference, curiosity gleamed in his eyes.
Kai cleared her throat. It was now or never. “As a physician, it is my opinion that the boy—my patient—needs counseling.” She debated telling Holster Belt the truth and, heeding Joy’s words, discarded the idea. “Please see that he gets it.”
