“He and Jack are out on a medical run, but they should be back in a couple of days. Jack decided it’s good to take Ezequiel with him whenever he can when he goes out on short trips. It gives them some quality father-son time, and also gives Ezequiel a sense of purpose, pretending to be a doctor’s assistant.” She smiled with pride. “My new son is like a sponge. He absorbs everything, and he’s so anxious to learn and experience new things. I think he might be a doctor someday.”
“Children have so many expectations at that age,” Ben commented as he stepped around Amanda and pulled open the door to the women’s ward. He’d had those same expectations once. Not about being a doctor so much as the other things life might hold in store for him. In his youthful naivety he had just been waiting for the world to open up for him so he could take whatever he wanted.
Then one day it had ended. Everything. No more expectations, no more youthful hopes and dreams because those didn’t happen where he’d spent the next year of his life—in a burns ward, fighting for his life, going through skin graft after skin graft, battling any number of opportunistic infections trying to kill him by various degrees.
Those had been the days when his expectations had turned away from the world and centered only on surviving through the next few minutes, the next hour, the next day.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” she said as they walked shoulder to shoulder to their first patient. “Your affair in Tuscany. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“There was nothing to work out,” he said, stopping short of the bed where his first patient was dozing, then turned to face his sister. “See, that’s the thing. She wasn’t into me. If she had been, I wouldn’t have spent those few days with her. That’s the way it is, Amanda, and it’s not going to change.” He gave her a squeeze on the arm. “I love you for trying, but you’ve more important things to worry about now. And in the meantime I’ve got a middle-aged woman, bad diet, uncontrolled diabetes to look after.”
“Do you remember that treehouse Dad built us?” Amanda asked.
“The one where I wouldn’t let girls inside?” he replied, wondering where this was going.
“But I always managed to get in, Ben.”
“And left dolls there.”
“I knew you didn’t want a sister, knew you felt threatened when Mom and Dad adopted me. I was only five, but I could see it in you. See the resentment and the fear that maybe they were replacing you with me. It shows, Ben. It always shows on you.”
“But we eventually had fun there when I finally managed to get rid of the dolls.”
“And the pink curtains Mother made for the treehouse.”
Good memories, those days when his family had been happy. They were good to hold on to, especially when the darker days had prevailed. “So, are you thinking we should build a treehouse for Ezequiel? Is that where this conversation is leading?”
“You know it’s not,” she whispered, fighting back tears. “In the days before you accepted me as your sister, you hid in that treehouse. Refused to come out. I watched from my bedroom window. Could see you in there angry, hurt… crying. Ben, you have to come out of the treehouse. You can’t spend your whole life hiding.”
“I run a hospital. I work twenty hours a day, seven days a week. That’s not hiding.”
“There are different ways to hide, Ben.” She swiped at her tears. “Anyway, you’ve got patients to see, I’ve got patients to see…”
“I’m fine, Amanda,” he said as she walked away. She didn’t answer, though. Just kept on walking. And he… well, he just tried to blot it out of his mind. What else was there?
“So, I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon,” he said, turning his attention to his patient as he pulled up a chair next to the bed, and sat down. “It’s only been three weeks, Maria, which means we need to talk again about the things that can happen to you if you don’t take better care of yourself.” Said to a lady who was eyeing a plate of pastries next to her bed, left there by a too-sympathetic husband.
Sighing, Ben began the spiel he’d used on her ten times before. Apparently to no avail again. But he understood. It was never easy giving up what you loved, or what you wanted, no matter what the reason. Sometimes, though, life was just plain cruel and forced it on you. “First, you could have heart complications…” Something he assiduously avoided in his personal life.
CHAPTER TWO
“THAT way,” the disagreeable driver grunted. The filter of his cigarette was stuck between his lips, just hanging there, no more cigarette left to smoke. “I don’t go there.”
“I’m not surprised,” she quipped, tossing her oversized duffel on the ground outside the taxi, not expecting the driver to help her. Which he didn’t. But he was quick to extend his meaty hand out the window for a tip. The only tip she wanted to give him was to quit smoking and adopt a better disposition, but handing him a few pesos was easier. So she handed him a fist full of notes, then watched as he counted his money, grunted, then drove off without a care or concern over how she was going to accomplish the next leg of her journey.
For all she knew, she was nowhere near the village, called Aldea de Cascada—village by the waterfall—which she’d been told was also called Aldea de Hospital, thanks to Ben’s hospital.
Major disillusion certainly caused major life changes. And the gnats swarming her, either to glom onto the carbon dioxide was she exhaling or the sweat she was sweating like she’d never sweated before, were sure testament to that.
“Okay,” she said, picking up the duffel and slinging it over her shoulder, which threw her off balance and sent her tumbling backward a couple of steps. “Just do it. You want your life back, this is how you’ll get it.”
Shanna gained her balance at the same time she gained her bearings, and headed off down the narrow grassy path she hoped would lead either to her destination or to someplace where someone else could point her in the right direction. At this juncture, there weren’t many options. The sun was already getting groggy in the sky, so if she didn’t land somewhere soon, the chances looked good for her spending the night out here. Not an appealing thought, sleeping alone in the jungle where who knew what kinds of predators were lurking.
Thing was, the darned bag weighed her down, which slowed her down. But leaving it, maybe coming back tomorrow to get it, wasn’t an option. If something happened to it, if it disappeared overnight… She hadn’t brought much on this journey, but she wasn’t about to do without the few creature comforts she’d included. So she redoubled her efforts, focused only on the trail ahead of her, and bore down for the march. Thinking on every step of it how she was going to explain herself to Ben without looking like an idiot, a total lunatic or both.
A few casual days in a tiny Italian village weren’t enough to compel anyone to do what she was doing. Especially given the way those days had gone. He’d been there but, in so many ways, he hadn’t been. And that was what she needed to learn from him. How to switch off her feelings and simply get on with it. That’s the way he lived his life, being an outstanding doctor, no emotional involvement attached to it. Precisely what she needed to learn. And now she’d traveled halfway around the world to get it, or come to terms with what she would do with the rest of her life if she couldn’t. Because heart-on-the-sleeve medicine didn’t work in the Brooks medical world.
“Ayúdeme por favor. Mi madre fue mordida por una serpiente. Está muy enferma. No puede mover. Pienso que se morirá. Ayúdeme por favor!”
A young girl, probably no more than ten, appeared on the road and grabbed hold of Shanna’s duffel. Not to steal it. Shanna understood that. The child was terrified because, from what Shanna could gather, her mother had been bitten by a snake. Una serpiente. Wasn’t moving. Possibly dying, or already