Feeling comforted by the night, Kate drew in a calming breath and opened the door, returning to her quandary. She passed the dispensary door and treaded the hallway toward the front office. When she turned the corner, she spotted the local woman who cleaned and did odd jobs at the clinic. Kate hurried forward. “Hola, Carmen,” Kate called.
Carmen stepped backward from an examining room and smiled, her white teeth contrasting her tanned skin. “¿Sí?”
Kate slowed her walk and pantomimed as she spoke. “Did you store medicine somewhere besides the dispensary…la farmacia?”
“¿Mi? ¿Medicina?”
“Sí. Did you?”
Carmen’s eyes widened. “No, señorita. No sé nada.”
I know nothing. Kate peered at the woman, sensing perhaps she did know something.
The young woman’s eyes shifted back and forth, and she clutched her hands to her chest.
They had always trusted Carmen. She’d worked for the clinic the past two months, but… Kate cringed at her suspicion. She had no reason or right to accuse this woman without any more proof than a faint inkling. Kate realized she was looking for a scapegoat for her own mistake. Keeping track of the inventory was her responsibility.
“Está bien,” Kate said, letting Carmen know everything was fine. She waved her hand in the air as if erasing her earlier question.
A look of relief covered Carmen’s concerned face. “Sí. Gracias.”
Kate forced a halfhearted smile, then continued toward the office. Surprised that she’d let her thoughts wander in such a horrible direction, Kate asked the Lord for forgiveness. Why would Carmen steal the drugs? Kate needed to check the computer again. Perhaps she overlooked something.
But she didn’t think so.
Four days later, Adam grasped a moment’s reprieve and looked out the small window of his office, watching the sun set behind the wild chinaberry tree. A coconut palm stood tall, unbending in the windless sky. Heat permeated the room, and a pesky jejen—a small voracious fly—circled past, hoping to sink its stinger into his body, Adam figured. He swatted the insect away, then left the office and headed down the hall.
He stopped at an examining room door and checked the clipboard, then walked inside to greet the mother cradling her infant who had received plastic surgery on a cleft palate three weeks earlier.
“Hola,” Adam said.
The mother murmured a greeting, not lifting her gaze from her child. Anxiety weighted the woman’s expression, and Adam tried to calm her with his limited Spanish.
With the mother standing beside him, he removed the sutures and motioned to the scar. “Luce bien,” he said, hoping she agreed that it looked flawless.
She beamed.
As she watched, he demonstrated how to massage the scar in a circular motion, encouraging her to try her hand at the needed therapy. When she finished, he disinfected the site.
“Señora Fernandez, mírame, por favor.” He gained her attention and pointed to the dressing, demonstrating how she should change the sterile strips.
The woman nodded, seeming to understand.
Adam lifted the infant and cushioned him in his arm, grateful for the skill God had given him to make a child’s life better. Too many children were born with deformities in this land of poverty. Sometimes he wondered how a loving God could allow this to happen, but he’d been raised to trust the Lord and know that all things had a reason.
He turned his thoughts back to the infant and headed to the storage cabinet to locate a supply of plastic strips to give the mother. He knew she would have little money to buy her own.
The cabinet looked almost bare. Why didn’t someone see that supplies were in each room?
A rap on the door jarred the thought from his mind. Adam turned, and his pulse skipped. Katherine. Could she read his mind? She stood in the doorway with a pile of sterile strips and bandage supplies clutched in both hands and piled against her chest.
“Sorry to disturb you.” A curious look washed over her face as her gaze shifted from him to the baby he held cradled in his arm.
“The supplies just arrived, and I know this room is short,” she said. “I imagine you want some of these for Señora Fernandez.”
“Thanks,” Adam said, puzzled by the coincidence. He returned the infant to his mother while Katherine stocked the cabinet with supplies. Before she left, Katherine handed him several sterile strips.
He slid the bandages into a plastic bag and handed them to Señora Fernandez. Gratefulness filled the woman’s face, and her response renewed his sense of purpose.
With the mother content and smiling, Adam guided her to the exit, more for his own need for fresh air than for Señora Fernandez. Adam stood a moment in the dusky light, watching her sandals kick up dust along the side of the road.
Adam rubbed his neck, feeling the strain of what would be a long night’s work. He agreed with Valenti. The late shift was difficult.
As he turned, a sting stabbed his arm and looked down in time to see a jejen. He slapped at the fly, but it had already vanished. As he headed inside, Adam’s arm stung with a fiery itch, and he rubbed the irritated spot.
When he reached the nurses’ station, Kate beckoned to him. She peered at his scratching and grinned. “Got a bite?”
He nodded.
“Vitamin B and baby oil work wonders.”
“I know,” he said, wanting to remind her he was the physician.
She motioned toward the computer screen. “The supplies are accounted for and stocked. I’ve checked everything twice.”
“Learned your lesson?”
She sent him a fiery look. “You can check it yourself if you’d like.” She swung the monitor toward him and rose from the chair.
“I’m joking, Katherine.”
Her eyebrows raised as her frown melted. “Well, I just thought…”
He harnessed a chuckle, seeing the look on her face. No one could get as addled as Katherine…at least, when he talked to her. She didn’t like him, he figured.
“Do I have another patient?” he asked, needing to get on with his work and not worry about Katherine’s fluster.
Kate nodded. “Knife wound. Room two.”
Knife wound. He had seen too much of that. Harvesting accidents, street fights and drug-or alcohol-induced arguments. Adam had already seen cuts and bruises from their Independence Day celebration the day before, the fifth of July.
Adam strode into the hallway and headed toward the examining room. Before he reached the doorway, he felt a hand on his arm that spun him around.
“Look, Montgomery, where do you get off advising my patient to do something I said wasn’t necessary?”
Adam felt his jaw drop. “What are you talking about, Dan?” He gazed into Dr. Eckerd’s angry eyes.
“I’m talking about Liana Ramirez.”
“The child? I don’t—”
Eckerd gripped Adam’s jacket and crushed the cloth. “Do you remember telling Señora Ramirez that her daughter needed plastic surgery for the birth-mark?”
Adam jerked his arm away from the doctor. He faintly remembered one day he’d seen the family in question, but they often shared patients. No