Over the Waters (3 page)

I
t took all the strength Samantha and Marie Duval had to get Joshua into the front seat of the dark-green Land Rover. His vitality seemed to have evaporated as quickly as the brief afternoon rains.

"Use your seat belts," Madame Duval ordered. They never used the grimy seat belts. But Samantha dug them out of the crevices of the seat and Joshua let her fasten the belt around him. He slumped against the window in the front seat, while they settled little Kala on a pallet of blankets in the back.

Madame Duval tucked a lunch cooler behind the driver's seat. "You should have enough money to get more food in the city if you need it. Be sure to go to Hopital Sainte Anne. Nowhere else," Marie Duval told Samantha sternly. "My friend will meet you there. Do you have the map I made? And the note for the hospital?"

"I have them." Samantha patted her pocket and climbed into the dust-caked Rover.

"Good, good." Madame Duval repeated the directions to the small private hospital, before closing Samantha's door. "God go with you." She leaned through the open window and kissed Samantha's cheek. "We'll be praying. Call as soon as you can."

Samantha saw the worry etched on Madame Duval's ebony forehead and she compelled her smile to reflect a confidence she didn't feel. "I will."

She backed the Rover around and started down the path to the front gate. At the gate, Alex, the caretaker, unfastened the lock and waved as she drove through.

The roads seemed bumpier than usual. Samantha cringed every time her precious cargo was jerked and jolted as she navigated the dilapidated vehicle over the narrow streets leading to Port-au-Prince. Behind her, Kala moaned, only half conscious.

Samantha had driven to the market in Brizjanti by herself once or twice, but never all the way into the city. As she pulled onto the main highway, a large truck roared into her lane, passing an oncoming car. The truck's bed was piled high with what looked like fifty-pound sacks of potatoes. She sucked in a sharp breath and swerved out of its path. The Rover veered dangerously close to the edge of the road. One wheel slipped into the ditch. A bridge abutment loomed in front of the grille. She slammed on the brakes. Her heart stopped. She eased back onto the main road, her knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. Another split second and they would have crashed into the bridge.

As the truck sailed by, inches from the Land Rover, the men perched atop the burlap bags whooped and waved at her.

Her heartbeat kicked back in gear, making up for lost time.

She looked over at Josh, still leaning against the window. He appeared to be asleep, but at that moment, he reached out and touched her arm.

"Be careful," he mumbled. "You know what they say, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"There are only two kinds of drivers in Haiti."

"What are you talking about, Joshua?" Didn't he know they'd almost been killed?

He turned his head to catch her eye and a slow smile spread over his face. "There are two kinds of drivers in Haiti," he repeated. "Defensive--" he paused for a split second before delivering his punch line "--or dead."

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't help laughing. "Well, if you don't want me to be the latter, you'd better quit distracting me with your stupid jokes."

"Okay, okay. I'm done." He started to say something else but his words were lost in a fit of coughing.

Samantha cut her eyes from him to the road and back again until she was sure he was okay. Finally, gulping for breath, he reached over the back seat and patted Kala before sagging against his door again.

Samantha prayed under her breath as she drove.
Father, help me get there in time. Help me find the hospital.

Thirty minutes out of Brizjanti, after stopping half a dozen times to let pedestrians and livestock cross the road, she fell in line behind a late-running tap-tap. The lumbering taxi truck was loaded to overflowing with passengers and baggage. The Land Rover could easily have gone around it, but the tap-tap's sheer bulk parted traffic like the Red Sea, and Samantha merely followed in its wake.
Thank you, Lord,
she whispered.

The sidewalk vendors were beginning to pack up their wares for the day as she bounced through the city streets. After two wrong turns, she turned onto Rue Chareron and followed the signs, many of them painted on the sides of the buildings, to the Hopital Sainte Anne. She squeezed the Rover into a narrow space in the potholed street in front of the hospital. The sun slunk below the skyline, forming a wavering backdrop to the building.

With a short blast of the horn, she cut the engine and jumped out. She opened the back car door and lifted Kala out. Alarm shot through her as the little girl sprawled limply in her arms. "Hang on, baby," she whispered. "We're almost there,
ti pitit.
"

She slammed her door shut and spoke to Josh through the open window. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

It frightened her that he didn't protest, but instead nodded almost imperceptibly. Clutching Kala to her chest, she reached in and laid on the horn once more before running around the back of the vehicle toward the entrance.

A small crowd of Haitians materialized from nowhere, gathering around her as she approached the door.

"Blan-an malad, wi,"
an old woman called out, pointing back to the Rover. That white guy is sick.

Several wandered over to the curb, murmuring their curiosity.
"Sa li genyen?"
What's wrong with him?

Samantha was accustomed to the inquisitiveness, especially where Americans were concerned, but their distracting questions angered her now. Ignoring them, she elbowed her way through the crowd and went inside.

An orderly met her just inside the entrance. "I have a sick baby." She held Kala out to him like a bag of sugar. "She's dehydrated," she explained in her halting Creole. "My friend is out in the car. He's a doctor, but he is ill also." She spotted a wheelchair folded up in the corner by the vacant nurses' station. "May I use this?"

The orderly nodded and took the child from her arms. "I take the baby," he said slowly, obviously recognizing her limited knowledge of his language.

"Thank you." She hastily set up the wheelchair and rolled it outside to the Rover.

A few of the Haitians still loitered near the building. Joshua appeared to be sleeping. He jerked and lunged for the dashboard when she unlatched his door.

"It's okay," she said. "It's just me. Can you manage the chair?"

Without speaking, he eased his legs over the side of the seat and slid down to sit on the running board and try to catch his breath again. Samantha's blood pressure plummeted. Josh was deteriorating quickly. She moved the wheelchair beside the Rover and put an arm around him, hoisting him to his feet. He turned and plopped into the chair, seeming barely able to cooperate as she lifted his feet onto the chair's footrests. She slammed the car door shut with one hip and pivoted the chair around to back it through the wide hospital doors.

The entrance was empty. Joshua started coughing again from the exertion. She pushed him down the tiled corridor until she spotted a different orderly round the corner and head in the opposite direction. "Wait," she shouted. "Please..."

He spun around and stared at her, curiosity plain on his face. "Yes, Mademoiselle?"

The Haitian man had kind eyes and she found comfort just looking into them. "Please, can you help? This is Dr. Joshua Jordan. He's very ill."

She pulled Madame Duval's note from her pocket and handed it to the man. He glanced at it, and handed it back to her. "He is an American?" The man's hospital ID badge said his name was Albert Reaux.

"Yes." Samantha nodded. "He's been helping at the Duval Children's Home where I work. I am Samantha Courtney. But Dr. Jordan needs to be admitted. Can you help?"

"What is wrong?"

"I think he has pneumonia," she said.

As if on cue, Josh started another spasm of uncontrollable coughing.

Albert Reaux gently pushed Samantha's hands from the wheelchair and took a firm grasp on the handlebars. "I take him," he said in English. He pointed her down the corridor in the direction from which she'd come. "You take the letter. They tell you where the patient is when you are
fini.
"

"Thank you. Thank you so much." Samantha leaned down and put a hand on Joshua's arm. "I'll find you as soon as I get the admission forms filled out, okay?"

He merely nodded, looking miserable and disoriented.

"Please hurry," she whispered to the orderly.

"No problem." The man gave her a reassuring nod. "Everything be oh-kay."

Twenty minutes later, after the woman in admissions had located Madame Duval's nurse friend, Samantha made her way to the main nurses' station. They told her where she could find Kala and she hurried off down the corridor, searching ward numbers as she went. It was a small, private hospital, with only about fifty beds. She found Kala in a ward with several other young patients. She appeared to be sleeping, but she was restrained with ropes in the high crib-like bed. Samantha had been in enough Haitian hospitals that the sight of a child tied with ropes to a railed bed no longer shocked her.

She walked over to the bed and reached out to push a dark curl off the little girl's damp forehead. Kala's breathing was shallow but even, and an IV dripped life-giving fluids into her body. Samantha thought her color looked better already. She waited for the lone nurse in the room to finish replacing an IV bag that hung over another crib. When the nurse finally looked her way, Samantha asked in Creole, "How is she doing?" She repeated her question in English, hoping the woman was fluent.

"She is very weak," the young nurse replied in halting English. "It is good you brought her to
hopital.
She would surely have died."

Samantha reeled back on her heels at the nurse's blunt assessment. "But...She'll be okay now?"

"She is much better already. As you can see. She is blessed by God."

"Yes. She is. Thank you," Samantha murmured. "I'll come back to check on her later tonight."

She stepped into the hallway and after a couple of wrong turns, stopped a nurse who was hurrying by. "Hello. Please...I'm looking for Dr. Joshua Jordan."

"I'm sorry. There is no doctor here by that name. You must have the wrong hospi--"

"No, no...You don't understand. Dr. Jordan was admitted here. Just a few minutes ago. He's a patient."

The nurse smiled at the misunderstanding. "Oh, the American? I believe he has already been moved to a ward. You should ask at the front desk."

Samantha sighed and backtracked down the hall. She found Joshua in a dreary room across from the nurses' station. Two other men in the beds on the opposite side of the ward appeared to be sleeping. A third man looked out the window, which faced an unpainted cinder block wall.

An IV dripped over Josh's head. She tiptoed to his bedside and watched him. She wished his face reflected the dramatic improvement Kala's had. Instead, in spite of the hours he'd spent in the Haitian sun, his skin had a pallid, almost grayish cast, and his lips and fingertips were bluish, showing signs of cyanosis.

She brushed a hand over his arm, and felt for his pulse to reassure herself, before going out to the nurses' station.

"Has a doctor seen the patient in 108 yet?"

The nurse looked up from her paperwork. "Are you a relative?"

"I brought him to the hospital. We work with Marie Duval at the Duval Children's Home in Brizjanti. Has he been seen by a doctor yet?"

"The staff is very short, Miss. Our doctors see many patients each day."

From the corner of her vision, she saw something dart across the hall. She whirled around in time to see a scrawny tiger-striped cat race through an open door, trailing a length of heavy twine behind him. Madame Duval had told her once that some hospitals used cats as "exterminators," but she was shocked to see the creature running loose through the halls.

She pointed and turned to the nurse. "Did you see that? A
cat
just ran into that room."

The nurse chuckled. "He's very fast, no?"

"But...Shouldn't you call a security guard?" she sputtered. "To tie it up?"

"If we tie up the cat, tomorrow you might see the rat he was chasing run into the room instead." A playful twinkle came to her black eyes and she wiggled her fingers in a scurrying motion across the top of the desk.

A slow tremor crawled down Samantha's spine, and she shook her head in disbelief.

The nurse's low, melodic laughter died and a shimmer of something close to defiance lit her eyes. "They will see Mr. Jordan as soon as they are able."

"It's
Dr.
Jordan," Samantha corrected. "Dr. Joshua Jordan. He's here from the States, working at Madame Duval's orphanage. He should receive priority care."

The nurse leveled her dark gaze at Samantha and pushed her ample form from the chair to face Samantha eye-to-eye. "He will be treated as all our patients are treated, with the utmost--"

"I'm sorry," Samantha stuttered. She held up a hand in apology. "I didn't mean...Please forgive me. I...I'm just worried about Dr. Jordan. He is very ill."

"We'll see to him, Miss." The nurse lumbered from behind her desk like a mother bear after a wayward cub. "You best relax for a while. The waiting room is that way." She pointed down the hall and stood, feet planted wide on the dingy white tiles, as though challenging Samantha to cross her again.

S
amantha jerked to awareness, then groaned at the sharp twinge that crept down her back. She must have fallen asleep hunched on the narrow slatted bench in the hospital waiting room. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock on the far wall.

One-thirty. Through a small, high window she saw that it was dark outside. It must be one-thirty in the morning. The flickering glow of a far-off neon light bounced off one wall. She stood and stretched, and tried in vain to tame her hair with her fingers as she hurried out to the nurses' station.

There was no one at the desk. But the door to Josh's ward was open, so she tiptoed in. Soft snoring in several different pitches emanated from the shadowed forms in the beds beyond.

"Hey. You're still here?" Josh's voice startled her.

"Josh. You're awake." She went to his bedside and rested her arms on the rail. "How are you feeling?"

"Not so hot."

In the dim light she could barely make out his face, but his voice was hoarse and breathy. He fiddled with the IV tubing where it entered the back of his hand. "How's Kala doing?" Every word seemed a supreme effort.

"I haven't seen her for a few hours, but she was already better when I looked in on her last night. Her color was good."

"And her respiration?" he asked, ever the physician.

"It was better. Much less labored."

"Good." He let out a ragged sigh.

"I'll go check on her again in a few minutes. Can I get you anything? Some water? Are you hungry? Madame Duval packed a cooler. I can get you something..."

He waved her off with a barely perceptible shake of his head. "I need you to do something for me."

"Okay."

"Will you write something down for me? For my father."

He must have sensed her startled hesitation because he reached out a hand and put it over hers on the bedrail. "Please, Samantha. I want to be sure he gets this."

She didn't like the tone he was taking. "You can tell him yourself. You'll be back in Brizjanti in a couple days and you can call him. Maybe you can even reach him from here."

"I don't know, Sam. I...I don't think I'm doing so hot."

"What are you talking about, Josh? You're going to be okay. They've got you on an IV and--"

"Samantha, please. I need to tell my dad some things."

She nodded, stunned. "I'll get something to write on." She hurried back out to the nurses' station. She hated hearing him talk this way. He was a doctor. Did he sense that he was more gravely ill than they all thought? She found a pen and a small notepad advertising some European pharmaceutical company on the desk.

Back in Josh's room, she flicked on the flashlight from his bedside table, and pulled a straight-back chair up to the side of his bed. "Okay. Shoot."

He was quiet, and for a minute, she thought he'd fallen asleep. But when he started talking, an unexpected urgency seemed to push through his weakness and the words poured out like water from a dam.

"My dad--he doesn't understand why I'm here--in Haiti, I mean. He thinks it was a foolish mistake. That I should have finished my residency and opened my own clinic and made a bazillion dollars like he has. Or maybe...I'm not sure what he wanted for me, but not this. For sure not this. He's going to be mad as blazes about...about how this all turns out. I've got to make him understand that I loved what I was doing, that I was doing what God made me to do--"

"Josh--"

"No. Let me finish, Sam." He silenced her with a shake of his head.

She made herself look into his eyes.

"I don't really understand--" he shrugged and looked around the room "--all this. Why it's happening. But I had a good life, Sam. A really good life." He looked up at her through thick lashes, as though just realizing that he'd been speaking in the past tense.

Her breath caught. "Stop it. Quit talking like this. You're not going to die."

A sly grin came to his face. "We're
all
going to die someday."

She cuffed his arm playfully, trying desperately to recapture the easy way they'd always had with each other. Trying to make him snap out of this melancholy talk. But he winced at her touch and sucked in a sharp breath.

"Oh, Josh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." She was alarmed at his reaction. She'd barely touched him.

He seemed to struggle to catch his breath and she was afraid he would fall into another coughing fit.

"I'm okay," he said finally. "But, Sam...I want my dad to know I'm sorry. I want him to know I love him. He...he had his faults, but I wasn't exactly the best son either. I should have given him more respect. I should've at least listened to his ideas. I wish I could take back some of the things I said." He looked up at her, misery written on his face. "I didn't know the Lord then."

"He knows that, Josh."

He shook his head. "No. He doesn't. My dad never had any use for my faith, never understood it. And even after I gave my life to the Lord, I wasn't a very good example of what the Christian life is supposed to be. Dad never understood me." He gave a low harrumph. "But then I didn't understand him either. I realize now that he only wanted the best for me. We just...had different ideas about what that was. I want him to know I wish I could do things differently."

"Then you've got to get well so you'll have another chance to show your dad what you're really like." Samantha swallowed hard and took his hand gently between hers. A lump came to her throat and her words warbled over it. "You're the finest man I've ever known, Joshua Jordan."

Josh smiled sadly. "Oh, great,
now
you tell me."

"What do you mean?"

"All this time I've been crazy about you and you haven't given me the time of day."

"What?" She looked askance at him.

"You're a beautiful woman, Samantha. Inside and out."

"Josh. Stop. Now I think you're delirious."

"I assure you, I am perfectly coherent."

A sob welled in her throat. She just wanted this night to be over. She wanted to prove Josh wrong. He had all the time in the world. He'd probably outlive them all. Forcing a smile, she reached out to rub his hand. "You need to get some sleep."

He looked at the empty paper in her hand. "You'll tell my father, won't you? And tell my mom I love her."

"You'll tell them yourself," she said with a resolute bob of her chin. "But if not--" the thought nearly strangled her "--yes, I'll tell them. Now I'm going to check on Kala and try to get her to eat something. You get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

To her surprise, he grabbed at her hand, and though his grip was pitifully weak, he laced his fingers through hers. Lifting his eyes, he searched her face.
"Na we demin si-dye-vle."
He squeezed her hand weakly and closed his eyes.

She stood by him for a long time, watching his chest rise and fall, thinking about the Creole words he'd whispered. "See you tomorrow,
if God wills,
" he'd said. It was a common Haitian expression, one used by Christians and non-Christians alike. Since most Haitians believed their lives were controlled by fate, they felt they had no power over whether or not they would "see you tomorrow." But no one ever thought the phrase through when they spoke it. It was like an American "how are you?"--not meant to be responded to, nor taken literally.

But Samantha had the distinct impression that Joshua had spoken it quite deliberately.

For two days, Kala Loutrel improved dramatically hour by hour. Her face lost its ashen, pinched appearance, she sat up and sang happily in the crib and gradually began to keep down the soft food Samantha spooned into her eager mouth. In fact, the nurses teased that the little girl would gobble up the food the other patients' families brought if they didn't watch out.

Samantha would have been ecstatic had Joshua not been deteriorating at an equally dramatic rate. She tried to downplay Josh's condition when she spoke with Madame Duval on the telephone, but she knew her own thready voice gave away her trepidation. Her biggest fear was that they would decide to send Kala home before Josh was well enough to be dismissed, too. Samantha would be expected to take the Land Rover and drive Kala back to the orphanage, leaving Josh behind.

He didn't need her. He was a big boy, not to mention a doctor, and in this small, private hospital he was being surprisingly well cared for. But she hated the thought of leaving him alone here.

She had earned her way into the nursing staff's good graces by helping out on the floor. The head nurse, Elaina LaCroix, had become a friend in the span of a few short days. Elaina had received her nursing degree in the States and her English was flawless. Samantha appreciated having someone with whom she could speak her native language.

On the third afternoon Samantha was at the hospital, Elaina stopped in the midst of gathering her things to leave for the day. She put her hands on her hips and studied Samantha. "Aren't you tired of this place by now, Miss Samantha?"

"A little," she admitted with a sigh.

"Come home with me. You can take a shower and wash out your clothes. I'll bring them back dry tomorrow."

Samantha had brought a couple extra changes of clothing with her and had been washing up in the hospital lavatory each day. But the thought of a real shower was alluring--even knowing there was never any guarantee of hot water. "Oh, I'd love that," she told Elaina. "Just let me tell Joshua where I'm going."

Elaina rolled her eyes and flashed a broad smile, her milky-white teeth in lovely contrast to her smooth, coffee-colored skin. "Methinks you like that boy."

"He's not a boy. He's...a doctor." She stumbled over the words, feeling the heat creep to her cheeks.

"Ah, you mean he's a
man,
" Nurse LaCroix said with a comical vibrato in her voice and a knowing glimmer in her dark eyes.

Samantha didn't even try to defend herself. She did like "that boy." She liked him more than she could express.
Be with him, Father. Touch him with your healing power.

"Okay. You go check on your man. I'll meet you in the parking lot."

Samantha stepped into Josh's room. He was making a sound that was half-wheezing, half-snoring, but she thought his breathing seemed a little less labored. She cupped a hand lightly over his cheek and whispered another prayer for him.

His eyes flew open. "Hey, you," he whispered.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay. I wasn't really asleep."

"Oh, you snore wide-awake now."

She saw the muscles in his face working, trying to form a smile, but it seemed to be too great a feat. "Go back to sleep. One of the nurses offered to let me go home with her and catch a quick shower. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

"You go, girl. You could use it." He spoke in a monotone, his eyes still closed.

She laughed. Even as sick as he was, he hadn't lost his sense of humor.

Miracle of miracles, the water at Elaina LaCroix's apartment was better than lukewarm and the shower felt wonderful. Elaina fixed Samantha a delicious plate of cornmeal mush and sent her back to the hospital with an ice-cold bottle of cola. She felt refreshed and ready to face anything.

As she rounded the corner to the nurses' station she heard a commotion: clipped, strident voices and the clang of metal. The commotion was coming from Joshua's ward. She quickened her steps to match the rhythm of her heartbeat.

The ward was brightly lit. A meagerly stocked emergency crash cart was parked beside Josh's bed. Three nurses and a man Samantha had never seen before--a doctor, or maybe an orderly--were working over Josh.

She held her hands to her mouth in horror, everything else around her fading. One of the nurses called Joshua's name over and over. She held her breath, pleading with God and with Joshua.
Say something, Josh!
She craned her neck, trying to see around the knot of bodies hovering over him. Was he breathing? She couldn't tell.

Time inched forward in slow motion. It felt as though the air had been sucked from the room, and she felt the life being sucked out of her along with it. This must be what Joshua was feeling.

Seconds passed like hours. The medical team shouted terse instructions back and forth to each other. Creole words that told her nothing--in a tone that told her everything.

One of the nurses grabbed something from the crash cart. A trach kit. They were going to perform a tracheotomy. Something from her nurse's training kicked in. She'd assisted in an endotracheal intubation once in her pediatrics rotation. She started for the bed, but the older nurse saw her and barked at her to stand back.

Trembling, Samantha backed into the corner of the room. She stood stock-still, watching as they tried frantically to resuscitate Josh. She was vaguely aware of the other patients in the beds beyond. Two of them were sitting up in bed. Like her, they stared, mouths agape at the drama unfolding.

Nothing in her medical training had prepared her to feel so utterly helpless. She trained her eyes on Joshua's left hand--the one part of him she had a clear view of.
Move. Please move.
She begged his fingers to demonstrate some sign of life.

But even from where she stood, she could see that his nail beds were blue, his fingers still.

Joshua's hands. Beautiful hands that held the gift of healing.
No, God. No. Please. You can't take him.

One of the nurses reached over and flipped a toggle switch. A dead silence alighted upon the room. The man strode from the room, and the nurses began methodically packing the medical equipment back onto the crash cart.

The youngest nurse bowed her head, and with utter tenderness, pulled the sheet over Joshua's face. Then, turning to Samantha, she clicked her tongue and shook her head.
"Adje, Bondye."
It was an expression of sympathy, but also resignation. All hope was gone.

The room spun and Samantha reached for the wall behind her, steadying herself. She couldn't take her eyes off the bed where Joshua's lifeless body lay ravaged, his face shrouded with the bloodstained sheet. She gulped a lungful of stale air, only then realizing that she'd been holding her breath.