Over the Waters (5 page)

She straightened in her seat as the plane banked sharply and began its descent. Max looked away quickly. She was none of his business. He had plenty of his own demons to wrestle with.

A
s the plane began its final descent into the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Valerie looked down and smoothed the wrinkles from her cotton skirt. It was one of several matching skirt-and-blouse outfits she'd stitched up on her sewing machine in a last-minute frenzy getting ready for this trip. It was a nice pattern, flattering and comfortable. But it was a far cry from the wedding trousseau she'd been working on for the past year--a wardrobe that now hung in the closet of her apartment back home.

For months, her days had been wrapped up in planning a huge church wedding, being the belle of the ball at three bridal showers, sewing four bridesmaids' dresses--gowns she had designed herself--and an entire wardrobe especially planned for her honeymoon in the tropics.

But her dream had died, and now it was time to get the spotlight off herself and do something for someone else. If she hadn't learned anything else from her years of reading the Bible, surely she'd learned that true happiness came from helping others.

Which was why, on this January morning that was to have been her wedding day, Valerie Austin was on an airplane bound for Haiti. An orphanage her church sponsored had sent a young missionary doctor to present a brief slide show during the worship service one Sunday morning. Valerie had been touched by his account of a grossly understaffed children's home desperately in need of workers--even on a short-term basis. But of course her upcoming wedding plans had kept her from considering such an opportunity.

A week after her broken engagement, however, a notice appeared in the bulletin again. Hope House was desperate for help. Valerie was without hope and desperate to get away from home. It seemed providential. She filled out the forms and waited.

In the end, she was the only one who signed up for the trip. But the church voted to send her anyway. Because of her canceled honeymoon, she already had a passport, plus time off from her advertising job, and even a plane ticket, which the airline was kind enough to transfer--with a small penalty, of course. She'd briefly entertained the idea of asking for the bereavement rate, but thought better of it.

In spite of the reason for her change of destination, it was rather exciting--and a little frightening--to be headed to a foreign country. Other than a brief foray into Mexico in her college days, she'd never set foot on foreign soil.

She'd read the newsletter that the American missionaries who ran the orphanage sent her church twice a year, and of course, once her trip was confirmed, she'd visited Haiti via the library and the Internet. But she really had no idea what to expect of this trip.

The flight attendants moved through the aisles making sure seat belts were fastened and collecting the last of the trash. Valerie turned in her seat, stretching and discreetly taking in the other passengers. Most of the faces she saw were Haitian--neatly dressed businessmen, several families with well-behaved children, Haitian Americans, she guessed, returning to visit relatives. As the plane ate away the miles, their broken English became rapidly chattered Creole. Valerie didn't recognize one word of the lilting language from the Learn Creole Now! tapes she'd checked out from the library.

The two dozen or so white faces she saw held the same mix of excitement and apprehension she supposed her own face reflected. She felt an unexpected affinity with the other U.S. citizens on this foreign flight.

A nice-looking man made his way between the rows and slipped back into his seat across the aisle from Valerie. From hearing him speak to the flight attendant earlier, she thought he was an American, too. He nodded briefly in her direction, but turned away before she could respond with even a smile.

She readjusted her seat belt and looked out the window again. A metallic bell tone sounded over the PA system and the captain's voice came on to welcome the passengers to Port-au-Prince. Her heart beat noticeably faster and she clutched the wilted fabric of her skirt.

Help me, Lord.

The plane taxied slowly before it finally came to a stop several hundred yards from the airport terminal. Valerie followed her fellow travelers as they descended the portable steps into the sultry Haitian air.

I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto, she thought wryly, as she made her way across the tarmac to the outdated terminal building.

Just outside the entrance, a trio of native musicians wearing brightly colored shirts strummed guitars and an old-fashioned washboard, serenading passengers as they made their way into the terminal. The lively music reminded Valerie of the zydeco she'd heard at Mardi Gras many years ago.

When the carry-on bags had been cleared, they moved in a herd toward the baggage-claim area, located in a section of the airport that looked almost archaic.

After a long wait, the baggage conveyor finally started to move, slowly filling with a jumble of bags. Valerie had knotted bright purple ribbons on the handles of her luggage to make it easier to spot, and, she hoped, harder to steal. She kept her eyes trained in one spot on the long belt, but as bag after bag was claimed, her anxiety began to escalate. What if her luggage hadn't made it from Miami?

She walked around to the opposite side of the carousel. The dark-haired man who'd been across the aisle from her on the plane balanced a large suitcase against one leg, eagerly eyeing each new piece as it came through the flaps. He looked up as Valerie approached. "This is a zoo, huh?" he said, shaking his head. She was relieved to hear his distinctly American accent.

"Yes." She glanced at the bulging suitcase at his side. "You got your luggage already?"

"One of them," he said. "Of course the one with all the important stuff is the one that's not here."

She shot him a commiserating smile. "Murphy's Law, I guess."

"I guess." He rolled his eyes, and turned to watch as the few remaining bags circulated again.

Valerie glanced at her watch. Another minute passed and a few new bags began to appear, raising her hopes.

"Is this your first trip to Haiti?" the American asked, glancing at her before returning a watchful eye to the conveyor.

"Yes." She was having a hard time reading the man. He seemed preoccupied. She suspected he was just making conversation to be polite, but she decided to take a risk. "Is it your first visit here, too?"

"Yes. First time." He started to say something else, then sucked in a deep breath and lurched for a bag that had appeared on the belt. "Aha! There it is!" He hoisted the bag from the conveyor and plopped it beside his other bag. He turned to her. "Still no luck, huh?"

Valerie shook her head.

The man wrestled the two bags into submission, balancing the smaller one atop the larger. "Well, good luck."

"Thanks."

He turned and started for the exit. She watched him walk away and her hopes sank to her feet. She wanted to run after the stranger and beg him to help her. She had no idea where to begin the process of submitting a claim for lost luggage. Pastor Phil and Betty Greene, the missionaries who ran the orphanage, had warned her that security would not allow them to meet her inside the airport. She couldn't ask their advice without leaving the premises. And if she left without her bags, she might not be able to get back in to retrieve them when they did show up.

Twenty minutes later, the conveyor was empty and her last thread of hope unraveled. Her bags hadn't made it. They'd probably been routed wrong in Dallas. She sighed and shot up a prayer before rolling her small carry-on down the corridor. She followed the dwindling crowd to what she hoped was the exit. As she walked, she kept an eye out for the American stranger. If she saw him again, she would stop him and ask his advice.

She found a ticket counter and pleaded her case with the woman behind the desk. She prayed she didn't have to test her pathetic smattering of Creole. "My bags--my luggage--apparently didn't make it," she said.

The woman obviously understood her, clicking her tongue as she would at a forgetful child, and answering in English. "You must fill out papers. Over there." The clerk leaned over the desk and pointed Valerie toward a kiosk several hundred feet farther down. "You see the sign?"

She followed the woman's line of sight and nodded. "Thank you." After filling out a confusing form and being assured they would hold her bags for her, she headed for the exit with her small suitcase and her backpack, glad she'd packed a change of clothing to carry on. Her two bags passed easily through customs and she made her way to the front entrance of the airport.

The sights and sounds--and smells--that greeted her as she stepped onto the pavement outside were intoxicating--and not in an entirely pleasant way. Her nostrils flared at the strange mingling of frying fish, diesel fumes, garbage and, over it all, the distinct smell of raw sewage.

She held a tissue to her nose and shaded her eyes, searching the crowd for the elderly couple she had only seen in a blurry photocopy.

But there they were! Their silver heads and fair skin stood out like beacons amid the sea of ebony faces that swarmed outside the fence.

She waved in their direction and they smiled and gestured wildly, motioning her to go to an opening in the fence a few yards from where she'd exited the airport. Once outside the fence she was instantly surrounded by children, mostly boys. White teeth grinned up at her from shiny coal-black faces.

"Madame, one doll-ah please?" They all seemed to shout at once in their thick Creole accent. "Please, Madame," they begged. "One doll-ah? Please," a small boy implored, his right hand outstretched, his left rubbing his tummy.

It broke Valerie's heart. She looked desperately at the couple hurrying toward her now. She longed to give the boys something. After all, she'd come to help. But there were so many of them--dozens of them! If she gave even one dollar to each of them, she wouldn't have the money she needed to pay for her keep, and to get back home.

"Go on, move away!" Phil Greene scolded the children with a vigor in his voice that belied his age. He spoke sternly in Creole, then in English. "This woman has come to help out. Leave her in peace." He stretched his arms over the heads of the beggars and reached for her hand, smiling. "You must be Valerie," he shouted over the din.

"Yes--" The word was scarcely off her lips before his petite wife plowed through the crowd of children and pulled her into a bear hug that nearly knocked the wind from her.

"We're so glad you are here." The woman pulled away and held Valerie at arm's length for inspection. "I'm Betty Greene, and this is my husband, Pastor Phil Greene." Then, with a soft smile and a voice as serene as if she were commenting on the weather, she said, "You are an answer to our prayers, Valerie Austin."

Port-au-Prince, January 11

T
he stench that filled the air beyond the gates of the Port-au-Prince airport caused Max Jordan to recoil. It smelled like a sewer line had busted somewhere. No one else seemed to notice the putrid odor. He looked around at the mass of humanity pressing around him on all sides, and wondered if this was the way the city always smelled.

He dragged his bags to the edge of the walk and looked down the street, keeping an eye out for the green Land Rover that was supposed to pick him up. He'd been warned that transportation in Haiti left much to be desired and he was grateful the orphanage had offered to send someone to meet him.

There it was, idling in a line of cars a hundred yards down the street. He started toward the vehicle, but before he'd gone two steps, a horde of children swarmed around him, hands outstretched, begging for money. "No! Go on! I don't have anything for you," he shouted, stomping a foot at them. "Get! Get!"

This seemed to take them aback momentarily and he hurriedly turned and pushed his bags awkwardly in front of him, plowing his way through the throng. His anger surged. Why on earth did the airport authority allow this mauling of their customers? He shut his ears to the children's cries and kept his eyes straight ahead.

Finally the beggars ran off to pester another poor traveler. Max wondered briefly about the young woman who'd lost her luggage. A knife of guilt punctured him. He probably should have taken the time to help her. But he didn't want to make his ride wait, or be left stranded at the airport. The knife twisted. He hoped the girl wouldn't be marooned here.

Joshua would have helped her.

He tensed and turned to look behind him. Where had that come from? But he realized immediately that no one had spoken the words aloud. The thought had come from his own mind. And he knew it was true. Josh
would
have helped her. And not just because she was a pretty young woman either. For the hundredth time, Max wondered why God had taken Josh and left a miserable, self-centered excuse of a man like Max Jordan behind to mourn him.

A cloud of melancholy settled over him. Grief seemed to have imbued him with an unsettling awareness of his conscience. He didn't like it.

As he approached the filthy Land Rover, a girl jumped out of the driver's seat and jogged around to open up the back.

"Hi." She stuck out a suntanned hand. "You must be Dr. Jordan."

She didn't look as though she could be a day over twenty, and the smile she gave him was the same one every woman who knew of Joshua's death gave him--a sad half smile that seemed equal parts pity and disdain, confirming his right to question why the son had died while the father still had breath.

"I'm Samantha Courtney."

He took the hand she extended and was surprised to realize she was trembling. This was the girl who'd written the letter. She'd known Josh. His breathing quickened.

"How was your trip?" she asked, slamming shut the back gate of the vehicle.

"It was long. But I'm here now. I appreciate you picking me up."

"Oh, it's no problem. Hop in. It's a ways to the orphanage." She went around and got behind the wheel.

Max climbed in beside her and buckled his seat belt. She pulled forward and navigated the vehicle onto a crowded, narrow street. "There was another woman coming in today--on your same flight, I think. She's working with Hope House, just up the road from Madame Duval's. I offered to pick her up, too, but the Greenes--they run Hope House--had some other errands to run."

"I see." He hoped the girl wouldn't yammer at him about people he didn't even know all the way to Madame Duval's.

His terse response seemed to get the message across, and she fell silent. Max stared out the window, taking in the abject poverty all around them, trying to imagine how his son must have felt the first time he traveled this route.

They rode along without speaking for several minutes, until Max blurted out, "So you're the one who was with Josh...when he died?"

She took in a jagged breath, as though she'd been braced for his question. Even in profile, Max saw the shadow that passed over her face.

"Yes. I took him to the hospital. I was there--in his room--when he died."

He took a deep breath. "So what happened?"

She met his gaze, then looked away quickly. "I...left the hospital for about an hour. He was very weak, but I honestly thought he was starting to improve a little. When I came back, he had coded." She rubbed the space between her eyebrows, as though she had a sudden headache. "They did everything they could, Dr. Jordan. They trached him. Gave CPR...I really think they did all they could. It just...wasn't enough." She shrugged and chewed at her bottom lip. "I'm so sorry," she said finally.

"You're a nurse?"

"Yes."

"How long was he sick?" They were on a main street now and he had to raise his voice to make it heard over the car's engine and the noises of the people crowding the sidewalks.

"How did it get so bad...so fast?" He barked out the question before he could think how accusatory it sounded.

Samantha glanced at him and cleared her throat. "You did get my letter with the hospital's report?"

"Yes..." He struggled to keep his voice even and yet be heard. "But how did he get so sick in the first place? Was he...not taking proper precautions?"

She hesitated for a moment. "No, he probably wasn't. We had a rash of nasty respiratory viruses at the orphanage. Josh got it, but he wouldn't admit it at first, and even when he couldn't deny it, he wouldn't slow down. He was working practically around the clock helping take care of the kids who were sick."

A pig trotted into the road right in front of the Land Rover. Samantha jerked the wheel, dodging the animal as though it were a dead possum. She went right on talking. "Josh ended up developing pneumonia. He finally got bad enough that we convinced him to go to the hospital. But as you probably know, the hospitals over here leave a lot to be desired. They did the best they could, but he'd lost a lot of weight and hadn't been eating or sleeping right, so his immune defenses were down. They had him on antibiotics. And it seemed like he was holding his own. I...I really thought he was getting better." Her last word rose on a wail, and she put a hand to her quivering mouth.

Max watched her. This girl had cared deeply for his son. He wondered if there had been something more than friendship between them. Josh had never mentioned anyone in particular the few times they'd spoken after he arrived in Haiti. But then he and Josh hadn't exactly been on the friendliest of terms for the past couple of years. Still, he'd always imagined Josh alone here--a stranger amongst these primitive people.

He had barely left the airport, and already he was seeing things from a very different perspective. It gave him hope. As difficult as it was to be here where Joshua had spent his last days, he was glad he'd come. Maybe he could finally put closure on this horrible grief.

He was silent for several miles as the car bounced along the rutted roads. The girl beside him didn't try to fill the void. He was grateful.

"I really don't know what I hoped to accomplish by coming here. You're probably wondering about that." He surprised himself with this attempt to voice his thoughts. Maybe he felt free to speak because she was a stranger.

Samantha turned to him briefly before giving her attention back to the bumpy highway. "I think I understand. If I were you, I would want to see where he'd lived and worked. Where he was happy."

"Was he? Happy?"

She arched a brow, as though surprised that he didn't know the answer. "Oh, yes. He was happy. He was very happy." She bit her lower lip and Max could see she was struggling to control her emotions. "Your son loved what he was doing. And he was good at it. The best."

For a moment Max felt the familiar anger rise up. In the year since Joshua's death, he'd felt as though he was in a war. Except he didn't have a clue who the enemy was. He didn't trust himself to speak, so he turned to watch the dreary scenery outside the window. Some stretches along the road looked like a war zone with dilapidated buildings and arid, grassless ground littered with debris of all kinds.

Could he possibly discover what he was looking for in this desolate place? Why had Joshua been so...
happy
here?