Water from My Heart (16 page)

She shook her head. “Nicaraguan men don't do dishes.”

She was tired and hadn't stopped moving since before I'd awakened. She had to be dead on her feet. I offered a second time. “I am not Nicaraguan.”

She nodded, dried her hands. Retrieving the bag from my pack that had been given to her by the man at the coffee-sorting house, she poured its contents onto a large cloth napkin and sorted through them.

She picked through the beans as one who'd done it before.

“Will you roast them?”

“If there's time…this weekend.”

Paulo had gone to bed in the room next to theirs. I could hear him snoring quietly. When I finished the dishes, Leena chuckled. “I don't know what you do for a living, but if it doesn't work out, you make a pretty good
el doctor
in the volcanic mountains of Nicaragua.” More laughter. “You got skill.”

I looked at my hands in the growing moonlight. She followed with, “I set a jug of water next to your bed. You need to make yourself drink it. You'll need it tomorrow morning.”

“Okay.”

“And fill it again before you leave.”

She was walking away when I asked her the question that had been on the tip of my tongue since I saw her kneel next to that man's hammock. “Can I ask you something?”

She turned. Waited.

I glanced up at the coffee plantation atop the mountain. “How do you do this? Day in and day out.”

She paused, stared up at the mountain, and then answered the heart of my question. “I love them without trying to change them. I look at their suffering, their hopelessness, and while I'd like to wave a wand and fix it, I can't, so I do what I can.”

“Which is?”

“Climb down in their misery and love them where they are.” She waved her hand across the landscape. “People would much rather die holding someone's hand than live alone.”

“How do you not let it taint you?”

A shrug. “Never said it didn't.”

She disappeared inside as I whispered, “Sure fooled me.”

I walked to my little plastic-wrapped shed and lay on my bed in the dark. The mosquitoes were buzzing my ears, so I turned on the fan, opting for the lion breathing in my face instead of the buzzing horde.

As the fan oscillated, I kept asking myself how I got there. The world had turned upside down and yet something about it felt completely right. The problem of Zaul seemed a long way away. Colin. Maria. The Bertram. My shack in Bimini. Shelly. Drugs.

As sleep pulled heavy on my lids, one image would not retreat. The sign that read,
CINCO PADRES CAFÉ COMPAÑíA
. As I tossed and turned, an image returned. When I worked for Marshall and he'd dismantled Cinco Padres, I had returned to my office in León to close up. My last afternoon, when I'd taken a motorbike up into the hills, I remembered stopping and watching families walk down—carrying their lives on their backs. That road was the same we'd walked up and back today.

I whispered to myself, “Those people were these people.”

B
y the time I turned thirty-nine, Hack and I had finished two more skiffs and I noticed him slowing down. Hack's cough grew worse and began producing more. Often at night, when we were working in his shop, he'd get to coughing and have to step outside to bring that stuff up out of his lungs and spit out whatever came up. One night, after a rather violent coughing fit, I noticed his handkerchief was tinted red. I told him, “You better let me take you to a doctor.”

He nodded, holding his rib cage. “Maybe it's about time.” Given that he hated doctors, I knew it was serious.

The next morning, I borrowed a neighbor's golf cart and carried him to the Bimini Clinic toward the northern end of the island. If Bimini has anything resembling a hospital, it's this. For reasons unexplained, a
CLOSED
sign hung on the door. I muttered to myself, “How do you close a hospital?”

Hack laughed. “Easy. It's Bimini.”

He was right. This was typical Bahamian lifestyle. If something better presented itself, work could wait. The island had a limited drugstore, but only one doctor, who was more often than not drunk, so the idea of “emergency medical care” didn't really exist. That made it tough to get a prescription for anything while he was passed out. We stepped back into the cart where Hack started one of his coughing fits. Minutes passed while he coughed up a lung and spat the remainder out on the ground around us. This was not a pretty sight and, sitting there with my hands in my lap, it made me feel rather helpless.

While Hack retched, an attractive lady walked by. Bathing suit, hat, flip-flops, designer shades. Bag over her shoulder. Big wide hat. In truth, her legs caught my attention. While her face was beautiful, the look blanketing it was one of resignation and depression. Her shoulders looked like they were carrying a thousand pounds. But despite the small planet that was weighing her down, when she passed Hack, she stopped and listened to his cough. Then she turned to me. A switch flipped and professionalism replaced the heaviness. “Does he belong to you?”

“I'm not sure he belongs to anyone, but yes, I'm his friend.”

“Sounds like he has walking pneumonia. And currently, it's winning. You'd do well to get him to a doctor.”

I pointed at the
CLOSED
sign on the clinic door.

Her eyes narrowed, and she then rested a hand on her hip. After a minute, she pointed to her hotel a few blocks up the street. “Follow me, I'll give him a look.”

“You a doctor?”

One ear still trained on Hack, she nodded and held out a hand. “Shelly Highsmith.” Hack bent over double, clutching his ribs. “You better follow me.”

We followed her to her hotel, where I sat Hack on a bench and we waited. She returned from her room with a stethoscope draped around her neck and a cold bottle of water in her hand. She sat next to him, gently put her hand on his back, and began listening to him breathe. He winked at me. The resulting look on her face did not encourage me.

After a minute, she turned to me. “You live nearby?”

I nodded. Hack was in the process of rolling a cigarette. She touched his hand. “If you want to see tomorrow, you better hold off on that.”

Hack slipped the rolling papers back in his pocket and leaned his head back.

Shelly turned to me. “He's carrying around a rather nasty infection that's probably been in there a while. He's pretty weak and extremely dehydrated—which isn't helping matters. He needs intravenous antibiotics and fluids. Like right now.”

I glanced down the road. “I imagine they have that at the clinic, but we'd have to break the door down to get it.”

Hack spoke up. “Doc leaves his back door unlocked. He's got some medicines in there. If you let yourself in, get what you need. I can pay him when he wakes up.”

We couldn't leave him in the hotel lobby, so we took Hack to my place and set him on the lounger on my back porch with Shelly's water bottle. He promised to stare at the waves and not smoke while we drove the golf cart to the doctor's office.

Shelly Highsmith was a plastic surgeon. And evidently a good one. She was the chief of cleft and craniofacial surgery at the research hospital in Miami where she specialized on children. “Every kid should have a beautiful smile.” Four years younger than me, she was in her midthirties, and yet unlike me, she was visiting the island for her first vacation in eight years, prompted by an ugly and unexpected divorce. Said she was sitting in her office, staring out across the bay, when the papers came to finalize it. She signed and realized she'd never made the crossing. Lived in Miami a decade and never ventured across the water to the island.

The doc was in fact passed out on his couch next to an empty bottle of our rum. I didn't bother Shelly with that detail. We raided his medical cabinet and fridge, getting what we needed. Shelly said she'd like a drug more specific to his condition but broad-spectrum would work.

We found Hack where we left him with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. She sat next to him and swabbed the vein on his arm. When she did, the short, thin, see-through skirt she wore to cover up her bathing suit fell off her thighs and slit to her waist. Hack rested his palm on her thigh.

She eyed his hand and held the needle where he could see it. A smile cracked her lips. “You want pain or no pain?”

Hack put his hand back in his lap and spoke to me. “I like her.”

Shelly spent the weekend checking on Hack, and consequently, based on the tilt and angle of her shoulders, not to mention the disappearing wrinkles on her forehead and the way the edges of her mouth began to turn up every time Hack started telling her a story, the effect of the island, along with us, was good for her.

Being a doctor, she was naturally curious. About Hack. The skiffs. Our fishing. But mostly about me. She also had a thing for good coffee, so I introduced her to Legal Grounds. Sunday afternoon, I took her out on the skiff and helped her catch a few bonefish. She enjoyed that.

She told me more of her story, about medical school, marriage, and why she chose to specialize on kids and their faces: “There's something special about a kid's smile. I see in their faces what we all used to be before the world got hold of us.” I liked her. And I liked being around her.

She asked me about me and I told her my story. High school. College. Playing cards. London. Amanda. Marshall. Landing here. Hack. And I told her about “my business partner, Colin.” And how we were in the fragrance and spirit and wine import business. And yes, I left out one important detail.

Before she left, I said, “I'm in Miami about every other week, mind if I check in on you?”

“I'd like that.”

On our first official date, Colin let me borrow his Mercedes because I didn't own a car, so I took her to my favorite restaurant, Ortanique on the Mile, on the Miracle Mile in downtown Coral Gables. She ordered a mojito and I ordered water. She eyed my decision. “You really don't drink, do you?”

I shook my head.

“Ever done drugs?”

“No, but I was a miler in college and running is a pretty strong drug.”

“Ever done anything you regret?”

“Sure.”

“Such as?”

She waited. Shelly had a strong intuition and suspected something about me was not on the up-and-up. I didn't flaunt money and I didn't spend a lot of money, but she saw the boats I drove. Colin's Mercedes. She knew there was more to my story than I'd admitted.

“I have not been truthful when I should have.”

“Have you been truthful with me?”

“I've not lied to you.”

“There's a difference between not lying and being totally truthful.” Another sip. “So, have you been totally truthful?”

There are several moments in my life that hurt me. This is one of those. I looked her straight in the eyes. “Yes, I've been totally truthful.”

“And you're not into something that could come back to bite you?”

The problem with being a good cardplayer is that I held my cards close to my chest and I could bluff most anyone. “No.”

She crossed her legs, sipped again, and her foot nudged mine. “Good.”

When I look back across the war-torn landscape of my life, at the people I've hurt, those I've taken advantage of, and those I've betrayed and lied to, I think back to that afternoon with Shelly. I'd like that one back. I'd like to tell her that I'm sorry. Really. Poker players are some of the most constantly optimistic people on the planet. No matter what you lose, it can be won back, and double, at the next deal. Nothing is ever truly lost forever.

Problem is, people are not cards or the chips we bet with. Neither are the relationships we share across green-felted tables and smoke-filled rooms.

A blissful year passed. We were happy. I never took Shelly on a drop, but I'd pick her up on my way back and we traveled a lot by boat. Spent lots of time on all the islands. She'd hop in the boat on Thursday or Friday afternoon with nothing but a small bag and say, “Which island?” We became island hoppers. Then we started venturing farther. Central America.

What Shelly didn't know was that loaded in the belly of our vessel, in specially crafted holds made to look like the hull or engine or anything but a storage department, was enough cocaine to put us both in jail for several lifetimes. There were times when I thought she suspected, but if she did, she kept it to herself.

And yes, I was risking her life, which was a risk I was willing to take. Which should tell you everything you need to know about me.

One Friday afternoon, I was late picking her up. Again. I hadn't worn a watch in about eight years and other than my schedule with Colin had become chronically late in pretty much every other area of my life, so whenever we made plans and I told her I'd pick her up at a certain time, she'd ask me, “Now is that ‘real time' or ‘Charlie time'?” When I slid up to the dock almost two hours late, she stepped into the boat, both eyebrows raised, and handed me a small wrapped box. A present.

I was about to say, “I'm sorry,” when she shook her head and pressed her finger to my lips. “Don't. Just shhh.”

I opened the box to find a beautiful Marathon dive watch. It looked bombproof and was reported to be waterproof to over a thousand feet. She took it from my hand and rolled it in hers. “I found these guys online: topspecus.com. Couple of self-described ‘gearheads.' So I called them on the phone and asked them what was the toughest, most accurate watch they sold. They say this thing is nearly indestructible and only loses like a second every hundred years or something.” A playful smirk. “I had them set it five minutes early. So…” She was smiling now. Wrapping my arms around her waist. “You should never, ever, as long as we live…be late again.” A tilt of her head. Half a smile. “Right?”

I nodded obediently. “Right.”

She put her hand on my head and turned it left and then right, prompting me to repeat after her. “Never again.”

I continued moving my head left to right. “Never again.”

She turned and sat in the captain's chair next to me. “Good. 'Cause if you are, you're going to need more than just a good plastic surgeon.” A smile. “You're going to need a donor.”

I laughed.

“And just so you don't forget”—she pulled the band away from the back of the watch—“I had it inscribed.”