Mending The Doctor's Heart

“I’m still transferring the paper logs to the computer. Check in later.”

“Can you see if there was anyone by the last name Atao?” she said softly. The clerk looked up, eyeing the nameplate on her right breast pocket. He nodded, then tapped on the keyboard and shook his head.

“No one so far. I’ll come find you if I see that name appear in the paper logs or the new arrivals.”

Anna thanked him.

“We’re not the only medical camp around the island. I’ll ask the others when I make my status calls.”

Tears stung her eyes at the pity in his voice. She stood straight, thanked him, then turned. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane. Couldn’t stop herself from imagining all the scenarios she would face on Guam. Still, she was alert and eager to get to work.

The tents were filled to capacity. A standard issue tent could comfortably take twenty patients, but there were easily more than forty per tent. Each person shared his or her narrow cot with one or two others, taking as little space as they could so there was room for everyone. Anna introduced herself to the local paramedic, Jared, who was assigned to watch over the tent, and got right to work. Most people had broken bones and wounds of various sorts, which the paramedic had bandaged. A dialysis patient was worried about how he would manage. Anna figured the patient could comfortably make it another day or two before he would get toxic; hopefully resources would arrive by then. The first days after a disaster were always the hardest.

The young paramedic with curly black hair and dark eyes followed her from patient to patient, chatting away.

“My cousins are helping get the airport fixed,” Jared told her. “There’s so much junk on the runway, Lando—that’s my uncle—had to go get a garbage truck to haul it all out.”

Anna knew that one of the reasons so few resources had made it to the island was that helicopters were very inefficient. They could only carry so much weight to conserve fuel for the long journey back to Japan or the Philippines. The neighboring Marshall Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands—CNMI—had also been badly damaged in the tsunami.

“What about the military base?” Anna inquired as she drained the infected wound of an older woman.

“They were also damaged. They’re repairing the base and sent an engineer to direct the efforts to fix up the airport, but there aren’t a lot of people on base.”

Anna nodded. Five years ago she had pleaded with the garrison officer on the air force base and each of the two navy bases, but they hadn’t been able to help her. They’d been stretched thin with troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan and there were no helicopters to transport Lucas off the island, no cardiac surgeons at the military hospital to perform the operation that could have saved his life.

“Have there been a lot of casualties?” Anna asked out of earshot of the patients as they went to get more supplies.

Jared shrugged. “It’s hard to say right now. We had a brief warning from Hawaii saying they detected an earthquake off their coast, so we told everyone to take shelter inland, but not everyone made it. We’re seeing a lot of rescuer injuries.”

Her stomach roiled. Knowing Nico, he’d be out there putting himself at risk.

Once she was done gathering supplies, she moved on to the next tent, scanning every face for the one she knew so well. Yet another paramedic assisted her as she checked each patient in the overflowing tent. The hours sped by as more tents were put up, additional workers arrived and patients who’d been waiting in a triage area outdoors were moved to shelter.

Anna was surprised to see it was already dark when she came out of the last tent. People were still coming in, but she’d visited every patient at least once and discharged several after bandaging their wounds. She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease out the tension. She’d been on the island for five hours and forty minutes. She wondered whether she should try to find Linda or just inform the medical command clerk that she was heading to Tumon Bay to check on Nico. He’s probably okay. Still, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach.

A shout grabbed her attention. “We have incoming, they need a doctor. Now!”

Anna ran to the triage area, where a group of new arrivals were gathered. A man yelled, “Ayuda, ayuda.”

Anna stepped up and placed a hand on the man’s shoulders. “I will help you. Tell me what’s wrong,” she said in Chamorro.

The man blinked rapidly. “A car fell on this man.” He pointed across the field. Anna turned and asked the clerk to go find Linda and anyone else who was available. The damage from the tsunami was astounding; she’d seen a boat perched on top of a tree. In such cases, secondary accidents after the disaster injured more people than the event itself. She followed the shouting man away from the camp. They got to the main road, which was blocked by a big tree. On the other side of the trunk was a farm tractor with a wagon attached.

“Anna?”

She turned toward the familiar voice, momentarily blinded by the lights of the tractor. Is that really her? She shielded her eyes from the glare. Her chest squeezed painfully.

“Nana?” she said. Nana was what Nico called his mother. What Anna had once called the small woman standing before her. Nana stepped forward, blocking the light from the tractor. She looked exactly as she had five years ago, her curly gray hair pinned in a bun, standing tall in her five-foot frame.

“Anna!” She closed the distance between them, then reached out and clasped Anna’s hands, her eyes wild. “Please, you must help Nico.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_578a3993-10a6-51cd-ad68-1957547c08aa)

ANNA RAN TOWARD the tractor. The giant tree that blocked the roadway lay there, dark and ominous. Branches and limbs tore at her bare arms as she scrambled over the trunk. The thin cloth of her scrub pants tore as she made her way over the top. She barely felt the sting of the scrapes on her knees. Still blinded from the glare of the headlights, all she could see were shapes of people milling about. She scooted her way down a branch; it was too high to jump down. A shadowy figure approached at a run.

She used her hands to propel her body downward a little faster, ignoring the protests of her damaged skin. Just as she got close enough to jump the rest of the way, a pair of powerful hands grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down, slamming her into a hard chest. The smell of Irish Spring soap and sweat filled her nose, a scent as familiar to her as her own perfume. He held on to her even after she had a firm footing on the concrete.

“Anna!” Her heart thudded against her chest. She collapsed against him, relief flooding through her like someone had hit the release valve on a pressure cooker about to blow. He was alive. His strong arms held up her boneless body. Drawing her close, he rubbed his cheek against her head and her heart flooded with warmth.

“Oh God, Anna, it’s really you.” His voice was husky, and he pulled her even closer. The feel of his body against hers, so familiar and yet so distant, tugged her back into reality.

She pushed away, the words out of her mouth before she raised her face to look at him. “Nico!”

He stared down at her. His height had always been the talk of the island, a trait no doubt inherited from his white father.

Their eyes locked, her blue-gray ones pinned to his soft brown.

“You came back?” His voice was low, the words a little broken.

Something burned through her. Her legs weakened, threatening to buckle underneath her.

She stepped back, out of his reach. “I had to come for my job.” There was a slight tremor in her voice.

His eyes shifted. She stared pointedly behind him, eager to look away. “You need to come with me, Tito is hurt.”

She followed him to the wagon behind the tractor and climbed up to the platform. Nico’s cousin Tito was on the back of the wagon. He had an obvious open femur fracture, the bone protruding from his leg at an odd angle. Someone held a cloth to the wound, pressing on it to stop the bleeding.

“Anna, is that you?” Tito groaned in pain.

Anna smiled reassuringly at him. She’d been fond of Tito. He was slightly shorter than her but what he lacked in height, he made up for in width. “Yes, it’s me, Tito. Looks like I’m gonna have to save you again.”

“You came back for Nico?”

Anna shook her head, wishing she’d had the forethought to bring her medical bag. Her stethoscope was still miraculously around her neck. She took it off and began listening to his chest.

“Good! ’Cause he ain’t available no more.”

Anna took the stethoscope out of her ears. Did I hear him correctly? Tito groaned again and Anna cast around for something she could use to reduce the fracture. She spied a blanket in the corner of the wagon and pieces of rope, used to secure animals, hanging from the side rails. She picked up the blanket and wrapped Tito’s fractured leg. He howled in pain, but Anna knew there was no other way. They wouldn’t be able to safely transport him to the camp if she didn’t reduce the fracture first.

As she untied a rope, she spoke to the group of men who had come with Tito, avoiding eye contact with Nico.

“Okay, we need to make a manual hare traction splint.” She took the rope and tied it to the ends of the blanket. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to reduce a femur fracture in the field. The last one had been in a rice paddy in Thailand. At least she was on dry ground this time. She finished constructing the makeshift splint. “I’m going to pull on this rope. I need you men to hold Tito down.”

“What? No! This woman is gonna kill me!” The men ignored Tito and two of them kneeled on the floor, bracing themselves on either side of the injured man.

Anna grabbed the rope and balanced her footing. She pulled as hard as she could, keeping an eye on the bone, watching for the shift in the bulge telling her she’d snapped it back into place. She grunted, increasing the pressure on the rope. Tito screamed.

Nico wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing his body close to her with the familiarity of a husband. Heat spread through her but she ignored how well she fit against him. He put his hands on top of hers and yanked with her. The bone fell into place and she held the rope taut. She could feel the warmth of Nico’s body against her back. The hair on his arms pricked her skin.