The ceiling fan stirred the hot,
humid air. Alien aromas of sweat, spices and perfumes assaulted her. Lauren
Richmond leaned against the examining table and wiped her forehead with a
cotton bandanna. A babble of voices floated through the partially open door of
the triage room. She looked for Chandra and remembered the tiny Indian nurse
had left for the day.
Lauren’s eyes blurred. A sneeze
exploded. Her throat ached and a dull pain settled above her eyes. She looked
down at her wrinkled khaki slacks, glad she wasn’t wearing white the way she
would have at a hospital in the States.
The chatter from the waiting room
became the voices of
She opened her eyes. The moment of
disorientation vanished.
After pulling her spinning emotions
under control, she walked to the door of the triage room and motioned to the
next group of patients. A dark-skinned woman with pleading brown eyes spoke in
a high-pitched voice joining syllables with staccato beats. Three wide-eyed
children clung to her sari. As if offering a gift the woman held out a baby. Lauren
took the child.
The infant’s swollen belly and thin
limbs spoke of malnutrition. Fevered flesh burned Lauren’s hands. The weak
mewling cries brought tears to her eyes. She bathed the baby in tepid water and
then plunged a needle into the thin muscles of his buttocks. With shaking hands
she handed the mother a bottle of sugar water and several of diluted formula.
Next, Lauren examined the little girls.
The sing-song spate of chatter
stopped. Lauren looked around. Neil Bourne stood in the doorway. Though the day
had almost ended, his khakis looked neat. His dark hair, lightly sprinkled with
gray and the lines of experience in the corners of his eyes, revealed the ten
years’ difference in their ages.
He smiled. In the past, his smiles
had brought comfort and allowed her to speak of her dreams like a child talking
to a trusted uncle. Today, his smile made her edgy.
“Dear girl, it’s nearly eight. Time
to close shop for the day. You work too hard and too long.”
“No more than you.” She studied his
face. Something in his expression told her he had news. Was the team moving to
the scene of some new disaster? She wanted to protest another dislocation.
“Let me help you finish.”
Unwilling to let her tiredness
show, she nodded, stepped to the door and gestured to the next patient.
For an hour, she and Neil assessed
the rest of the patients in the waiting room. When the last patient had been
seen, she closed the door and slumped on a chair.
“Time to leave.”
Neil’s deep voice lured her to her
feet. She washed her hands and splashed water on her face. As they crossed the
road to the house where members of the team lived, only his hand at her elbow
kept her from staggering.
“Dinner?” he asked.
“Let me change.”
He shook his head. “If I let you
go, you’ll collapse on the bed and miss another meal.”
She followed him into the house.
“It’s too hot.”
“It’s a far cry from
“It’s not like home either.” Where
was home? A chill made her tremble. Her vision blurred and she sank on a dining
room chair. Flies droned. The ceiling fan stirred the air.
My Places
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1 comment:
They've got a tough job there. Great details in this scene!
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