Page 41 of The Calendar of New Beginnings
“Shut up,” he said without heat.
Scooting closer, she settled her head against his shoulder. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Me? Maybe, but you’re too tough,” he said, putting his arm around her.
“Probably,” she said, liking the comfort of his arm around her. “I wish you’d been closer after my accident. I might have called you. At night when I couldn’t sleep, all I wanted was someone to wrap me up and tell me everything was going to be all right.”
“I felt the same way when Kim was sick—and after she died.”
She had only been able to come home for the funeral, something she still felt guilty about. “No one can ever guarantee it’s going to be all right, can they? Look at me.”
He pulled her in even closer. “You’re right, but I would have come halfway around the world and more to be there for you.”
Tears gathered in her eyes as he kissed the top of her head, ever so sweetly.
“How was your first class, by the way? I got distracted. I was planning on buying you a celebratory drink.”
Since a change in conversation was more than appreciated,she ran him through the high points. He kept his arm around her as she regaled him with a description of her unconventional syllabus and the looks of horror it had painted on some of the kids’ faces. When he went still all of a sudden, she edged back to look at his face.
“Whatareyou thinking?” she asked.
“I always wondered how you learned to take photos of…starving kids and people who’d died or were dying,” he said softly.
She lifted her shoulder. “I wasn’t trained to do it. I was thrown into the fire on my first couple of assignments. I bawled after visiting a hospital filled with kids dying from famine and puked my guts out after photographing my first massacre. The camera might capture the moment, but it can’t capture the sounds or the smells. I’ll never forget the buzz of flies on the bodies. And the stench.” She gave a full-body shudder. “Do you ever have a physical reaction to a patient’s illness?”
“Not much anymore. There were moments in my first year in medical school. I especially remember a young man who was brought in with a head wound. Half his head was caved in. He’d been riding his motorcycle without a helmet. I’d never seen brain matter mixed with shards of bone before. I puked my lunch out once I left the ER.”
“What happened to the man?”
“You would ask,” he mused. “He didn’t make it. Too much brain trauma. He coded on the table.”
Somehow she hadn’t realized they were linked like this through their professions. He tried to heal hurt people while she took photos of them to raise awareness and support. And both of them dealt with a reality few people faced on a daily basis: that death was a part of life.
“It’s hard,” she said, “watching people die and notbeing able to do anything about it.” She tucked her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “I suppose you do something, but deep down, I don’t believe it’s only up to us. Don’t get me wrong, I always try to help whenever I can. I’ve raged at military officials for not letting humanitarian supplies through. I’ve hauled gallons of water to people in old gasoline barrels. But half the time it’s too late.”
“The body can live without food for a time, but not water,” Andy said in a serious tone, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’re right, though. Sometimes we’re helpless to save the people we’d like to help.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault Kim died. I know we’ve talked about it a little in our chats, but not in person. You were too raw for me to say it before.”
His shoulders rose to his ears from tension, and while the last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, she made herself continue.
“And it wouldn’t have been your fault if your mom had been diagnosed with cancer. And I know I’ve said this to you before, but if my right eye doesn’t recover, that won’t be your fault either. You’re just another actor in this big stage of life, Andy Hale.”
“You’ve gotten way more philosophical in your old age,” he mused, his dark eyes weary.
“I used to struggle against all the injustices I saw. I got pretty worked up. Like ulcer-in-my-stomach worked up. But I met a relief worker in Congo who helped me see things in a new way. His name was Davy, a quirky little British guy, and he’d been in some of the worst hotspots imaginable. Like Rwanda in April of 1994. He was one of the few doctors who didn’t evacuate the country when the genocide broke. He chose to stay and help anyone who managed to live through the attacks. You know there were hardly anyguns used, right? One million people were killed with machetes and knives. Right up front and personal.”
This time he was the one who shuddered. “God. I didn’t know that.”
“Anyway, Davy said we all have a part to play, and since there are often forces bigger than us at work, our only choice is how we play our part. He told me to play mine well. I’ve never forgotten him.”
“You met a lot of people like Davy, haven’t you?” Andy asked, leaning back on his elbow.
“Yes,” she said fondly. “They made everything worthwhile. I never knew when the next miracle would occur.” Or the next nightmare. But she had learned they were as inextricably linked as a Janus coin.
“You know, I always wondered if we’d grow apart,” Andy confessed. “The farther away you went, the more I worried. But it never happened. Not even when I married Kim.”
She’d wondered the same thing, especially with the very different paths they’d chosen. “No, it never happened. I hope it never will.”
