Читать книгу To Save This Child - Darlene Graham - Страница 8

Three months earlier in the tenth-floor Oklahoma City offices of Dr. Jason Bridges. 7:06 a.m.

“I SEE YOU’VE GONE and pulled yourself another all nighter.” Kathy Martinez stated the words calmly, as if all-nighters were a boring fact of life with her boss, which they were.

“Now, now, Mother Martinez. Stop scowling. I feel great.”

But Kathy Martinez only frowned harder. “Well, Doctor, you don’t look great.” She patted her own kinky dark coif as she studied the young physician who had enticed her with a generous salary three years ago. Jason Bridges was a cutie-pie, all right. Mmm hmm. But this young man could sure use some neatness lessons. Jason Bridges ran around this hospital looking more like a rebel in a Gap ad than a gifted surgeon. Mussed dark hair, an overnight growth of beard, faded jeans, loafers with no socks, a leather jacket opened wide over a wrinkled gray T-shirt that looked like he’d slept in it. “If you ask me, you don’t even look like a doctor.”

“I didn’t ask you.” He reached for the clipboard with the day’s schedule.

The faded T-shirt stretched too tightly over a chest sculpted by weight training. But Dr. Bridges didn’t spend all that time in the gym so he’d look good. Although he most certainly did look good.

Dr. Bridges built his body up so he could use it like a machine. Or rather, abuse it like a machine. Everything this young doctor did focused on one thing and one thing only—performing surgery. Performing countless surgeries, in fact. Dr. Bridges worked like a man possessed, as if his were the only hands that could undo the damage, the defects, the heartache that fate had dealt his patients.

And in certain respects, it could be argued that his were the only such hands. Because Dr. Bridges frequently, and successfully, attempted risky surgical techniques that other surgeons in his field were too intimidated, too terrified, to even try. Her boss, Kathy always said, was gifted. His hands, especially, were gifted. The most gifted of the gifted.

Others were not so admiring. Kathy had heard the stories. Nurses he’d had affairs with had labeled Dr. Bridges “The Wolf.” The image fit. His eyes, deep-set and icy blue, often squinted or flicked sideways with a sort of wariness, a watchfulness, that bordered on predatory. He seemed to be consumed by some sort of insatiable hunger, though he hid his drive behind a smoke screen of endless jokes. But when Kathy had seen him angry, which was not often and only in response to some idiot’s incompetence, Jason Bridges could be genuinely scary.

Kathy Martinez tugged the lapels of her starched snow-white lab coat over her broad bosom. With a renegade doctor like this one, somebody had to maintain standards. “No, sir. You don’t look like a doctor at all,” she sniffed. “In fact, I’d say you look like the devil himself.”

He looked up from the clipboard, and his bloodshot blue eyes flashed mischievously before they narrowed. He twisted his face into a mock diabolical expression, arched his dark brows and flared his nostrils. “You found me out, Mother Martinez.” He rubbed his stubbled jaw and leaned toward her. “I am…the devil himself. Mwah-ha-ha-ha.” He punctuated the fiendish laugh with a little pinch at her stout waist.

“Stop that.” Kathy slapped his hand. She pursed her chubby carmine lips, refusing to smile.

“You know what I mean.” Over her half glasses she skewered him with her black eyes. “You don’t get enough sleep and then you come in here looking like something the cat dragged in. It’s just plain shameful.”

“Ah, now.” Jason faked a pout. “Would you forgive me if I told you I had an emergency?”

“What was it this time?”

He sobered, shrugged. “Teenage girl who tried to exit her car via the windshield. Let’s just say her face looks considerably better now than it did at two o’clock this morning.”

Kathy gave a brisk nod of approval, then returned to her agenda. Middle-of-the-night surgeries notwithstanding, other doctors managed to shave. “You gonna get cleaned up before you make rounds?”

Dr. Bridges released a long, lionesque yawn. “Already made rounds, sweetie. And I’m sorry to report that the sticky buns on the ninth floor are done gone.”

Kathy planted her fists on her double-wide hips. “I didn’t say I wanted any dang sticky buns.” With a huff she stepped behind the desk and proceeded to rearrange the stack of charts that the staff had pulled the evening before. Only yesterday, she had embarked upon a strict diet. The latest in a long line of strict diets calculated to return her figure—in thirty days or less—to its prepudge state, before she’d added five pounds with each of her five pregnancies. Okay, ten pounds.

“Ah. You’ve found another foolproof diet?” Dr. Bridges’s grin was wicked. He was the devil, all right.

“Absolutely.” Kathy squared her shoulders.

“I’ve told you before, Mother Martinez. If you’d stop messing with your appetite, your body would eventually find its perfect shape.” He pulled a PalmPilot out of his hip pocket and started punching at it.

For a surgeon who spent his days repairing faces, Jason Bridges had some pretty laid-back notions about bodies. He always acted like Kathy wasn’t really all that fat. But she was F-A-T, fat. And she suspected it was her weight that had gotten her into a teensy bit of trouble. Well, they’d discuss her medical problems in a minute. Patients first.

“I wish it were that simple.” Kathy finished putting the charts in the proper order. The staff had to do everything possible to keep their gifted young surgeon on track. “What with the nurses and their sticky buns and the drug reps hauling in trays of food every week. Everybody’s always celebrating something around here. Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, and sure enough, a basket of cookies has already arrived.” She flipped a dismissing hand at the end of the counter, where a gigantic red basket, lined with pink foil wrap, overflowed with gift pens, notepads, and heart-shaped cookies.

Dr. Bridges turned his head toward the gaudy basket. “Good Lord! Who sent that thing?”

“That drug rep from Merrill Jackson.” Kathy watched Dr. Bridges saunter over and pluck out the card protruding from the basket. He read it, sniffed at the paper, raised his eyebrows with interest, then slipped the note in the pocket of his leather jacket.

Kathy rolled her eyes. She would bet her last sticky bun that that young woman, just like every other eligible female around this hospital, was after a whole lot more than the doctor’s pharmaceutical business. Heart-shaped cookies. Phooey.

“Those drug reps are after you like ducks on a June bug. Another one was supposed to bring breakfast tomorrow, but she canceled.”

“Doubt I could have made it anyway. I’ve got that periorbital reconstruction at dark-thirty and then a bilateral resection of parotids.” Dr. Bridges returned his attention to his PalmPilot. “But you nurses can have a treat now and then without obsessing about your weight.”

“Easy for you to say. You aren’t a fat black woman.”

“And neither are you, Mother Martinez. What you are is the most efficient and kind nurse I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. And you are absolutely gorgeous.”

Kathy rolled her eyes at him. This is why he was such a lady-killer. “You can just stop that old sweet talk.”

“You know you look fine.”

She swatted the compliment away. “I wish I could say the same about you, Doctor. You need a shower.”

He finished with the PalmPilot, scratched his chin again and checked his watch. “It’ll have to be a quickie in the doc’s lounge. I’ve got to be in surgery by seven-thirty.”

He probably hadn’t caught a wink of sleep since he’d rolled out of bed, jumped in that silly little sports car of his and raced to the hospital in the middle of the night. Kathy frowned at his unshaven face. And he’d probably come back to the office after surgery looking just as scruffy. She had very particular ideas about how surgeons ought to comport themselves, and those ideas didn’t include running around looking like a wild man.

He narrowed his gaze at her. “I can either rebuild people’s faces or keep myself all purty. Take your pick.” He gave her an engaging grin as he thrust out the other hand in a gimme gesture. “Are you gonna let me see those charts before I head back down to the O.R.?”

Kathy handed him the charts. “There’s a bunch.”

“Excellent. Now maybe we can pay the light bill.”

She eyed Dr. Bridges’s backside as he sauntered down the hallway, already absorbed in the day’s cases as he walked. Pay the light bill. Because he worked like one possessed, the man was making money hand over fist. But money wasn’t his motivation.

Kathy Martinez was one of the few people who knew the truth about The Wolf. Before he’d even arrived at Integris, her sister from Texas had told her all about the new doctor, about his sad history down in Dallas. It had been on TV, her sister said, had made all the papers, back when it happened.

“Oh.” The doctor stopped and tossed a killer smile over his broad shoulder. “Could you please get me a cup of coffee?”

When she scowled at him, he said, “Pretty please, Mother Martinez?” and blew her a kiss.

The Mother Martinez bit didn’t bother her. She was a mother, the uber-mother, and he gave everybody nicknames. But beneath the teasing, Jason Bridges exhibited more respect for and far more trust in his staff than any other doctor she’d ever worked for. And even if Kathy was old enough to be his mother, that didn’t stop her and every other female in Dr. Bridges’s orbit from appreciating his astonishing male beauty. It was sad, really, and a major waste that such a handsome specimen of a male remained so stubbornly alone.

What that young man needed was a good wife.

But Kathy suspected that the same thing that made him so driven kept him alone, too. That his past, in fact, was the cause of his loneliness.

She went into the break room and filled a foam cup with the coffee she’d put on to drip when she arrived at seven o’clock. While she stirred in the right amount of sugar, she heard some of the other staff calling out as they came in the back door. She looked at her watch. Seven-fourteen. They were getting a jump start on the day. Well, who could blame them? The week before the doctor left for Mexico was always a crazy one.

“Is Dr. Bridges here?” his scrub nurse Ruth asked as she swept into the break room.

“Back in his lair, getting ready to rev up on coffee.” Kathy held the cup aloft. “Pulled an all-nighter. No rest for the wicked today.” She headed down the hall. She hated to tell the doctor her bad news right before he went into a difficult surgery, but the sooner, the better.

She opened the door to his office. He was standing behind his desk, threading his long arms into a stiffly pressed lab coat with his name stitched above the pocket. A grudging concession to her standards, she supposed. But the crisp white garment only accentuated his bronzed skin and made his looks seem all the more rugged by contrast.

“Now do I look doctorly enough?” he taunted.

“No. Is this car accident case going to interfere with the trip to Mexico?” She handed him the coffee.

He took a sip before answering. “Hope not. I think Mike can cover for me.”

He sipped the coffee again with a concerned frown. “My main worry is the kid’s maxilla. Both sides were affected, and there was a lot of swelling before I got to her. I couldn’t really tell what she was supposed to look like. May end up with a redo. I’ll decide once I see her ‘before’ pictures. The mother’s bringing them this morning.”

Kathy nodded and stepped to the window where the morning sun was winking up over the matching Doctors’ Tower to the east. She closed her eyes against the brilliance. Their work could be so heartbreaking, but they seldom allowed themselves the luxury of dwelling on their patients’ grief. Bridges kept his team on an even keel with his own resolve, with his cool decision-making style, with his constant jokes. But it proved a delicate balancing act. Because the more his reputation spread, the more challenging the cases he attracted. His skills just kept growing, and he kept pushing the envelope while the staff scrambled to keep up. He decided what had to be done and then they all did it. They went to the wall for their patients, nothing held back, nothing spared in the fight against their enemies—disfigurement, deformity, pain.

When he had relocated to Oklahoma City three years ago, Jason Bridges had assembled an experienced, top-notch staff. He paid them well and expected them to give their jobs their utmost, just as he did. Every day they threw themselves into the fray, warriors in a never-ending battle.

But no one seemed to mind the long hours and the exhausting work. None of them had ever been involved in a practice this exciting, this dedicated. Dr. Bridges was truly a young miracle-worker, an amazing leader. He had already treated patients from a four-state area. Their work made them all fiercely proud.

And then there was this yearly mission to Mexico. The ultimate payoff—three weeks working down in the remote state of Chiapas. They had started out with the Doctors Without Borders organization, but now Jason had turned renegade, flying his own plane in, circumventing customs.

Oh, yes. Working for Dr. Jason Bridges was exciting, to say the least.

Mexico had become their ultimate proving ground, their yearly high. Every spring Jason Bridges closed his office for three weeks and headed south to continue his humanitarian work. He was welcomed with open arms by the indigenous people in the isolated mountains and jungles.

The back-to-back surgeries in the horrible conditions—dust, heat, mosquitoes, flies—always seemed to go on without end, but when their three weeks were up, nobody ever seemed to want to leave. They’d all become as hooked on the experience as the doctor himself. Every year Bridges took along his scrub nurse, Ruth Nichols. Every year he took Kathy. The rest of his staff rotated, but Kathy and Ruth were indispensable, Kathy because she was the only one in the office who spoke Mexican Spanish fluently. She’d learned it from her husband, a gentle Hispanic from south Texas.

Damn. She was going to hate missing out on the Mexico excursion this year. She so hated to tell Dr. Bridges the bad news.

He had seated himself at his desk, sipping coffee and pouring over the charts with a concentration that seemed totally undimmed by sleep deprivation. He wasn’t a wolf. He was a superhero, that’s what Kathy thought.

“Doc, I need to tell you something.” She turned from the window to face him.

He glanced up, caught her expression. “Hey. You okay?”

She sighed. “Not really.”

“Martinez?” His deep voice became quiet with concern. “What’s going on?” He stood and rounded the desk, propped his rear on it and folded his arms over his broad chest. His blue eyes fixed on her with the kind of sympathetic attention he usually reserved for his patients.

She crossed to one of the chairs facing the desk and lowered herself into it. “I’m afraid you’ll have to find a new interpreter for the Mexico trip.”

“Really? Why?” His face was intent, serious. All hints of the teasing Dr. Bridges was gone. She had to hand it too him. The man had infallible instincts.

“I’ve got to have surgery. Doc Marshall said the sooner the better.”

“Marshall? It’s a G.I. thing?”

“Gallbladder.” Kathy felt her face heat up. Fat, fifty and flatulent, that’s what she was. “He’ll do a laparoscopy, of course. No big deal. But I thought I’d better get it over with while the office is going to be shut down for three weeks. I’m sorry. I really hate to leave you without an interpreter. And on such short notice.”

“Don’t sweat it.” His gentle, compassionate tone made Kathy feel all the worse for letting him down. She wished he’d say something smart-alecky now.

But instead he crossed to her chair and squeezed her shoulder with his large, warm palm. “Your health comes first. I’ll find another interpreter. No problem.”

But it was going to be a big problem, Kathy knew. Jason Bridges understood Spanish, of course, but the Mayan cadences of the dialect spoken in the Chiapas region were tricky. Especially when the patient was a frightened peasant or when Jason started firing off fast and furious instructions to the local help. An interpreter who could put the patients at ease was critical. Finding somebody with the right combination of medical knowledge and compassion was going to be really tough. And finding somebody willing to endure the physical discomfort of the region, the daily rigors of Jason’s mission, was going to be an even bigger problem. An enormous problem. But problems didn’t stop Jason Bridges. He plowed through them like a machete through jungle growth.

Jason didn’t want to make Kathy feel any worse than she already did, but she knew he was thinking, Where? Where on earth would they find someone who could drop everything to hop on his private plane to Mexico in only one week?

“I’m sure I can find someone,” he repeated.

“I know I shouldn’t even ask,” Kathy glanced up at him, wincing. “But I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d postpone this trip? I’ll be good as new in a couple of months.”

Jason stepped around his desk to a giant topographical map of Mexico that was anchored to the wall. Just looking at the thing made him wonder what fresh atrocities Benicio Vajaras had inflicted on the people in the Tzeltal villages around San Cristóbal.

“Right here—” he tapped the area at the bottom where Mexico funneled into Central America “—we have good old Jose and his family. And their baby girl, Chiquita.”

Kathy rolled her eyes.

“Chiquita’s a sweet-tempered child,” he went on, “even if she is named after a banana. Smart, healthy in every respect. Except, of course, for that harelip splitting her face in half.”

Kathy frowned. He knew she was seeing the parade of such children they’d treated in the past three years. And others, too. Older children who had been maimed by the faceless monster named Vajaras. Parents who had been wounded in armed combat. Sometimes Jason felt like a surgeon patching up a tide of wounded on a battlefield. Only he fought this war year in, year out. Because his enemies were not only endless disease and poverty, but the cruelty and inhumanity of a ruthless overlord.

“So—” Jason focused his gaze on the map “—at this late date, Jose and Rosita have already loaded up the rental donkey and are making the arduous trip—” he ran his finger over the mountainous region on the map in a slow, twisting path north “—in the hope of getting a miracle for their baby.” He flashed a wicked smile at Kathy. “Cancel? Don’t think so.”

“Then the least I can do is help you find my replacement. I want you to know—” she glanced over at him again, this time with apology in her eyes “—that I only found out about this on Friday.”

“Maybe I can locate an interpreter in the region,” he offered. The Miami-style hotels facing the turquoise ocean in Cancún were crawling with bright young bilingual Mexicans looking for ways to improve their economic status. But even crossing the border without a Spanish-speaking cohort could be very risky, especially when you were trafficking medical supplies and drugs and sharp instruments past Mexican customs.

“Even if you can hire some bright kid to travel across the peninsula to the Chiapas clinic, if he or she doesn’t have a medical background…” Kathy left the rest unsaid—that such a person couldn’t adequately explain the strange and frightening procedures to the patients. She stood, facing her boss. “I really am sorry.”

“It can’t be helped.” Jason walked around the desk and gave her shoulder another reassuring pat. “Now get your behind back out to salt mines.” He winked at her.

“Watch it. I’ll turn you in for harassment.” Kathy quipped as she walked to the door. She paused with her hand on the knob. “I hate leaving you with this snafu.”

“Go drown your guilt with a cookie, Martinez.” He flapped a dismissing palm at her.

“Hold it. I do know someone who speaks fluent Spanish, who might even understand the Chiapas dialects. What was that drug rep’s name? The one who brought the cookies?”

“Kendal Collins?” He’d seen the woman around the hospital. Something about Kendal Collins had definitely snagged his interest.

“Yeah.” Seeming excited, Kathy hurried back to his desk. “Could I see that card you stuck in your pocket?”

He swiveled the desk chair to his coatrack and dug in the vest pocket of the leather jacket. “Kendal Collins speaks Spanish?”

Kathy took the card. “Yeah. Can I keep this until tomorrow? I might be too swamped to call her until this evening.”

“You’re going to ask this little drug rep to go to Mexico?”

“No. I’m offering her the open brunch slot. She’s on your waiting list. You’ll at least need to make an appearance. Maybe if we do her a favor, she’ll do us one.”

He nodded. The drug reps lined up to get his ear. There was never enough time to listen to everybody, never enough time for anything, which was why he wanted Martinez to cut the blather and split.

“It’s worth a shot. Now beat it, Martinez.”

Kathy closed the door with a quiet click and a smile.

Jason finished the charts, then sank back in his desk chair with a worried frown. He wondered how long Kathy’s gallbladder had been acting up. She never missed a day of work. Sometimes he felt guilty for pushing his staff too hard.

But he didn’t push anyone any harder than he pushed himself. It seemed the only thing that gave him any peace was healing the scarred and hurting.

He closed his eyes. He had been too young, too dumb, to save Amy. The pain had dulled with the passage of time, of course, but on some level the tragedy haunted him every day. Every scarred face was Amy’s. Every broken nose, every collapsed eye socket, every deformed palette…every burn contracture. He cut and stitched and mended as if he were trying to repair the past. It was like a giant, lifelong undo. But what had happened to Amy could never be undone. No matter how hard he worked, it would never be enough.

He placed his open palm on the stack of charts before him. Still, he could save these. And the ones in Mexico. One case at a time. One life at a time.