SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (54 page)

He called the nurse. “Please, tell Dr. Morno I have to see her as soon as she is finished with her patient.”

Ysabeau came within five minutes.

“What happened to this guy?” Luke pointed to the gap in data.

Ysabeau swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I assumed Mr. Johnson was busy. His granddaughter is getting married.”

“Did you call him?”

She pressed her teeth against her bottom lip. “He doesn’t have a phone.”

“If he’s dead, it’s a game over. More than twenty percent mortality rate is too high. He can’t just pull out either. You don’t have enough patients left to finish the trial.”

She exhaled. “Come on, let’s go find him.”

He shouldn’t go. The Guardians had a big rule: don’t fraternize with the patients. Then again, he had already blown the one—don’t get chummy with doctors—when he kissed Ysabeau.

He followed her out to the parking lot, stopping in his tracks when they reached her space. “Whoa. This is your car?’

In the spot marked “Dr. Morno” sat a Mini Cooper. Not the new, barely-large-enough-to-hold a man version, but the 1960’s go-cart style. Luke could almost pick up this gray vehicle with its white racing strip and turn it around with his bare hands.

“You don’t love my car?” Ysabeau asked.

What is it with people and their miniscule cars?
“Will I fit inside?”

“You did just fine the last time you were in it.”

He cocked his head at her. “Last time?”

“After the gang attacked you, I brought you home in this very car. Brigitte is her name. Now be nice, she is very sensitive.”

“Shit, I’d like to have seen how you squeezed me into Brigitte.”

“I did have some help from my godmother, Deolina,” Ysabeau said.

The mumbo-jumbo priestess was Ysabeau’s godmother? Somethings were making a little more sense, like why the old woman had been rude to him at the clinic and why she wanted him to go home now. “What did she do to me?”

A wave of worry rolled over her face. “Deolina
did
something to you?”

“Fold me like a pretzel? Jump up and down on me until I fit, what?”

Ysabeau laughed. “Nothing like that, no.”

He patted the roof of the car. “Brace yourself, Brigitte, I’m coming in. Ysabeau, please unfold me once we get there.”

She drove straight into the heart of the Port-au-Prince. It was a busy city, nothing like San Francisco, or any other American city Luke had been to. Hawkers on the street corners called loudly to potential customers, while smoke rose up from food stands. A peculiar odor of exhaust mixed with fried bananas wafted in through the car vents. Men and women, kids, dogs, goats, chickens, motor-bikes, and tap-taps moved by at a strangely different pace. Not slow, not fast.

When they stopped at a red light, two women walked by his window carrying man-sized sacks on their heads—one sack filled with sugar cane, the other charcoal. He could only guess how heavy those sacks must have been and yet the women moved along as if their bundles weighed no more than straw hats.

Ysabeau pressed on the gas and buildings zipped by outside the car window that were mostly white, or had been many years ago when someone had the wherewithal to paint them. Now the underbellies of ancient metal and rotting wood were showing through like unhealed wounds. What wasn’t white was brightly colored. Pinks, green-blues, purple hues splashed across the buildings, up the doorframes, and swirled across the grafittied walls.

He turned and studied Ysabeau’s profile. She chewed her lip.

He reached out and took her hand. “Are you okay?”

“Mr. Johnson is a kind old man. What if he died? Oh, Luke, I don’t know if I can bury another patient.”

Bringing her hand up to his lips, he placed a gentle kiss on her knuckle. “We’ll get through this. Together.”

After about ten minutes of driving, she parked in a crowded parking lot. “Mr. Johnson sells his paintings here. Hopefully, he’s selling today.”

“What is this place? A mosque?” Luke asked.

“A bazaar. It’s called the Iron Market.”

Vendors clogged up the sidewalks. What seemed like thousands of people yelled, bartered, and laughed. The noise level was sub-rock-concert high. They passed rows of stands loaded with fruit, vegetables, and several kinds of animals—living and butchered. Booths filled with carvings, leatherwork, straw hats, cigars, and jewelry were jammed altogether. Native handicrafts, good and downright awful, were sold side-by-side.

He stopped to investigate paintings hanging on a wire display. Big bold strokes of the brush had produced scenes of working Haitians adorned in bright clothes. Other paintings depicted brilliant country sides and rural towns. Some were pretty good and others were too cartoonlike for his tastes. “Interesting style.”

“It’s the typical Haitian style of painting called Naif,” Ysabeau shouted above the din of people. “I don’t see Mr. Johnson’s work yet. Let’s keep going.”

One painting stopped Luke in his tracks. In bright blues, oranges, greens, and purples the artist had painted a Voodoo scene. An old priestess stood with her arms outstretched toward a crowd of people. Some of the people in the painting danced while others knelt with their hands raised above their heads. A small group of people were sprawled across the floor, their bodies twisted in weird angles.

Dead?

“You found it! How did you know?” She pointed at the Voodoo painting. “This is one of his. Mr. Johnson must be here somewhere. Ah, over there. Come on.” She took his hand and led him toward a makeshift tent. Ducking under the colorful blanket-door, she pulled him inside with her.

It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the dim light and then Luke found himself staring at an old guy slumped over a chair. “Shit. Is he…?”

Ysabeau released Luke’s hand and stepped closer to the man. She lightly tapped him on the arm. “No. Sleeping.”

The man sat up and rubbed his eyes as if he was staring at an angel. “Dr. Morno?”

“Mr. Johnson,
komon ou ye?
”

The conversation was short and included Ysabeau ticking something off on her fingers and the old guy shaking his head. Luke noticed the tension on Ysabeau’s face and wondered what he was missing. He could count all the Kreyòl words he understood on two fingers.

Mr. Johnson rose and took Ysabeau’s hand. “
Mwen regret sa.
”

Holding his hand, she stared into the old man’s eyes. “No?”

He shook his head.

She sighed deeply, and then to Luke’s surprise, she quickly kissed Mr. Johnson’s weathered cheek and ducked back under the blanket.

Luke was left alone with Ysabeau’s patient, something he vowed never to do. It was too hard in his job to meet patients, to put faces with the numbers. Instead of beating feet out of the tent, he took the old man’s wrist and checked his pulse.

The old man’s gaze bore under his skin. “You’s a doctor?”

“No.” But he’d had enough training to know that the pulse was strong enough to keep the old dude in the trial for a while longer.

“I’d do many t’ings for Dr. Morno,” Mr. Johnson let loose a phlegmy cough and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Living is not gonna be one of dem.”

Luke found himself looking into the deep, wise eyes of a man with one foot in the grave. “Try.” He touched the old man’s shoulder, thin flesh stretched over brittle bone. “She needs you to live.” Softer he said, “We all do.”

The old man studied him in the dim light. “I can see dat. You is her patient too.”

“No. I’m trying to help.”

The old man snorted and showed his teeth. “No, you is sick too. I see in your eyes. Heart, gut, or soul, don’t matter none. Sick is sick.”

Why argue? The man had him dead to rights. “Are you coming back for testing?”

“Will it do any good?”

“Probably not. But if you don’t come back, Ysabeau, Dr. Morno, will have to shut the clinic today. She doesn’t have enough…” He kept himself from saying
survivors
. “…patients in the trial.”

The old man’s eyes widened. “She needs me?”

“Absolutely. The trial is over without you.”

The old man scratched at his chin. “Not a bad t’ing for a dyin’ man to be needed. Tell her I’ll come in tomorrow. Get dem needles ready to take what little blood I’s got left.”

Luke smiled. “Good man.”

“And you—” He peered deep into Luke’s eyes. “Keep tryin’ to help. Dr. Morno needs all de friends she can get. Dat girl is an angel.”

He didn’t need Mr. Johnson to tell him what he already knew. Luke nodded and followed Ysabeau into the bright sunlight.

She stood with her arms crossed, her expression fierce. “So that’s it? We can’t talk to the Guardians about this?”

“No need. Mr. Johnson is coming in tomorrow to have his vitals checked.”

She exhaled deeply. “How can that be? He told me he didn’t want to waste his last days getting poked and prodded at the clinic. What did you say to him?”

“I told him that you need him to come. That’s all.”

“Wow. Thank you, Luke.” She took him by the arm. “You bought me more time.”

“You still have five days.”

She lifted her shoulders back and looked him in the eye. “Five days. I only hope that—oh!”

A teenaged boy bumped into her elbow, nearly knocking her over. “
Eskize mwen.
”

“
Pa gen pwoblem,
” Ysabeau said to the teen.

“You okay?” Luke stopped and checked her out. “He wacked into you pretty hard.”

“I’m fine. He wasn’t watching where he was going.”

“He should be more careful. What’s was he chewing on, anyway? Looked like brown rubber.”

“Pig’s ears,” Ysabeau replied.

His jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No. Some people love them. It beats dirt cookies.”

He shook his head. “I’ve heard of mud pies, not dirt cookies.”

“My people are poor, Luke. Terribly poor. Sometimes all they have to eat is a baked wafer made out of dirt and a little salt. Dirt cookies fill stomachs when there is nothing else to eat. Of course, it also makes them ill because the dirt is toxic.”

“That’s unbelievable, Ysabeau.”

“It is, but look around you, Luke. Haitians may be poor, hungry, and sick, but we are not without hope. See?”

She was right. The men, women, and children walking the streets, selling their wares, buying goods, laughed, smiled, and even sang. They were full of life and exuberance. They dressed in vibrant colors. Their artwork, the Naif paintings, everything they created was bright and teeming with life. He saw brilliant and beautiful hope in the Iron Market.

“I do see.” He wouldn’t have without Ysabeau.

“Are you ready for lunch?” Ysabeau asked.

“Not pig’s ears, or dirt, I hope.”

She laughed. “No, I thought we would get pizza. I know this great place.”

‡

T
hey rounded the
corner and walked into a little café that was quite familiar to Luke. “Domino’s? I thought they only delivered.”

“You’ve eaten at a Domino’s before?” She looked shocked.

“No, I can’t say I have, but I have them deliver pizza every now and again. Especially on Super Bowl Sunday.”

“Oh.” Her voice was tinged with disappointed. “I hoped to take you to a special place.”

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Being here with you makes it special.”

She flushed. “Really?”

“Really. You are amazing, Ysabeau. I’ve never meant anyone like you.”

After Ysabeau gave the waiter their order, Luke broached a subject that had been weighing on his mind. “Do you have nightmares often?”

Her face fell. She stared at her empty plate. “I can’t. Talk about them.”

“I might be able to help.”

She looked up. “You did. Last night. I haven’t slept that long in—” She cut herself off as if she’d admitted too much already. “I don’t sleep well.”

“I’ve had those times, Ysabeau.”
Still do.
“You need to talk to someone. If not me, someone.”

The pizza arrived. As Luke scooped a slice onto her plate she asked, “Your wife’s cancer? Is that what caused your sleepless nights?”

He swallowed hard. Talking about what happened was shredding-internal-organs kind of painful. Most days he didn’t have the strength to relive it. He just couldn’t do it. But today…Ysabeau’s face was so full of kindness he thought maybe, just maybe, this was a day he could.

He screwed up his courage and said, “Soli died from Li-Fraumeni Syndrome.”

Ysabeau gasped. “Oh, Luke. I studied that syndrome at the University. It’s very rare.”

“Tell me what you learned. Maybe you can teach me something I don’t know,” he said.

“It’s bad.” She fingered the tiny golden angel on her necklace. “Li-Fraumeni Syndrome is a hereditary autosomal disorder caused by a mutation on the tumor suppressor gene. The Guardian gene, they call it. The person is at risk for—” Understanding spread across her face. She knew. “Cancer. Nearly every kind.”

“Thirteen years.” Emotion clogged in his throat. He took a sip of Coke to wash it away, as if it was that easy. “Thirteen long years Soli suffered with breast cancer, brain tumors, and leukemia. She didn’t stand a chance. But she fought. Hard.”