Healing Tides

The capable nurse tut-tutted her frustration, picked up the phone and uttered some commands in a language Glory guessed to be Hawaiian.

“Sorry,” she apologized a few moments later. “Tomas should have replaced that router ages ago. If I don’t keep on him—”

“Don’t worry. No rush.”

“You must be on Hawaiian time now. Anything else I can help you with?”

“No. I’m going to see the kids for a while. The little ones.”

“Your heart’s with the babies, eh?” Leilani tut-tutted again. “Don’t miss afternoon tea. It always tastes like nectar after you’ve soothed the keiki.”

On Ward C, the tiniest children were fretful. GloryAnn thought perhaps it was the heat. She lifted a fractious toddler from a nurse’s overburdened arms. He felt too warm.

“Is the air-conditioning on?”

“Yes, Doctor. But we don’t want to turn it too high. Three of them have a fever.”

“Which three?” The culprits identified, Glory glanced around the room, made a decision. “Get some sheets, please.”

The nurses obeyed though their faces displayed their skepticism. Glory spread the sheets on the floor in a corner away from the vents. She pulled two screens in to further cut off direct airflow. Then she removed all but the diaper from the eldest.

“Dr. Steele does not allow the children to play on the floor,” the pediatric supervisor advised, her face disapproving.

“Are you questioning my treatment?” Glory asked softly.

They were loyal to Jared Steele and that was fine, but Glory had to make her own position clear now, before there was an emergency that would demand immediate obedience.

“No, Doctor.” Without another word the nurse undressed two other children and set them on the sheets. They immediately stopped crying and began to crawl.

With the help of a third nurse they used rattles and other toys as distractions to keep the children on the clean cloths.

“You see, he’s much more settled when he isn’t bundled up.” Chubby fingers curled around hers as the golden-haired toddler pulled upright and crowed with delight. “Come on, darling. Take your first step.”

GloryAnn played happily with the children for an hour, assessing their range of motion, the extent to which the burns impacted movement, and muscles they used as opposed to those they favored.

“It’s nap time, Doctor.”

She glanced up at the supervisor.

“Okay. I’ve seen what I need to.” Glory brushed her lips against a tiny head before handing her patient to the nurse. “Ask Dr. Steele to check his heel when next he comes in, would you, please?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Glory stayed long enough to watch the nurses tenderly dress their charges. They fed each one then tucked them in for a nap. In less than five minutes there was only the creak of a rocking chair to break the silence of the ward, and that was made by a young woman. She sat next to a crib that housed a baby in a plastic-covered cubicle. According to Dr. Steele’s notes, this seven-month-old girl had a poor prognosis for recovery.

GloryAnn paused beside the mother, whose eyes oozed unspeakable pain.

“We’ll keep praying for her,” Glory whispered. “She’s God’s daughter, too.”

The mother’s tremulous smile was better payment than a thousand thanks.

“A moment, Dr. Cranbrook.”

Glory startled at the command. She straightened, preceded Dr. Steele from the ward.

“Oh, you’re back,” she blurted without thinking. “How was Honolulu?”

If anything, his face grew even grimmer.

“I was not in Honolulu,” he snapped.

“Oh, sorry. I thought—” His gray face looked so forbidding Glory let the comment die. “Is there something special you need to speak to me about?”

“Babies.” His austere face frosted in the glare of the overhead lights. “On the floor.”

“It’s not the usual practice, I admit, but it did get results.” She inclined her head toward the glass wall separating them from the nursery. “They’ve gone to sleep nicely.”

“Placing them on the floor is totally unsuitable, Dr. Cranbrook.”

“Unsuitable? Because it doesn’t benefit the child, in your opinion, or because it wasn’t your idea?” She was sick of playing power games.

He drew himself to his full height, a muscle in his jaw flickered. Glory grasped his arm to stop whatever words with which he intended to censure her.

“Look, I know you don’t like me. I’ve made too many changes, probably pushed too hard, too.” She dared not stop. “But my method did work, the sheets had been sterilized and the kids are now comfortable.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, said nothing.

“I’m just as concerned as you that they heal.” Fully aware that she was giving away her nervousness by talking so fast, Glory pressed on. “To that end, I’d like to know where I could go to get a pool.”

“A—what?”

His frown would have cowed most people. But Glory couldn’t stop. She had to make him understand that she wouldn’t run away or give up simply because he was in a bad humor. She was here to do her job and she would do it no matter what.

“A pool. Where do I get one?”

“Are you mad?”

“Sometimes. But at the moment I’m perfectly serious.”

“We are a mission funded entirely by Elizabeth Wisdom’s foundation. We don’t have the kind of cash it would take to put in a pool, but even if we—”

“Not that kind of pool.” She choked off a nervous giggle. “I’m talking about a child’s pool, the round plastic variety that we can fill with a couple of pails of water and let them splash in. The range of motion on the two babies with shoulder burns has lessened. The boy with the wound on the thigh favors his leg and the muscle tone shows it.”

She thought his face relaxed a millimeter.

“You think that by splashing around in the water, they’ll forget the pain, or at least shove it to the back of their minds?” Jared nodded thoughtfully. “It could work.”

“I’d suggest the ocean but the salt would only aggravate the new skin.”