Healing Tides

“I’m chief of staff, Dr. Cranbrook. These children are my responsibility and I don’t want anyone trying some crazy idea that’s going to interfere with our procedures. The patients need every ounce of strength to get through their treatments.”

He turned to leave. Her hand on his arm stopped him.

“Toys? Hardly a crazy idea,” she chided, tongue in cheek.

“You know what I meant.”

“I do. And I assure you, Dr. Steele, I’m not going to hurt the children or do anything to stop their healing progress. I only want to give them something besides a few dishes of ice cream to look forward to after their therapies are done.”

So she’d noticed his attempt to soften the pain. Jared sprouted new appreciation for GloryAnn Cranbrook’s shrewdness.

“The pressure suits are agony to put on.” Her voice mirrored her sadness. “To face the knowledge that even though you take it off tonight, you’ll have to do it again tomorrow—that can prey on the mind and ruin any rest they might get.”

“But they’re necessary,” he blurted out.

“Of course they are. And they make a difference. You and I both know that.” Her eyes misted. “But six months, a year ahead—that’s a long time for a child to wait to see results. I spoke to some of the nurses. They told me how hard they have to coax some of the older ones to wear the masks.”

“Then you also know that the best way to keep their healing skin from drying out too quickly, and to keep out infection, is to wear Lucite masks almost twenty-four hours a day.” He was so weary of the reminder that with pain came healing.

Pain hadn’t helped him heal.

“They’re custom-made for each child to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Yes, I know.” Her chin lifted, her voice lowered. “You’re doing your best to give them a fighting chance, Dr. Steele. I realize that.”

“I—”

“All I’m asking is that you let me do the same. I’ve talked to the physiotherapists. We’ve come up with some ideas we think will help motivate them. Kids are used to running, screaming, jumping. To be silent and quiet all the time isn’t necessarily healthy.”

Hard to argue with truth. Jared had seen the brooding set in, watched as the will to keep going faded when the painful treatments never seemed to end.

“There will still be periods of silence,” she assured him. “No one’s rest will be disrupted, I promise. Maybe they’ll rest even better.”

Jared had always left this end to Diana. He was a surgeon, used to shutting out emotions, cutting and piecing without really thinking about the patient as a person. In fact, Jared didn’t understand kids most of the time. Hadn’t really wanted to until Nicholas.

Now whenever he lifted a scalpel, the child on the table became the son he had to save.

“Fine.” He agreed so he could get away, stop being reminded. “You can try it your way for a week. But if it doesn’t work or if someone becomes disruptive, we go back to the way it was.”

“Of course.”

A helicopter broke the silence of the afternoon.

“I hate that sound.” Jared strode back to the desk to see what new damage had been done in a world where God seemed to have fallen asleep.

Two weeks later, after lunch, Glory climbed up the pathway from the beach feeling both refreshed and at ease.

“I love this ocean.”

“Oh, me, too.” Leilani poured sand out of her upturned shoe, grimaced.

“I don’t understand how you can live in a place like this and not spend every spare moment beside the sea, if not in it.”

“Maybe if I had hair like yours that dried in a beautiful wave, I would, but all I end up with is a frizzy mess that won’t stay put no matter what.” Leilani unwound the scarf on her head to prove her point.

“Okay then.” GloryAnn tilted her head to one side, thinking. “Maybe you should stop having perms.”

“And wear what—mop strings? My hair sticks out in all directions. Dr. Steele would send me home.”

“Ha! You’re irreplaceable. Is he always so—” GloryAnn remembered who she was talking to and bit off the adverb.

“Cranky?” Leilani giggled at her arched brow. “Well, if the shoe fits.” Mirth was edged out by a sad smile. “Ever since his family died.”

“He had a family? I mean, I heard he’d been married once, but—” Glory gulped. “What happened to his wife?”

“She died. Was killed, actually.” Leilani sat down on a big rock, pulled out her water bottle and took a sip. “Both Diana and Nicholas—their son. He was three years old.”

“Oh, how horrible!” A gush of sympathy overtook Glory. She wondered how Jared could bear to stay.

“That’s not all.” Leilani shoved her sunglasses onto the top of her head. “They were murdered.”

At first Glory thought it was some kind of crude joke, but Leilani’s frown was deadly serious. “What happened?”

“I don’t know if you remember—a few years back there was an uprising by rebels in Russia. They took some hostages, did some damage. It took armed forces to quell it.”

“I recall something about that.”

“A school was bombed, and a little boy who was badly injured was flown here for treatment. His name was Sam.” Leilani’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I was here the day they brought him in with his father, Viktor. Sam’s mother had been a teacher at the school, his siblings were students there. An entire family was gone—except for Sam and his dad.”

A pang of loss for this man she’d never met rippled deep. Glory knew too well what it was like to lose loved ones.

“Diana, Dr. Steele’s wife, felt Sam should be taken elsewhere, that he was too damaged for the grafting procedure.”

“She was a doctor?”

“A pediatrician. Dr. Steele is the boss, but she was the oil that kept everything running smoothly.” Leilani smiled. “In fact, you’re doing her job.”

Glory almost groaned. That explained Jared’s attitude. She’d waltzed in and begun changing everything his dead wife had organized.

“Anyway, Diana wanted to transfer Sam somewhere else, but by then Dr. Steele had done the procedure many times with great success and felt he could help. He’d heard their story, you see, and it touched him. He understood Viktor was going through a father’s worst nightmare. Jared desperately wanted to give Viktor back his son.”

“So he did the procedure.” A sense of dread hung in the air.

“It went perfectly. Two days later, Sam died.”

“Oh, no.”

“It was horrible.” Leilani’s voice dropped. “Jared couldn’t understand it. There was no warning, no sign that the boy was in trouble. Even the autopsy couldn’t explain why, only that his little heart had stopped.”