Over the Waters Read Online Free PDF Page B

coughing.
    Albert Reaux gently pushed Samantha's hands from the wheelchair and took a firm grasp on the handlebars. "I take him," he said in English. He pointed her down the corridor in the direction from which she'd come. "You take the letter. They tell you where the patient is when you are fini. "
    "Thank you. Thank you so much." Samantha leaned down and put a hand on Joshua's arm. "I'll find you as soon as I get the admission forms filled out, okay?"
    He merely nodded, looking miserable and disoriented.
    "Please hurry," she whispered to the orderly.
    "No problem." The man gave her a reassuring nod. "Everything be oh-kay."
    Twenty minutes later, after the woman in admissions had located Madame Duval's nurse friend, Samantha made her way to the main nurses' station. They told her where she could find Kala and she hurried off down the corridor, searching ward numbers as she went. It was a small, private hospital, with only about fifty beds. She found Kala in a ward with several other young patients. She appeared to be sleeping, but she was restrained with ropes in the high crib-like bed. Samantha had been in enough Haitian hospitals that the sight of a child tied with ropes to a railed bed no longer shocked her.
    She walked over to the bed and reached out to push a dark curl off the little girl's damp forehead. Kala's breathing was shallow but even, and an IV dripped life-giving fluids into her body. Samantha thought her color looked better already. She waited for the lone nurse in the room to finish replacing an IV bag that hung over another crib. When the nurse finally looked her way, Samantha asked in Creole, "How is she doing?" She repeated her question in English, hoping the woman was fluent.
    "She is very weak," the young nurse replied in halting English. "It is good you brought her to hopital. She would surely have died."
    Samantha reeled back on her heels at the nurse's blunt assessment. "But...She'll be okay now?"
    "She is much better already. As you can see. She is blessed by God."
    "Yes. She is. Thank you," Samantha murmured. "I'll come back to check on her later tonight."
    She stepped into the hallway and after a couple of wrong turns, stopped a nurse who was hurrying by. "Hello. Please...I'm looking for Dr. Joshua Jordan."
    "I'm sorry. There is no doctor here by that name. You must have the wrong hospi--"
    "No, no...You don't understand. Dr. Jordan was admitted here. Just a few minutes ago. He's a patient."
    The nurse smiled at the misunderstanding. "Oh, the American? I believe he has already been moved to a ward. You should ask at the front desk."
    Samantha sighed and backtracked down the hall. She found Joshua in a dreary room across from the nurses' station. Two other men in the beds on the opposite side of the ward appeared to be sleeping. A third man looked out the window, which faced an unpainted cinder block wall.
    An IV dripped over Josh's head. She tiptoed to his bedside and watched him. She wished his face reflected the dramatic improvement Kala's had. Instead, in spite of the hours he'd spent in the Haitian sun, his skin had a pallid, almost grayish cast, and his lips and fingertips were bluish, showing signs of cyanosis.
    She brushed a hand over his arm, and felt for his pulse to reassure herself, before going out to the nurses' station.
    "Has a doctor seen the patient in 108 yet?"
    The nurse looked up from her paperwork. "Are you a relative?"
    "I brought him to the hospital. We work with Marie Duval at the Duval Children's Home in Brizjanti. Has he been seen by a doctor yet?"
    "The staff is very short, Miss. Our doctors see many patients each day."
    From the corner of her vision, she saw something dart across the hall. She whirled around in time to see a scrawny tiger-striped cat race through an open door, trailing a length of heavy twine behind him. Madame Duval had told her once that some hospitals used cats as "exterminators," but she was shocked to see the creature running loose through the