CONTINENTAL DRIFT

An Epic Overseas Carby Exploration

(Post-“Now What?” with spoilers through “The Lost”)

Chapter One: Chasing a Feather

Rating: PG-13 with cautioning for some violence and romantic situations.

Summary: A cinematic Carby tale set in their recent past, complete with moments
we wish we got to see.

Disclaimer: Of course, I claim no rights to the ER characters, though I reserve

rights to this story and dialogue. It’s all I can cling to—that and the hope that TPTB
fix things.

Author’s Note: I hope in some way this story helps survive the lack of Carby
romance on ER. First of nine chapters is below.

“I CAN’T KEEP doing this!”

Abby shouted it at Carter as he walked away. She meant it. Her arms were folded across her
chest to shield her from the crisp spring breeze and to protect her heart from the pounding it
was taking—again. She’d seen the back of his head as he walked away one too many times
over the past few weeks. For a moment, she thought he hesitated, but he continued on as if
her cries were meaningless. And it left her confused and angry and a little afraid.

She waited until he disappeared from view—and then some, still holding out hope that he
would have a change of heart. Busy rush-hour pedestrians struggled to get past her on the
way to the El train, and they jostled her as she stood on the sidewalk.

Resigned that he wouldn’t change his mind, Abby walked slowly back into the hospital and
ran into Susan.

“Hey there,” Susan said quietly.

But Abby’s head was caught in the whirlwind of the day. She walked passed Susan into what
was left of the lounge and sat down at the edge of the round table—the only spot in the
room that wasn’t covered with plastic or sawdust from remodeling. A piece of paper lay alone
on the table. She placed her index finger on it and absentmindedly twirled it around the
smooth surface, until she looked more closely and saw Carter’s handwriting. It was his flight
itinerary.

“7:40 pm: Air France Flight 293—O’Hare to Paris

(connects in Montreal, Glasgow). Arrive 6:30 pm local.
10:05 pm: Flight 1390—Paris to Kinshasa.
Local trans. to Kisangani”

Behind her Susan entered.

“Are you okay?”

Abby looked over her shoulder at her but was afraid to answer. She didn’t have to; her face
told the story.
“I was looking for Carter,” Susan said gingerly. “Kerry just got off the phone with somebody
from that ‘adventure doctor’ organization that Carter and Luka were working with. They said
they are dispatching a team to look for Luka.”

“Too late. Carter went to find him.”

“What?”

“I’m not kidding. He stuffed a bag with supplies and ran out of here.”

Abby choked a little on the last few words but cleared her throat to keep her composure.

“Did you try to stop him?”

“I ran after him like an idiot,” Abby confessed. “The more I chased him, the faster he ran
away—”

She stopped to try to contain the emotion she could hear in her own voice. She cleared her
throat and continued. “I begged him to stay . . . I don’t understand what’s going on with him
. . . or us. I don’t even know if there is an ‘us’ anymore.”

“I thought you went for coffee? Didn’t you talk?” Susan wondered.

“We ended up fighting, and I stormed off.”

“What happened?”

“He was telling me about Africa . . . the conditions . . . I know it affected him. But he never
talked about why he went and what was wrong and why he left so suddenly. I asked him
what he thought about me while he was away, and he couldn’t answer. Then we said stupid
things.”

“Well, it sounds like he’s been through something pretty devastating. Maybe you needed to
be more patient.”

Abby hated to admit it, but Susan was right.

“I know, I just . . . all I could think about were these last three weeks, wondering if he was
dead or alive or coming back or if he—”

Abby was glad to talk to Susan, but she could never get used to confiding her deepest
thoughts to anyone. What she was really wondering was if he ever really cared about her.

Susan tried to console her. “I’m sure he understood. This is all just bad timing.”

“We said awful things . . . I told him I don’t know why he bothered to come back, and he told
me walking away is what I do best, and then I told him he had big problems. Next thing I
knew, Chuny ran out with the news about Luka. He’s taking it hard, harder than I am—and I
dated the guy for a year,” she said, choking back grief over Luka and pain over Carter.

“He seems ‘off,’ Abby. He hasn’t been right since his grandmother died. Maybe before.”

“No, something’s different. He’s different. I don’t know why I ever got involved.”

Susan rested her hand on Abby’s shoulder.

“Abby, he can’t go to the Congo, it’s too dangerous. You can’t let him go.”
“What can I do?”

Susan looked at her, and Abby could see what she was thinking.

“No, I can’t.”

“Abby, you can head him off in Paris,” Susan said, looking over Abby’s shoulder at the paper
on the table.

“Susan I can’t get on a plane—”

“Do you have a passport?”

“Yes, somewhere—I haven’t used it since Richard’s sister got married in London. But I can’t
go.”

Abby spun the paper around some more, and her voice grew quieter.

“He doesn’t want me around right now. I can feel it,” Abby said. “And I’m not sure I want to
see him either.”

“Things just got off to a bad start this morning. He’s probably forgotten about it by now.”

“And if he hasn’t? I just can’t jump on a plane and track him down. I just can’t. It’s . . .
crazy.”

“You would if it were your mother or brother—and you have many times.”

“That’s because they were sick or in trouble.”

Susan sat down across from her and touched the back of Abby’s hand with her fingertips:
“Abby, I saw Carter today. He’s in trouble.”

Susan was worried. Abby looked at the itinerary on the table, looked at Susan, and back at
the itinerary again. She grabbed it, flew out her chair and shouted, “I must be out of my
mind!” as she headed toward the door.

“Good luck,” Susan yelled after her. “Call me!” she added, but Abby was already out the
door.

ABBY TOOK THE el to her apartment, nervously tapping her foot the whole way. Once home,
she quickly packed an overnight bag with some toiletries, a change of clothes, and extra
underwear. She found her passport and grabbed all her credit cards, hoping that one of them
would have a credit limit large enough for the last-minute ticket to Paris. She closed the light
and opened her front door, and just before she ventured out into the bright hall, she ran
back in and opened the drawer where she kept her underwear. This time, she pulled from
the bottom, where she kept her “less-respectable” ones. The ones she saved only for special
times with him.

She grabbed a bra colored a pastel shade of lavender with demi cups and a tiny white satin
butterfly that rested between them. There were matching panties with the same satin
butterflies where they fell on her hips. She tucked them in her bag and hurried downstairs
hoping to flag down a roaming taxi to take her to the airport. In the cab, she remembered
the last time she wore them.

CARTER HAD WAITED for her outside the hospital after her shift and startled her as she was
on her way to meet her AA sponsor. He had a strange look on his face when he said, “You
know, right?” and made her confess that she was indeed aware that he had an engagement
ring four nights before when they dined among a sea of empty tables at the beautiful
downtown restaurant he bought out to ensure their privacy. He confessed to her that he
didn’t go through with it because “it didn’t feel right” and that “something wasn’t working.”
He accused her of a “quick fix” by trying a nicotine patch to quit smoking and scheduling this
meeting with her AA sponsor. She tried to let him off the hook. She said if he was sick of
her, she wouldn’t blame him. But that made him angry—angrier than she’d ever seen him—
and he stormed off to his Jeep Wrangler. His fury confused her, but moments later he pulled
up behind her. He stepped out of the vehicle, and they approached each other gingerly. And
in a rare moment, she surrendered herself to him. He brought her close and rested his head
on hers and held her tight.

He broke away and looked in her eyes, brushing strands of her long blond hair away from
her face with his fingertips.

“You’d better go if she’s waiting,” he said.

“Come by later . . . okay?” she asked tentatively.

He touched her face. “Okay”

He seemed sad, and it scared her.

She sat in a booth at a local coffee shop three blocks from County and a million miles away
from her AA sponsor—a lovely chatty woman about five years her senior. They ordered
sandwiches and shared a basket of fries, but Abby could not focus and made excuses to get
home quickly. She offered to pay for the entire meal for getting her sponsor out for nothing.
Having mentored Abby for almost 7 years, the woman knew better.

“Abby, if something’s wrong, you can tell me,” she offered.

But closed off as Abby was, she didn’t mention her relationship with Carter. Instead, Abby
said she was tired from her rough shift and suggested that her fourth day without a cigarette
was making her fidgety.

Abby arrived back at her apartment at 8:30. She quickly showered, put on her lavender
underwear and covered them with a soft gray blouse and black pants. And then she
waited . . . and waited. At 10:05 she called his apartment. He wasn’t there, but she spoke to
his machine with a lump in her throat, though she forced a casual tone: “Hi, it’s me. I
thought you were going to come by tonight . . . I guess you changed your mind . . . You’re
probably tired . . . Well, okay, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”

At 11:10, she took off her blouse and pants and tossed a thin satin robe over her lavender
butterfly underwear. She lay on her bed with the phone next to her and fell asleep.

When Carter arrived close to midnight Abby was still asleep, her robe open just enough to
reveal the pretty lavender underwear. He watched her for several minutes. He loved her like
this, when he could imagine her to be anything.

He left his coat on the couch and kicked off his shoes, he pulled off his sweater and the shirt
underneath and moved over to the bed and climbed on slowly. His weight on the mattress
jostled her, and she woke up. Before she could speak, he cupped her face in his hands and
stared at her for a long moment. She didn’t quite understand the look on his face. His
thumbs swept her cheeks gently, and he kissed her.

“I’m not sick of you. How can you think that?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she said.

“I don’t know either.”

She lay back on her pillow, her robe spilling open, and he rested on his side propped up on
one arm. With his free hand, he played absentmindedly with the tiny satin butterfly that
rested between her breasts.

“Where have you been? I called your apartment.”

“Downstairs in front of your building—in my car.”

“All this time?”

“Couple of hours.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong.”

They were quiet for while, until she said softly, “I understand if you want someone else . . .
someone different.”

“I don’t want anyone else!” He almost shouted the words but softened his tone when he saw
he startled her. “Understand that, okay? I just want you to—”

He paused and looked away from her.

“To what?” she asked nervously.

“Nothing.”

He moved closer and leaned over her and looked down into her eyes searching for
something. She looked up at him, trying hard to connect, desperate to understand his mood.

Then he lowered his head and touched his lips to the base of her throat and felt her pulse
quicken, and then kissed the valley just above the butterfly. She closed her eyes and
wrapped her arms around him, happy to end the discussion that had begun to frighten her.
He slipped the thin satin robe off her arms, and they made love.

It would be the last time.

They blamed it on their schedules. Sure they’d grab a quick meal here or there and they’d
talk on the telephone. But they were mostly working opposite shifts and never seemed to
connect. However, that morning when Carter’s grandmother died and her brother Eric turned
up, the distance between them grew obvious—if not to her, then to him.

WHY SHE BROUGHT along the lavender butterfly undergarments she didn’t know. However,
she knew that seeing them on her body excited him. Why she cared was a mystery to her.
She was angry with him—but then again, she missed him already.

At Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Abby purchased a coach seat to Paris and hurried
to board the plane. By her calculation, she was only an hour or two behind Carter. And since
he had a three- to four-hour layover before his flight to Kinshasa, she was confident she
would find him in time to . . . well, she didn’t know exactly. All she knew was she needed to
see him before he got on that plane to the Congo.

Stuck in the middle seat as her penalty for last-minute travel, Abby leaned her head back
and tried to get some sleep. Luckily, she was tired, since Carter woke her at 5:30 in the
morning when he returned from Kisangani. She couldn’t fall back to sleep after he left her
apartment so abruptly—at her request really. As she napped, she remembered the look on
his face when she asked for her key back. Pain and frustration was visible even through the
bluish smoke from her cigarette that curled in the air between them.

Abby couldn’t remember getting off the plane, but suddenly she was in the waiting room of
the airport. The air seemed filled with smoke, which she thought was odd and assumed
Parisians to be more tolerant of nicotine and tar than her fellow Americans. She didn’t know
why all the faces seemed hazy to her. But she spotted him, and she thought he must have
changed his clothes because she remembered he was wearing a denim jacket when he left.
Now he had on a lab coat over his scrubs. He ran to her as soon as he saw her. The only
thing she could feel were his lips on her, and she knew that everything was going to be
okay . . .

“Excuse me.”

A voice broke in.

“Excuuuse me.”

It was coming from next to her and sounded annoyed.

“We’ve landed, and I’d like to get off the plane, please.”

Abby shook the sleep from her head. She was groggy and surprised to still be on an airplane.
The woman in the window seat was yelling to her, and the businessman on the aisle was
gone.

“You’re blocking my way, and I’d like to get off please!”

It all came back to her now. She unbuckled her seat belt and started to exit the row, but the
impatient woman next to her wedged past her, spinning Abby around until she plopped down
in the seat again.

Abby sat there as all the passengers filed out and the crew assisted those needing
wheelchairs.

And when Abby was the only one left on the plane, a handsome young flight attendant came
over to her.

“Mademoiselle?”

Abby slumped in her seat. “Can’t I just wait here until you’re ready to go back?”

ABBY TOOK THE long walk down the gangway, running her hands along the fiberglass walls
just to assure herself that she had actually made the trip. When she emerged in the gate
area of Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, her stomach began to twist.

She scanned the infinite rows of seats and wondered if she would ever find him in this vast
place. She approached a video monitor and tried to make sense of it. She found the number
of the flight bound for Kinshasa and checked it against the notes Carter made in the lounge
at the hospital. “FLIGHT 1390 TO KINSHASA-GATE 22” the monitor said. It wasn’t leaving for
another hour or two, but she headed there anyway hoping to find Carter. When she arrived
at Gate 22, no one was manning it. But a woman was preparing to open the adjacent stand.

“Can you tell me if Dr. John Carter is on Flight 1390?” Abby asked, crossing her fingers that
the woman would understand her.

“I’m sorry, I am not working that flight, this is 961,” she said, in clear, unaccented English
while pointing to the board behind her.
“I am trying to locate a passenger on 1390. It is very important.”

“Sorry, even if that were my flight, I couldn’t do that—security, you know,” answered the
woman.

Of course, she couldn’t; Abby knew that but persisted.

“Please, I flew all the way from the United States. I need to talk to Dr. Carter before he gets
on that flight.”

Abby noticed how beautiful the woman was—chestnut brown hair with light brown eyes and
perfectly applied make-up. Abby ran her hands through her own hair and suddenly was
conscious of how messy and unattractive she must look.

“Why don’t you wait here until boarding—or I can page him for you.”

Page him? Good idea.

“Yes, could you page him please? It’s ‘Dr. John Carter’—C-A-R-T-E-R,” she spelled carefully.

The woman picked up the page phone and spoke into it. Soon the airport echoed with the
sound of his name in English and in French. The message instructed him to come to the
gate. Abby thanked the woman. She could do nothing now but wait.

“I’ll call you when I get to Paris,” he had said as he stormed away from her, and she hoped
he meant it. Abby spied a pay phone and used her credit card to dial her answering machine
at home. As promised, he did. The sound of his voice on the machine did not make her feel
better.

“Abby, it’s me. Are you there? Pick up . . .”

Her hand trembled as she heard him speak.

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t catch you; I know you were upset when I left. But if you are there,
and you’re punishing me for walking away from you . . . well . . . maybe that’s the whole
problem. Look, my flight to Paris made good time. I’m going to hurry and try to catch a flight
to Rome that connects to Kinshasa rather than hang around the airport for the direct flight . .
.”

Abby’s heart sank fast with the realization that Carter wasn’t even in Paris any longer.

“Abby, I don’t know how long it’ll take to find Luka,” his message continued. “Then there’s all
the red tape to get him home. I don’t know when I’ll be back. You’re probably so angry at
me right now that you don’t care what I do, but that’s okay. I’m too tired to fight.”

The tone in his voice was angry and defeated at the same time.

“Look, I know you’re upset about Luka, and I know you’re upset with me. You probably have
good reason to be. I think you and I . . . we need a little time apart. I mean a little more
time apart. Obviously, you agree—you proved that this morning.”

Abby’s heart was pounding. She quickly replayed her first waking moments when she opened
her eyes to see him contemplating her from the edge of her bed after not having seen each
other for weeks. Although he tried to apologize for ignoring her and walking away from her
weeks before, she would have none of it and requested her key back. But instead of trying to
convince her otherwise, begging her forgiveness, kissing her and telling her how much he
loved her as she’d hoped, he simply stood and dropped the key in the china bowl atop her
dresser—and he left.
And now, his voice on her answering machine was barely above a whisper. She heard pain.

“Abby . . . I don’t know what’s next, you know? I’ll call you when I’ve found him and this is
all over . . . I guess.”

She had the feeling her life had changed, and she was the last one to know it. Her mind
raced as the rest of her messages played.

BEEP.

Abby, it’s Haleh. Could you work for me Friday night? You owe me from last Thursday,
remember? Give me a call.

BEEP.

“Ms. Lockhart, this is Chicago Power & Light, we have a question about your account.”

That’s all she needed—to worry about bill collectors. She went to hang up.

BEEP.

“Abby . . .”

It was Carter’s voice again. Her stomach wound into a knot, and her throat tightened as if
someone’s hands were around it.

“It’s me again. I just want you to know—”

There was silence. She heard him breathing, but no words until . . .

“—nothing, nothing. Take care of yourself.”

And it clicked. Her answering machine gave the short beeps indicating the end of messages,
and the call broke off.

Abby hung up slowly. Yes, this morning she was angry with him for having left for Africa
three weeks prior with hardly a word. Who wouldn’t be? But now she was angry with herself
for not seeing that he was upset and confused. She shivered. She was alone in a huge
airport in a foreign country thousands of miles from Carter and only inches from tears.

She leaned against a wall, and wished she could start all over again.

THEY SAW EACH other that morning in the most unlikely of places—the auditorium where the
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was under way. But it wasn’t until later that evening, after
the trials of the day had taken their toll, that fate had brought them to the same threshold
once more. When Abby entered Doc Magoo’s to order coffee, she heard him call to her over
her shoulder from one of the booths. She joined him, and they talked and shared and
became confidantes and supporters, bound together from that moment on by . . . ice cream.

She teased that one of their rules would be that he had to splurge with her. He laughed and
gave in to her pretty smile. He handed her the menu and told her to pick for him. Shortly
thereafter the waitress returned.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“I’d like a hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream, please,” Abby answered. She noticed
him watching her lips as she ordered.
“Sure. And for you, sir?”

He held up his hand. “No, nothing for me.”

“Hey, we had a deal!” Abby reminded.

“Okay,” he laughed and deferred to her.

“He’ll have a banana split.”

The waitress walked away with the order.

“Banana split?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s good for you—there’s fruit in it.”

He grinned, and she smiled back at him and found herself falling into his warm, chocolate
eyes.

“So, how does this sponsor thing work?” Carter asked a few moments later.

“Well, we talk about problems you have with the program, and you let me know if you feel
tempted, and I help get you through it.”

“So that means I should call you if I have a problem or a question?”

“Yes.”

“So, I guess that means I’ll need your phone number.”

“I guess that’s right.”

He grabbed his newspaper, which he had placed next to him on the seat, and took a pen
from his pocket just as the server placed old-fashioned sundae dishes in front of them.

“Well . . .?” he said, his pen poised to take down what would become the most important
digits of his life.

She lifted the bright-red cherry from atop her sundae by the stem, tilted her head back and
held it poised over her lips. Then she rattled off the numbers quickly, “5-5-5-0-1-1-0,”
before plopping the fruit in her mouth and plucking off the stem.

He scribbled the numbers but never took his eyes off her.

“Want yours?” she asked.

“What?” he said, realizing he was staring at her.

She pointed to the banana split in front of him. “Are you going to eat your cherry?”

“Huh?” He looked at his dessert. “No, be my guest.” And he pushed the dish closer to her.

“Thanks,” she said as she plucked the cherry from his dessert under his gaze.

As he watched her, he could feel the warmth rising from his neck up to his cheeks.
“Don’t sponsors take an oath to be available any hour of the day or night?” he asked.

“Oath? There’s no oath. This isn’t the Boy Scouts.”

He looked a little disappointed, and she found herself saying, “Yes, call me if you need me,
day . . . or night.”

She blushed a little into her sundae dish, and he noticed.

“What if you’re not home?” he asked.

“Leave me a message.”

“You wouldn’t risk my new-found sobriety, would you?”

She smiled. “Okay, okay. You can have my cell phone, too. It’s 5-5-5-6-7-6-7. But don’t
abuse it.”

“I promise I’ll keep it off bathroom walls.”

He looked at his writing on the newspaper and then looked at her warm eyes, and then he
smiled back. He seemed to have words on his lips.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“What!”

“No, nothing.”

“Tell me.”

He stared in her eyes.

“You have . . . nice . . . numbers.”

She chuckled. “Thanks—I think.” Her cheeks grew warm.

He smiled at her, and she at him. They reached for their spoons and hunkered close to their
desserts. And as they savored every bit of creamy sweetness, they talked . . . and talked . . .
and talked. Soon, her heart—so heavy from the death of a preemie in the ER—felt less
heavy. His head—so burdened with his career on the line—felt less burdened. And
somewhere inside they touched each other that evening.

ABBY DROPPED INTO the only empty seat in a long row of chairs filled with passengers
awaiting flights. She watched the old man across from her fiddle with the brim of his cap as
he read a newspaper that rested across his legs. She closed her eyes and leaned her face
into her hands and tried to gather her thoughts. First, she’d need to make her way back to
the Air France desk, purchase a ticket back to Chicago, go to the—

“Abby?”

Startled by the sound of her name, Abby yanked her hands away from her eyes and looked
up. She saw the same elderly man reading a newspaper as before. He felt her eyes on him
and pulled his cap down closer to his brow. Mistaken, Abby exhaled and slumped back in her
chair.
“Abby?”

This time she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around, and it was him.

Chapter Two: Cold Heat

Rating: PG-13 with very strong cautioning for romantic situations.

Summary: Carter and Abby found each other in Paris but they felt an ocean apart.
How did they get to this awful place in their relationship and what will it take to
find their way back? Even the strongest love can show a crack. The test is the
strength of the bond.

FOR HOURS DURING the flight from Chicago to Paris, Abby pictured this moment: Carter
would see her, be so moved by her gesture, take her in his arms, apologize for walking away
from her—not once but twice—and beg her forgiveness. Then, she would know finally that he
didn’t mean to leave, that he cared about her, and this nagging feeling that she had ruined
everything would disappear in the warmth of his arms.

Instead, he looked at her and said, “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t even reach for her, and so she put up her defenses.

“I listened to your message,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned
her weight on one hip. “What happened to the flight to Rome?”

“I missed it. I walked around a while, and then I called you back.”

“I know.”

“So what are you doing here? Is this about Luka? I told you I’ll find him.”

“I wanted to find you . . . to tell you that the Alliance called, and they said will claim
Luka . . . you know . . . his body. It’s not safe to go there. ”

For a moment, Carter thought she might say that she came after him because she loved him
and was sorry she asked for her key back and gave his stuff back. If she would only say she
missed him these past few weeks and couldn’t let him go again. If only she’d come one step
closer and look up at him with pouty lips, he’d put a kiss on them. But she didn’t.

“You came all this way just to tell me that?”

His eyes grew cold, and she shrank from them.

“I didn’t want you to go to the Congo if you didn’t have to.”

They may as well have been an ocean apart.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere tonight. I traded my ticket to this flight for the one to Rome,
and now this one is booked solid. I have to wait until the next flight to Kinshasa in the
morning.”

“Too bad,” she said, deliberately allowing him to interpret her meaning as either sarcastic or
sympathetic.

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

 “Where am I staying?” Abby hadn’t thought of that. She pictured finding him in the airport
and convincing him to go back with her. She thought they’d be back in her apartment in time
to order a pizza and crawl into her bed.

“I don’t have a place yet.”

“Well my flight’s at the crack of dawn. I guess I’ll just get a hotel room close by. I think
there’s a Hilton on the highway right outside the airport.”

Carter headed toward the exit, and Abby stood flabbergasted. She didn’t understand. She
flew all this way, and he was so matter of fact—as if it were every day that he ran into her in
the Paris airport.

He stopped and looked back at her. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ve been awake for almost 48 hours,
I’m not thinking straight. Come with me and let’s go get some sleep, okay?”

They jumped in a taxi and headed toward a small hotel just on the outskirts of the airport.

“Paris is beautiful,” she mumbled to break the silence.

“If you call this Paris . . . we’re on a highway,” he mumbled back.

“So?”

“So it looks like a highway anywhere—we could be in Oklahoma.”

CARTER ASKED KATIE, his travel agent, to find two one-way tickets to Tulsa, being that Luka
was not going to accompany Abby to retrieve her mother, who “bottomed out” in an
Oklahoma motel. Luka offered to “make some calls,” but Abby needed to go to her. With
Carter’s help, they retrieved Maggie in a sorry state and made their way back to Chicago in a
rental car. Only just as she said good night to him they discovered Maggie unconscious, most
of the life drifting out of her from an overdose of over-the-counter drugs she picked up along
the way. Carter raced her to the hospital, and he and Luka worked on her with needles and
tubes—and daggers for each other in those days—as Abby cried. Once resuscitated, Maggie
was locked in the psych ward on suicide watch. Luka came to see Abby then. She told him he
was right, that Maggie needed more help than she was able to provide. They went back to
Luka’s hotel. He patted her on the shoulder and told her it would be okay, and went to sleep.
But Abby knew better. She lay on top of the covers staring at the ceiling, wondering if sleep
would ever overtake her again.

Back at the hospital, Carter retreated into the lounge with his cell phone, sat on the couch,
and dialed Abby’s home number. When there was no answer, he tried the alternative.

The vibrate mode on her cell phone jarred her, and she reached down into her bag on the
floor next to the bed.

“Hello.” She practically whispered, her head hanging low off the bed so as not to wake Luka.

“Hey, it’s me, Car—”

“Hi, John,” she said before he finished identifying himself. She swung her legs off the bed
and tiptoed into the bathroom and closed the door quietly. “Where are you?” she asked.

“Working. I had a shift tonight.”

She sat on the bathroom floor and leaned her shoulders again the cool porcelain of the
bathtub. “You did? I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. You must be exhausted.”
 “No, I’m fine. I got plenty of sleep last night.” He lied. He stayed awake in the adjoining
motel room in the event Abby needed him. “I checked on Maggie a little while ago. Her vitals
are good, and she’s sleeping now. She should be okay.”

“Until the next time.”

He felt so sorry for her.

“What’s going to happen now?”

“Probably a locked ward—Legaspi said she’ll evaluate her again in the morning. I guess I’ll
find out more tomorrow.”

Chuny startled Carter when she peeked into the lounge. “Carter, LOL with a hip fracture on
the way. ETA in five.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Ambulance?” Abby asked. She hoped not. His voice was beginning to relax her.

“Yeah.”

“I guess you’d better get back to work.” She hoped he wouldn’t.

“I guess I’d better. Well, I was just thinking about you . . . you and your mom, I mean. And .
. . uhh . . . I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Thanks, Carter . . . for everything.” Her throat started to tighten.

“No problem.” He didn’t want to hang up so fast.

“Abby?“

“Yeah?”

He spoke softly in her ear, “You know, if you need anything . . .”

She realized what she needed was for him to stay on the phone with her and keep her
company. She was alone locked in Luka’s bathroom. He slept soundly on the other side of
the door despite the fact that her mother lay close to death hours earlier. She bit her
quivering lower lip and stared up at the ceiling struggling to keep tears from overflowing her
lids.

“Abby?”

She didn’t answer, and he grew concerned when he thought he heard a sniffle.

“Abby?” He touched the mouthpiece of his cell phone with his fingertips.

She swallowed hard so she could speak. “I know,” she said, but it was only a choked whisper
soaked in tears.

He wanted—no needed—to help her.

“Look, Abby, I could—”

She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”
 He’d have to take her word for it. What else could he do? He didn’t dare ask, but he knew
she was with Luka. Though if that were the case, why did she sound so . . . alone?

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” It should have been a statement, but he asked it as a question,
needing to hear as much for his sake as for hers that they’d connect the following day.

“Sure . . . tomorrow.” It was easier to control her voice if she spoke one word at a time.

They said good-bye, and he folded his cell phone gently and stroked the aluminum housing
with his fingertip. Without realizing it, he rested it on his chest in the vicinity of his heart.
And 7 miles, 800 yards, 2 feet, 3 inches away from him in the bathroom of Luka’s hotel
room, she did the same.

“I’D LIKE TO see Europe one day,” she said just to break the silence of the cab ride. “I came
to London with Richard for his sister’s wedding. I took a week’s vacation so we could do
some sightseeing. When we got there on Saturday, he told me he had class on Monday. So
we came right back. His class turned out to be date with a flight attendant he met on the
way.” She grew silent and turned away and watched out the open taxi window.

He stared at her profile as she gazed out and watched as the warm Parisian breeze blew her
silky hair in long streamers behind her. Her eyes were half-closed to shield them from the
force of the breeze, and it accentuated her lashes.

“MONSIEUR, ONE ROOM or two?” asked the registrar when Carter and Abby approached the
desk of the small hotel near the airport.

He looked at her, and it stung. He wished he hadn’t.

“One.”

She held her tongue until they entered the room, and then she could no longer.

“That’s it? I came all this way, and I get, Abby what are you doing here?”

“What? What do you want me to say?”

“You know, you always blame me for being negative, but you gave up first.”

“I gave up? You asked for your key and left my stuff in a plastic bag in the lounge for
everyone to see. Remember that?”

“After you disappeared with no notice. Was I supposed to wait around and wonder if you
were ever coming back?”

“Why wouldn’t I come back? I just wanted to go to Africa to feel like I was really doing
something. I just needed to get away—”

“From me? You were trying to get away from me?”

“No, from my life!”

“Well stupid me, I thought I was part of your life.”

Her remark brought things to a halt.

“You made your feelings plain, Abby.”

“So did you when you came back from Africa and sat there on my bed—”
 “What’s wrong with that? I came directly to your apartment to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because I missed you.”

“Because you missed me or because it had been weeks since you’d been with a woman?”

He glared at her with unblinking eyes and spoke slowly through clenched teeth struggling
hard to control his anger.

“You think I showed up at your apartment for sex! ”

She wished she hadn’t said it, but she was committed now. They were fighting, and she
didn’t know how to get out of it.

“I don’t know. You weren’t interested in me at all before you left. You barely told me you
were leaving, and then suddenly you show up at my apartment in the middle of the night!
What was I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to think—”

His nostrils flared with temper.

“Never mind!” he said. He unzipped his bag and threw it on the floor. He pulled a few items
out, scattering most of them. Then he stormed past her into the bathroom and slammed the
door.

“I didn’t mean that.” She stood waiting for him outside the bathroom when he emerged
bare-chested, wearing only a pair of jersey drawstring pants—the way she’d seen him sleep
dozens of time. They hung low on his waist, and drew her eyes to the thin line of dark,
distinctly male hair beginning at his abdomen and continuing below the drawstring.

She held her hands out to block his way out of the bathroom.

“Did you hear me?”

He walked around her. She turned to follow.

“I didn’t mean what I said about why you came to my apartment, okay?”

He didn’t answer.

“Okay?”

She couldn’t stand the cold shoulder. Maggie would do that.

“Carter?”

“Okay,” he answered without looking at her. But it wasn’t okay. “It’s been a long day for
both of us. Let’s get some rest,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, I’m exhausted,” she agreed.

She went into the bathroom and a short while later she came out still in her jeans and knit
pullover.
 “What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“I thought you were tired?”

“I am.”

“They why don’t you get ready for bed?”

She looked down and scratched at the inside of her elbow and mumbled, “I . . . I didn’t bring
anything to sleep in.” She seemed so childlike, and in that moment he felt bad for her.

He reached into his bag and took out a clean white T-shirt.

“Here. It’s been to the Congo and back, but it’s clean.”

“Thanks.” She took it from him and retreated to the bathroom.

Carter looked out the window and saw nothing but concrete and asphalt. Off in the distance,
the Arch de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, and all the beauty of Paris were just out of reach.

When Abby first came to the ER as a med student, it was her eagerness to learn that caught
his eye. But before he could discover who was behind the sweet face and smart demeanor, a
stranger stole his soul by plunging a knife in his back and letting his courage and self-esteem
seep out onto the floor. His body survived, but his mind had a secret—a weakness—that she
discovered before he did. And when she did, he accused her of betraying him, though in
truth she saved his life.

She remained the one person who could see inside him. And as they spent time together and
grew to be friends, he started to need her. But by then she was with Luka. Nevertheless,
when he discovered the sadness she carried inside her, he tried to take away her pain as she
had done for him. He wanted nothing more—except maybe to go for pizza every once in a
while and perhaps a movie. Oh, and if she would let him kiss her that would be nice, too.
And if they suddenly found themselves naked and she invited him to touch her body, he
wouldn’t mind that either. But then he’d shake himself into reality and remind himself once
more that Abby was with Luka, a handsome and talented physician beloved by the staff—
especially the women.

He opened the window fully and sat on the sill serenaded by the sounds of highway traffic as
she got ready for bed in the bathroom. It was not the first time he’d waited for her to
change.

WHEN HE ARRIVED at her apartment the night she agreed to accompany him to the charity
ball she was dressed in black pants and was distressed to see he’d donned a tuxedo. She
stormed into her bedroom to scrounge for something more formal to wear and closed the
door with such force that it slowly rebounded and crept open again—enough for him to
glimpse the black lace bra she wore beneath. She emerged in a pink satin bridesmaid’s gown
and printed shawl—huffing and puffing at the spectacle she made. He knew then that he
wanted her—the girl in the puffy pink dress. But he thought she looked beautiful, and all that
evening she felt so good in his arms.

Afterward in the limo they agreed they had a good time despite running into her ex-husband
Richard, who recognized the dress from his sister’s wedding. In a few quick turns, they were
in front of her apartment again. He stepped out of the car and held onto the sleeve of her
cloth coat to help her out. She slipped a little and her arm came out of her coat, and she
spun around and the other came out, too.

“Whoa. Haven’t you had enough dancing for one night?” he joked.
 “I’m sorry,” she laughed, her cheeks burning with embarrassment and the rumbles of
uncontrollable giggles coming on. “I’m sorry,” she said again, laughing harder. He joined her,
their cackles approaching canine decibels.

“Come on, it’s freezing. I’ll walk you upstairs.”

She grabbed her coat and held it in front of her rolled up in a ball and entered the vestibule
of her building.

At the base of her stairs, he bowed deeply and swooped his arm indicating she should ascend
the stairs ahead of him. She headed up, and he followed right behind her.

Rrrrrrrrriiiiippppp.

They stopped.

“What was that?” Abby asked.

“Uhhh, nothing,” Carter said, as he lifted his shoe off the train of her pink satin dress.

“I heard something.”

“No, nothing.” He began to laugh. “Keep going,” he said as he surveyed the damage his shoe
caused.

“Carter!”

“I stepped on your dress.”

“You stepped on my dress?” She tried to sound upset, but instead she laughed.

“I’m sorry.” His shoulders shuddered with giggles as he saw he had torn away the skirt of
her dress from the bodice, broadly revealing the back of her sheer pantyhose through which
her pink bikini underwear could be seen.

“Did it rip?” Abby said while straining to look over her shoulder.

“Not much,” said Carter, struggling to suppress his laughter while staring at the huge hole in
her dress.

Just then, the outer door to the building opened, and Mr. Flanagan, Abby’s 80-year-old
downstairs neighbor, shuffled in from the outside. The open door sent of rush of cold air up
Abby exposed bottom. She stiffened in horror as realized what a gaping hole there must be.
Carter jumped in front of her exposed rear end to shield her from the old man’s view.

Abby tried her best to change her tone from hysterical laughter to quiet dignity: “Good
evening, Mr. Flanagan.”

“Sir.” Carter nodded out of respect, careful not to move from his precarious position.

The old man looked skeptically at the two of them and shuffled toward his apartment. When
Mr. Flanagan closed his door, Carter and Abby exploded in giggles.

“Oh my God, I have to move,” she squealed.

“No you don’t,” he laughed.

 “Yes, I have to move and change my name . . . ”

“Don’t worry he didn’t see anything.” Carter chuckled louder knowing that wasn’t true.

“ . . . I have to move and change my name and leave the country—I definitely have to leave
the country.”

Their faces were red, and they could hardly breathe from giggling so much.

“Stop laughing,” she said, unable to control her own hysterics.

“I’m not laughing.”

“This is serious. I can’t live here anymore—”

And just then they heard a noise below them. They realized it was the sound of a key in the
lock once more.

“Run!” they said in unison in a whispered shout.

He turned and grabbed Abby’s fallen train, and they bolted up the stairs.

She quickly put her key in her door and ran into her apartment not realizing he was holding
the back of her skirt. Down she went in her doorway, taking him with her.

They landed on the floor, their faces red, tears falling down their cheeks, unable to catch
their breath to speak in anything but little squeaks.

Finally, their laughter subsided as he realized he was on top of her, his weight on his arms.
She lay beneath him, out of breath from laughter, her chest rising and falling as her lungs
filled with much-needed air. And as their breathing slowed he looked down at her soft brown
eyes, curvy lips, and delicate neck. The urge to kiss her overwhelmed him and caught him
off guard. He flung himself backward off of her and landed hard on the floor, hitting his head
against the doorframe. She lifted herself up on her elbows.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes . . . uhhh . . . fine,” he said, his pulse still racing, “How ’bout you?”

“I’m fine,” though her cheeks felt warm.

He stood and reached down and to help her up. She was careful not to turn her back to him.

“I’m sorry. I’d really like to pay for the dress,” Carter said, his pulse finally returning to
normal.

“It’s not necessary,” she said, suddenly feeling a little awkward. “I told you, it was a
bridesmaid’s dress. I’m lucky I ever got to wear it again.”

“Well, the next wedding you’re in, I’m buying you the dress—I insist.”

“Okay, next wedding, the dress is on you.”

EVER SINCE THAT night, he hoped one day to hear her say “I love you, John” and to see the
excitement in her face when he walked in the room. Almost three years later, the hope was
still there, but that’s all it was—hope. It was finally sinking in that she didn’t need him.
She emerged from the bathroom and crawled swiftly onto the bed. He turned out the light
and followed. They lay side by side silently staring toward the ceiling in the darkness as a
warm summer breeze blew the sheer curtains into the room.

She broke the stillness.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uh, huh.”

“When you called my machine back, what were you going to say?”

“What do you mean?”

“You called me back from the airport and said, ‘I just want you to know . . .’ Know what?”

He thought for a long while, and then he said: “I don’t remember.”

The room fell silent again. She never felt as far away from him as she did at that moment.
She broke the silence once again but this time with a tiny sniffle that her teary eye caused.
It softened him.

“Look, I know it was a big deal for you to come all this way,” he said softly.

“I didn’t like how we left it. I . . . I thought you would come back to Chicago with me.”

There, I said it, she thought.

His interest was piqued: “You did? Why?”

Why? Isn’t it enough that I hopped on a plane to stop him from leaving? And she grew
defensive again.

“Well, for one thing, Kerry’s really shorthanded—what with you running off and Luka . . .
gone,” Abby answered.

That’s why? She’s worried who’ll cover my shift? She always seemed to disappoint him. He
took a deep breath.

“Well, I can’t just let Luka . . . rot there.”

“Carter—”

“Abby I’ve got to go. I’ll be back soon.”

“John—”

“Let’s get some sleep.”

He leaned over to her, and they kissed quickly—more out of habit than affection. They were
each afraid of not kissing, of what it would say about their relationship, of the finality of it.
But Abby put her hand on his cheek and nudged his face back toward her. She looked in his
eyes, trying to create a spark, almost daring him to kiss her again. But he was a thousand
miles away. The pain started to build in her stomach and showed up as a tear in the corner
of her eye.
Her damp eyes brought him back to the moment. He was frustrated, but he did not want to
cause her pain. She had enough people in her life to do that for her—and she created plenty
of her own. But Carter’s fuse was short this evening, and his mind was yelling for escape.
Nevertheless, when she slipped her hand down from his cheek and let it rest on his bare
chest, he decided to kiss her again. It was always easy for his body to respond to hers.

His kiss was hard, a little angry she thought. His lips were tight and his hands, which he
moved to her waist, were rough. But she clutched him, not wanting to pass up the
opportunity to be close to him for the first time since before his grandmother died. He moved
his lips to her neck. His face was scratchy with growth from the night before.

It was less than 36 hours ago that he was delayed at the airport in London on the way home
to Chicago—to her. He took advantage of the time to wash and shave in anticipation of
seeing her again. How naïve of him to think he could walk back into her life after the way he
left for Africa. He knew he was wrong. He even thought he should try harder to make it up to
her. But it was all the trying that made him tired.

But here she was in the cramped Paris airport hotel, the City of Lights out their window. A T-
shirt of his and a pair of white underpants was all she wore as she waited for him to kiss her
some more. He did. And quickly the T-shirt she had just donned came off and then all their
clothes were gone. And without much ceremony, they fell against each other.

It had been weeks since they’d shared a bed—maybe months when you add it all up.
However, this time was different from any other time. She could feel his anger. He seemed
quiet, brooding, perhaps cold might even be the word—so unlike their usual lovemaking, in
which his body was strong but his touches were tender and punctuated by loud sounds she
grew to understand as his language of pleasure. But he spoke none of it tonight. She kept
her eyes closed, afraid of what she might see in his face.

She can’t even look at me, Carter thought. Normally, when they were this close to each
other, he’d meet her eyes and try as hard as he could to make her see how much he loved
her. And when she’d look back at him in those peak moments, her arms clutching him closer,
he was almost sure she loved him just as much—almost. Hours later, under the cover of
darkness, with the complete abandon that only deep sleep affords, Abby would slide her
naked body along the cool sheets over to where he lay. Once he felt her soft skin against his,
he’d gather her close and fall back to sleep with his lips tucked into her hair.

For the first time since she’d been intimate with him Abby could not relax enough to
experience any satisfaction and just waited as if she were alone. She wanted to tell him how
much she needed to feel close to him right now, but she couldn’t—she never could. Usually
under the cover of darkness when she needed to feel close to him, she’d pretend she was
asleep and slide her naked body along the cool sheets over to where he lay . . .

He loved her—so much he could feel her on his skin even when she wasn’t there. And he’d
wake each day hopeful it would be the one when the wall around her would come tumbling
down. But hope didn’t flow from him anymore; it froze like ice and cracked into little pieces,
and he brushed them away. It was resentment that filled him tonight—and pain and futility.
And she could feel it. He made her feel it.

After, he recoiled from her like a distant stranger. Abby reached down and grasped a corner
of the blanket that barely covered her nakedness and rolled away from him to hide her face.
She stared at the wall opposite the bed. And, softly, she began to cry.

Chapter Three: Hop, Skip, Jump

Rating: PG-13 (or the new equivalent)

 Summary: A change of pace, a new locale, the adventure begins. More missing
moments plus my personal all-time favorite Carby kiss.

CARTER AWOKE BEFORE dawn in the dark Paris hotel room. From his pillow, he could see a
strip of hallway light that squeezed under the door. From the other side came the voices of
travelers pretending to be considerate of sleeping guests by speaking in loud whispers that
echoed through the hall and woke them all the same.

He looked to his left and saw the back of Abby’s head. She was fast asleep, evidenced by her
slow, rhythmic breathing. She was clad in white panties and his borrowed white t-shirt. She
must have put them back on in the middle of the night because the last thing he
remembered before sleep overtook him were her faintly tanned arms, legs, and chest and
the creamy whiteness of her naked breasts and torso. The T-shirt had hiked up around her
waist during the night. It left her bottom section bare except for her panties, which did not
come up high enough to hide the tiny tattoo at the base of her back—well that’s where she
said it was. Anyone could plainly see it was practically on the roundness of her buttock.

Carter, on the other hand, slept naked beneath the sheets. His drawstring pants were on the
floor near the bed—just where he dropped them when he removed them to be close to her.
He was unhappy with himself about the night before. His frustration and disappointment
didn’t excuse what he did, which was make love to her while he kept his feelings locked
away. Ashamed as he was, all he could think of now was dressing quickly and leaving before
she awoke—before he looked in her eyes and wanted to do it again.

From the moment Carter changed his mind about proposing to Abby, he started focusing on
the worst in their relationship rather than the best. Before that evening, he was blinded to
anything but her beauty, her spirit, her body, her touch, and her vulnerability. Now when he
looked at her, he saw a woman who could reject him on a moment’s notice. A woman he
couldn’t make happy. A woman who couldn’t be relied on to stay away from alcohol. A
woman who was afraid to have children—afraid of everything, really—except pain. Abby had
a very cozy relationship with pain.

WHEN HE JOINED her on the steps of her building that cold night, she requested he not ruin
her “perfect smoke” by asking about her family. Her plans to rehabilitate her mentally ill
brother by salvaging the sibling bond were thwarted when Eric and Maggie fled Chicago,
leaving Abby helpless—her role as their savior shattered, her view of herself in tatters. The
look on her face was frightening—so much pain swathed in so much sarcasm. She deflected
his affection, and it hit him painfully in the face.

Her last bit of hope for peace gone, she announced, “Cancel Christmas,” and walked into her
apartment building. She seemed not to care whether he followed or not, as if she were so
filled with pain that if he hurt her too by not coming upstairs, she wouldn’t notice.

But follow her he did. When he entered, he saw her from across the room in the bathroom.
She stared at her face in the mirror, hating herself for allowing her family to pulverize her
time and time again. He walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and pressed
his lips to her head.

“Let them work this out their own way. You just concentrate on yourself for once.”

She thought to herself: Who am I if I’m not busy picking up their pieces?

“Leave me alone, please.” She wriggled out from under his grasp.

“I’m hungry,” he tried. “Let’s get something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Come on, I’m starving!” he pleaded, hoping to distract her from her pain.
 He should have known better.

She whipped around to face him. “You’re starving?” she asked. Her bitter tone cut like a cold
wind. She stormed over to the refrigerator, removed an old pizza box from two nights
before, and threw it on the table. It slid almost to the opposite edge and stopped.

“Be my guest.” She stood, arms crossed, her weight defiantly on one hip, her words biting,
her attitude like barbed wire. She was daring him to leave, daring him to walk away from her
like everyone else.

Why did he stay and let her humiliate him? Her eyes. They screamed with pain, desperate
with fear and loneliness.

He walked over to her and took her face in his hands. She tried to let the tears roll down her
face. She tried to unclench her arms and wind them around him. She tried to rest her head
on his chest. But she couldn’t bring tenderness to the surface again and risk getting hurt.

“Let go of me, please. I need to be alone for a while.”

It would take a lot more than his hands on her cheeks to make her pain go away. Instead,
he was dismissed from her premises, destined to feel like a distant bystander.

CARTER TOOK OUT a pen and his checkbook and reached for a notepad. Then he quickly
gathered his scattered belongings and packed them in his bag. Before he walked out, he
stopped to look at Abby’s sleeping form once more. With his index finger he swooped a piece
of highlighted hair from her face. He surprised himself when he leaned down to kiss her head
and breathe her in once more. She smelled soft like a baby, and he would carry her
fragrance with him as long as he could. He took advantage of Abby’s dream state to say
three words he always meant to say—and a fourth he never imagined he would.

“I love you,” he whispered against her temple. “Good-bye.”

She had surely broken his heart, and he didn’t have the strength to fix it. He picked up his
bag and left, closing the door behind him.

ABBY COULD FEEL the emptiness in the room even before she opened her eyes half an hour
later. She knew he wasn’t there. When she did open her eyes, she saw a note on the
nightstand:

“I took care of the room. Get home safely. Take this for your trouble.”

Folded into the note was a check large enough to cover the round trip ticket from Chicago to
Paris—and then some.

There were no words of affection, no acknowledgement that just hours before they were
touching. And so her body flushed with rage from head to toe. Even her loneliest moments
with Luka and angriest moments with Richard did not hurt this way.

Abby admired Carter from the time they met. She wanted to be as skillful as he was, and she
appreciated the kindness he offered in her first days in the ER. But lightning-fast he was
struck down and fell into a tunnel of his own making. Though she was with Luka, she had a
hand in helping him find the man he once was. Slowly they became friends. Soon she noticed
that while her nights with Luka were lonely, her days in the ER with Carter were fun. Her
nights with Luka were tense, and her days were carefree. With Luka she was silent and
reserved, but with Carter she shared and chatted. With Luka she was “not that pretty” and
“not that special,” but Carter made her feel . . . so . . . beautiful. Soon his voice sounded like
love to her—but her fears made her run ever closer to Luka. But months later—long after
Luka renounced her (“Carter can have you!”)—she was finally in his arms.
When Abby was with Carter, she never enjoyed sex more or silence more. Nothing made her
feel better than when he held her and kissed her. And everything hurt less from the first
time she buried her face against his chest and discovered the comfort he kept hidden in the
folds of his sweater. Abby was in love. She was deeply in love.

But they made mistakes, and with their own hands they dug a canyon of disappointment
between them—he by not telling her what he needed and she by giving her body when he
yearned for her soul. She tried—she just didn’t know how to lean on him, how to love him, or
how to make him feel needed. She deserved his disappointment—but not his harshness.

The money enraged her—as if a check would make them even for him leaving her twice in
the ambulance bay and now in a Paris hotel room. She decided then she would go to the
airport and find him, return his money, and get on the first plane heading anywhere toward
the United States. Her jaw set hard, she dressed, lifted her bag, and started for the airport.

Brrrring. Brrrrrrrrrrring.

Before Abby could reach the door, the telephone rang. She picked up the beige phone on the
nightstand.

“Hello?”

Only a dial tone spoke back. The ringing continued. Abby walked around the small room,
circling the bed in search of the sound. She reached under the covers and dug deep and
finally unearthed Carter’s cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Carter, please.” The woman’s voice asked for him in French-tinged English.

“Uhhhhh. I’m sorry he’s not here right now.”

“This is Bernadette Dumont from the Alliance du Medicin. It’s important that I get in touch
with him.”

“Well, I don’t know how—”

“We believe we have located Dr. Kovac alive outside of Matenda.”

Luka’s alive? She let it sink in for a moment.

“He’s alive?” Abby confirmed.

“We have reason to believe he is.”

Relief overwhelmed her—until she realized that Carter was on his way nonetheless.

“With whom am I speaking?” asked the woman at the other end of the phone.

“My name is Abby Lockhart. I’m Dr. Carter’s gir—” Her steel shell snapped shut.

“Do you know how I can get in touch with him?” said the woman on the other end.

“Dr. Carter is on his way to Kinshasa—to find Dr. Kovac.”

“Please tell him to call me immediately. Merci.”

 “But—”

It was too late. The woman hung up, and the cell phone screen went dark.

She closed Carter’s phone and dropped it into the pocket of her off-white jacket. She would
give it back to him when she caught up to him in the airport.

ABBY WISHED CARTER had left her cash—it took all the francs she exchanged at the hotel to
pay for the taxi to de Gaulle. No longer a stranger to the Paris airport, Abby headed straight
for the video monitors to look for Carter’s Air France flight to Kinshasa. There were only two
flights: One leaving at 7:40 a.m., and another at 8:50 a.m. Both departed from Gate 14. It
was 7:06. She knew Carter intended to get the first flight out. But she’d need a ticket to get
to him at the gate, so she headed quickly to the Air France counter. A very long line of
determined travelers beat her there. Abby joined them as the minutes ticked away. At 7:27
Abby reached the head of the line and purchased a ticket for the first available flight to
Chicago—it wasn’t until 3:00 in the afternoon. She grabbed the ticket and ran for Gate 14.
She arrived at 7:41, just as the doors were closing.

“Wait! Please—” she asked the woman crouched behind the counter fiddling with a printing
machine. When she stood up, Abby saw it was the same attendant who paged Carter for her
the night before.

“I really need to talk to somebody on that flight.”

“I’m sorry, once the doors are sealed—”

“Please, I’m looking for Dr. John Carter. I really need to—”

“Hey, didn’t I page him for you last night?”

“Uhhh, yes,” Abby admitted.

“Didn’t he find you?”

“Yes, he found me.”

“Did you lose him again?” the woman teased.

Abby thought a minute. “Yes, I guess I lost him again.”

“Bad timing, huh?”

Abby nodded, and the woman gave a sympathetic smile.

Abby had an idea: “You know, he may not have gotten on this flight. Do you think you could
page him for me again? Maybe he is somewhere in the airport.”

“Look, I remember him from yesterday. Tall American? Big duffle bag? Brown hair, strong
nose—cute?”

Abby could only nod; the picture she painted made her yearn for him even through her
anger.

“Well, I’m not supposed to say . . . but I think the page is a waste of time.”

“Are you saying he got on this flight?”

“Like I said, I wouldn’t bother to page him.”

 Abby understood.

She looked out as the Boeing 747 carrying Carter to Africa crawled away from the gate. She
walked to the large window, leaned her forehead against the glass, and watched as the plane
made its way toward the take-off strip. She stood there until it built up speed and lifted off
the ground. She stepped back from the window and caught her own reflection in the glass as
he disappeared into the clouds. The feeling of being left behind was becoming all too familiar
to Abby.

What a disaster this whole idea was. She came all this way, and she was going home farther
apart from him than before. And he was still headed for danger—

THUD!

Abby was startled by a sound at her feet. She jumped backward and looked down to see a
woman on the floor. She was probably in her early thirties, with pretty dark tendrils at the
sides of her face. “Oh no, please don’t be sick,” Abby thought.

Abby leaned over her: “Ma’am . . . uh . . . miss . . . uh . . . mad . . . madame?”

With no response, Abby dropped to her knees.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Abby brought her ear close to the woman’s mouth to make sure she was breathing. She
placed her fingers on the woman’s wrist. Her pulse was weak and rapid, and her skin was
pale and clammy. Abby feared she was in shock.

“Somebody call 9-1-1!” Abby yelled, and then wondered if they knew of the 9-1-1
emergency system in France. “An ambulance,” she changed it to. “Somebody please call an
ambulance!”

“No, I’m okay.” The woman suddenly managed to speak in English that was heavily accented
with French.

“I think we should get some help for you.”

“I’m fine, really.” The woman said and began to stand. “I have touch of low blood sugar.
Runs in my family. I just need to go home and eat, that’s all.”

Abby helped her up: “Are you sure? Your pulse is racing.”

“No, thank you.” And the woman brushed herself off and quickly ran for the exit.

“Sophie?”

Another woman came up, stopped next to Abby, and called after the woman.

“Sophie!”

The woman, blond and older by several years, shook her head from side to side, folded her
arms across her chest, and let out a big sigh.

“I knew she’d chicken out,” she said.

“She seemed sick or upset,” Abby said.

“Maybe—but she didn’t really want to go where we’re going anyway.” She turned to Abby. “I
saw what you did. Thanks for trying to help.” She held out her hand. “I’m Claire.”

“Abby.”

“Have you seen, Sophie?” The male voice that came from behind Abby was smooth and
deep; the tone caring and concerned. Abby turned around and saw an attractive man in his
late thirties with soft dirty blond hair. He had light green eyes with long dark lashes, and
creamy tanned skin. Through a few wind-blown strands of blond hair she could see a scar
across his temple that made its way from his hairline to the corner of his left eye.

Abby was taken back by his strong presence.

“Sophie’s gone,” said Claire. “She ran out of here. This is Abby, she tried to help—”

“She fell, and I took her pulse, that’s all,” Abby explained modestly.

“Are you a doctor?” the man asked her.

“No, I am a nurse.”

“So am I,” said Claire. “Sophie is a nurse, too. We are traveling with the Alliance du Medecin.
We’re on our way to Africa. This is Dr. Albrecht.”

“Damon,” he said, holding out his hand. “Damon Albrecht.”

“Nice to meet you, “ Abby said. “The Alliance du Medicin? I know it well,” Abby said. “It’s a
great cause.”

“It’s a wonderful organization,” the handsome doctor said, “We travel all over the world.”

“Dangerous places,” Abby added, glancing at his scar.

“Certainly—In fact, this trip I am covering for a doctor that’s missing right now.”

“A friend of mine is missing, and my b— . . . and someone else I know went to find him,”
Abby said.

“Who’s in trouble?”

“Dr. Kovac. Luka Kovac.”

“We know Luka!” The nurse exclaimed. “Sorry to hear about him.”

“I’m Kovac’s replacement,” Albrecht said.

Abby needed a minute to swallow the coincidence.

“Look, our flight’s not boarding yet. Can we buy you a cup of coffee for trying to help our
colleague?” Albrecht asked.

“Umm . . . Sure, I guess so. Thanks,” Abby replied.

“SO WHO DID you say went to look for Kovac?” Claire asked as the three sat in the snack
bar sipping bad coffee from paper cups.

“John Carter. Do you know him?” Abby asked.

 “Heard of him from the Alliance,” answered Albrecht. “I heard he was good, but I haven’t
met him. Then again, I haven’t been to the Congo for nine months or so.”

“I know him,” Claire said. “I was here about three weeks ago, and I ran into Carter. Good
guy. He and Luka are . . . were . . . close.”

“Actually, this morning the Alliance tried to contact Carter. They seem to think Luka may be
alive. That’s why I am trying to track down Carter.”

“Well, that’s great news. I hope you find him. But I’m glad you’re going to be there for
whatever reason now that Sophie’s not. We can use all the help we can get,” said Claire.

“Oh, I’m not going to the Congo,” Abby laughed.

“I just assumed—you were at our gate . . .” Claire responded, a bit confused.

“Oh no, not me.”

“That’s tough because we could sure use the help . . .” she said, clearly disappointed.

“Believe me, I’m like Sophie—I don’t have the stuff.”

“Really? I saw you from across the room with Sophie. You moved like a doctor,” Albrecht
interjected.

“No, I just . . . no, I never even considered it.”

“Well, we are short a nurse. Why don’t you consider it now?” Claire suggested.

“Go with you? To Africa? I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Please, we are so short-handed. We are desperate for help,” Claire pleaded.

“No . . . I-I’m sorry. It’s just too short notice. There’s my job . . . my apartment . . . I should
have really canceled my newspaper delivery before I came to Paris—”

“Aw. Come on!” Claire encouraged.

“Really, I’m not much of a traveler . . . I’m not even enrolled in the program.”

“I can take care of that in a phone call. This is an emergency situation,” offered Albrecht.

“I don’t have a ticket . . . and I probably need some special inoculations.”

“If anybody can pull some strings, Damon can,” Claire said.

Abby was running out of excuses. To her own amazement, she started toying with the idea.

Albrecht clinched it. “Come on, you can meet up with your friend and do some good in the
world, too.” He touched her hand. “Please.”

His green eyes stared at her. Abby’s stomach twittered a little at his touch. She had to look
away because he gazed at her so intensely.

“Am I crazy?” She thought to herself. “I am crazy.”

At 8:52 THE DOORS of the aircraft were sealed shut and there was no turning back. As they
crept into the sky, the sites of Paris grew smaller, and reality set in. Abby wasn’t on her way
to a motel in Oklahoma or a diner in Nebraska. She was going to Africa to—you know—help
people. And if she happened to run into Carter, she’d tell him about Luka and return his cell
phone. However, she’d be sure to give him a piece of her mind and tell him that their
relationship was over. She would make sure he knew how furious she was and that she—

It was no use. She was kidding herself. The only thing Abby wanted to tell Carter was that
she loved him. All she wanted from him was his word that he wouldn’t leave her again. And
this time, she wanted him to mean it.

SHE SHOULD HAVE known. She should have seen it coming. This is how he protects himself
—he retreats. He did it that evening on the El when they argued about her drinking. Earlier,
when she sensed his anger, she offered him a dinner of burgers and shakes and tempted him
that he might “get lucky.” But as the train pulled into the station in the midst of their
quarrel, Abby begged him not to get on. She pleaded with him to stay and work things out.
But even she knew that “work things out” meant “see things my way.” Despite her pleas, he
was able to shut off his feelings and step on that train and leave her standing there alone.

He didn’t stay away from her for long. He couldn’t. He waited for her to arrive home and
surprised her as she climbed the steps to her apartment building. He apologized for walking
away from her, explaining that he needed some time to figure out “where we were.”

Abby stepped down to met him halfway and announced, “Here we are.” Her sweet smile
captivated him, and somehow they both knew this relationship was a keeper.

“Come on up. Are you hungry?” she said.

“Your treat, right?”

“What?”

“Your offer—burgers and shakes, remember?”

She laughed.

“Come on,” he said and took her hand. They walked down the steps to a café around the
corner, which they’d visited many times. They ate at a small round table for two in a corner
against a red brick wall. They sat with their knees touching, hers fitting perfectly in the little
space his made.

The waiter brought them each a burger and set the plates down in front of them.

“Susan went out with a venture capitalist,” Abby told him as she lifted the top of her bun.

On cue, Carter reached for the ketchup and uncapped it. “From cowboy to venture
capitalist?” He laughed and poured the perfect amount for Abby on her exposed hamburger
(four drops equally spaced) and then poured his (a thick circular ribbon of red). “She like
him?”

“Nope, but as she’s telling me . . .” Abby paused to take a big bite of her burger, chewed,
and then continued. “She’s says ‘do you think Chen’s okay?’ I look over and I see Chen dive
off the stage and surf the crowd!” Abby giggled and reached for her chocolate shake.

“Deb?” Carter laughed in disbelief. He took a big bite of his burger, and a little ketchup oozed
onto the corner of his mouth.
 “Yes! I thought Susan was going to fall off her chair laughing,” she answered still chuckling.
She reached across the table and with her pinky she wiped the bit of ketchup from his mouth
and onto her napkin in one quick move.

They finished their meal, joking and enjoying each other’s company. He went to pay the bill,
but she insisted it was her treat.

They walked back to her apartment and up the stairs.

“Where’s the rest of my offer?” he said as he lifted her ponytail and placed several small
kisses along the back of her neck as she unlocked the door.

“Rest of your offer?” she asked, hunching her shoulders against his ticklish kisses.

“You said I’d get lucky.” He moved his kisses to just behind her earlobe. One hand crept
around her waist from behind and pulled her close.

“I said maybe you’d get lucky—and we’re out in the hall, by the way.” She looked around to
see if her neighbors had spied them. She pretended to be disturbed by his indiscretion, but
in truth it excited her.

The door fell open, and they entered. “What are my odds?” he asked.

“About a million to one.” She yawned and slipped off her jacket as she kicked off her shoes.
“All that arguing today made me tired.” She retreated to her room, stretching her arms in
the air.

“Okay,” he laughed. “But I want a rain check.”

“Do I owe you a rain check?” she smirked as she closed her bedroom door behind her.

Carter used her bathroom, took a drink of water from the kitchen, then sat on the couch and
checked the messages on his cell phone. When he was through, he closed his phone and
yelled to her.

“Abby, I’m going head home tonight. Gamma wants me to stop by in the morning,” he said
tinkering with his cell phone. “She’s got some symphony project she wants to talk about.
Okay?”

Hearing no response, he looked up toward her bedroom door.

“Abby?”

He stood up from the couch.

“Did you hear me? If you’re going to bed, I’m going to head home.”

She didn’t answer and he walked toward her bedroom door.

“Abby?”

He nudged the door open with his fingertips and stepped into her room. It was pitch black,
and he could see nothing. Even the streetlights were blocked by her rarely drawn curtains.

“Abby?” he said quietly.

 She came up behind him. The lightly scented shampoo she used that morning gave her
away. He turned around. Even in the darkness, he could tell that she wore no clothes and
that her hair was down from its ponytail and brushed smooth.

She nudged him backward toward her bed and gently pushed him down onto his back on top
of the soft down comforter.

“What’s this?” he asked, a knowing smiling breaking out on his face.

“Shhhhh,” she answered as she kneeled on the bed next to him and reached for his tie. She
unwound it, slid it from around his neck, and unbuttoned his shirt slowly, one pearl button at
a time. She ran her hands over his skin and pulled him in for a deep kiss.

For almost an hour she touched him and teased him until he could take no more. And when
he was through and breathing heavily with her head collapsed on his chest, he laughed and
kissed her playfully. And she rolled away onto the pillow next to his.

However, he couldn’t see in the darkness that the expression on her face changed
completely. It grew dark.

“Don’t do that again . . . okay?” she said.

“Do what?” he said, still out of breath.

“Walk away from me like you did today. Don’t do it again.”

“I’m sor—”

“Say you won’t do it again.”

“What’s the mat—?”

“Say it.”

He looked over at her and tried to see her eyes. Just then a truck passed on the street
below. Its bright lights squeezed through her blinds for an instant just enough to illuminate
her eyes. They were moist.

“I mean it,” she said.

He rolled over onto her. She felt him trace her mouth with his fingertip. And he brought his
lips close to hers until they were not quite touching, and he whispered against them, “I won’t
leave you like that again.” Then he pressed his lips against hers in a long, slow kiss that
made her body weak and her eyes drift closed. His mouth moved tenderly over hers, his
head following, his eyes closed, his breathing steady and warm against her cheek. And the
only sounds in the world to her were the barely audible crackles that their mouths made
when their lips parted and came together and parted again to form their kiss. When finally
he lifted his lips from hers, he whispered once again, “I won’t leave you.” He left her
breathless.

Abby slid out from under him, walked naked into the bathroom, and closed the door. He
didn’t see her again for a while. That’s because behind the door, she sat on the edge of the
tub, gripping it with white knuckles, and trembled at how close she came to losing him that
evening.

BUT CARTER DID walk away from her again—and again, and now once more.

Damon Albrecht’s voice broke into her thoughts.

 “Here is your passport back,” he said as he opened it to make sure he was getting her name
right. “Abigail Lockhart.” And handed it to her. He had borrowed it to help get her emergency
credentials to travel with the group.

“At the customs desk in Kinshasa there’ll be a representative from the Alliance with an
emergency visa for you. When we get to the hospital in Kisangani, we’ll inoculate you, and
you’ll be all set,” he explained casually.

Abby took a deep breath and shuddered a little as she let it out.

“May I?” He pointed to the empty seat next to her. There were, in fact, many empty seats on
the plane, as she found out later there was a U.S. State Department warning against travel
to the war-torn Congo. Indeed, many nations imposed travel restrictions to their destination.

“Yes—and it’s Abby.”

“Thank you, Abigail.”

She looked at him.

“Such a beautiful name should not go to waste,” he stated.

“Where are you from?” His slight accent was unfamiliar to her.

“I am from Vaduz.”

It didn’t ring a bell for Abby.

“Liechtenstein—Vaduz is our capital.”

“I never met anyone from Liechtenstein before.”

“It’s very tiny but very beautiful. You should visit one day.”

“Visit Liechtenstein? Maybe. I can’t believe I made it to Paris—and I’ll have to pinch myself
when we land in Africa.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s going to be wonderful.”

As he spoke she glanced at the scar next to his eye. A few soft blond strands of his hair fell
across it.

He noticed.

“It is a dangerous place, Kisangani. But you’ll be okay. I’ll make sure.”

Seven hours later, the plane landed in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. As promised,
Abby’s emergency visa was waiting at the customs office—a small room off the main gate
area heavily guarded by soldiers with bayonets. She quickly retrieved it with Claire and
Albrecht, and they ran to board a propeller plane that would transport them to the smaller
city of Kisangani.

From the low-flying aircraft, Abby was able to see the natural beauty of Africa that Carter
described. She stared at the lush greenery but saw nothing that resembled a city for miles.

The peacefulness of the scenery from up in the clouds belied the chaos she fell into when the
door opened in Kisangani.
 Hoards of people crowded the tiny airport. Screaming infants and joyous greeters drowned
out the loudspeaker. Soldiers with bayonets lined the airport walls. Bright sunshine poured
into the one large waiting room. It was hot—very hot—and Abby struggled to remove her
jacket. It got caught on something as she headed for the exit with Claire and Albrecht. “Hold
on!” Abby shouted to them, and she tugged at her jacket until she saw it was caught on the
bayonet tip of a soldier’s weapon. She froze. He released it and smiled at her. Abby tried to
smile back, but instead, she ran.

Outside a mud-smudged white van awaited, and the trio piled in. Abby sat in the middle row
alone while Claire and Albrecht headed for the back of the vehicle. They introduced Abby to
Angelique, who sat in the front passenger seat next to Guillaume, the driver. Claire explained
that Angelique was in charge over at the hospital.

The journey to the hospital was over rough, semi-paved roads. The van was not air-
conditioned so the windows remained open. The muffler of the vehicle was in disrepair, and
so the engine roared with a deafening sound. The heat and turbulence made Abby’s stomach
turn, and she breathed deeply to control her nausea. She needed something to take her
mind off her surroundings.

“Do you know Dr. John Carter?” Abby shouted to Angelique.

“Went to Matenda—there’s a clinic there,” Angelique shouted back. “He lost his friend around
there.” Abby noticed she did not bother to turn around to address her.

“So he’s not at the hospital where we are going?” Abby felt disappointment wash over her
like another wave of nausea—only the disappointment felt worse.

Angelique shouted back: “Not right now. He left with Gillian and Debbie just before we came
to pick you up.”

“Gillian and Debbie?”

“Yes, Gillian is a nurse from Montreal. She and Dr. Kovac are . . . good friends,” Angelique
answered.

Luka was “more than fine,” Carter had said. I bet he was, Abby smirked.

“Debbie’s with the International Red Cross,” Angelique continued. “She knows these parts
better than most of the population. She’s an American too, like Dr. Carter.”

“Little bump!” the driver warned just as the van crossed over a deep round hole in the road.
They hit hard, and Abby bounced from her seat and whacked her head against the frame of
the door.

“Ouch!” She yelled and rubbed her head. “Don’t suppose you could have driven around that,
huh?” she mumbled.

The van bounced along the dirt road leading to the hospital and came to a rough stop.

“Come with me,” Angelique said to Abby. Claire and Albrecht wished her luck and proceeded
to get settled. Meanwhile, Angelique gave Abby her required inoculations and a quick
orientation.

The hospital outside of Kisangani was an unsightly edifice of aluminum and cinder block that
emerged among trees—there were no parking lots, no signs, no place to get coffee. Three
wooden steps led from the outside directly into the main ward. It had a high ceiling and
slowly spinning fans suspended from it. There were two long rows of beds, with men,
women, and children mixed together. Off the main ward to the right were a few smaller
rooms: a trauma room, which doubled as the O.R., plus a supply closet and a sort of storage
 room, which was lit more adequately than the trauma room as it turned out. The room held
broken beds and extra mattresses. The next door led to a large cafeteria for the staff. To the
left of the main ward was a small isolation ward, with its own set of rickety steps and a
screen door leading to the outside. Also off the main ward on the left was small hallway
leading to the AIDS clinic, a large room overflowing with patients.

Situated to the right of the main hospital was a small colony of bungalows, where the visiting
staff lived. Each was a simple wooden structure about 15 feet square with a bed, a wicker
chest of drawers containing clean bed linens, and a small bathroom with sink, toilet and
shower—which was really just a pipe overhead and a mechanism to make it spill water over
one’s head. Any other decoration—lamps, wall art, rugs etc., were courtesy of the previous
tenant. There were a dozen or so bungalows —six and then six more directly across from
those. Carter had been in No. 2, Abby was informed, while she was put in 5. She didn’t know
much else, other than Damon Albrecht was across from Carter in 11.

“Put your belongings down and come help in the main ward,” Angelique ordered. Abby
entered her bungalow and dropped her bag on the bed. The only thing decorating her
sparsely furnished dwelling was a small lamp with a paper lampshade bearing a black and
yellow butterfly.

Abby fought the blinding late-afternoon sun and walked nervously to the main ward. She
climbed the wooden steps and stood just inside momentarily allowing her eyes to adjust to
the inside light and her heart to slow down a bit. Immediately, wails of anguish drowned her
panic as two men carried a third into the door of the hospital. Their arms formed a chair in
which the third man sat. His screams were well deserved, as Abby saw that the lower part of
his right leg had been completed torn off below the knee by whatever trauma he’d suffered.
A nurse whipped by Abby to help, practically spinning her around. Angelique followed, nearly
knocking her aside, and then Albrecht was on top of them also.

“To the trauma room!” Angelique yelled. And they all moved off as a group, leaving Abby
frozen in her spot.

In an instant, the man fell unconscious, and though Abby expected the shrieks to stop, they
were immediately replaced by the shouts of a woman with a large pregnant belly yelling for
help from outside the door at the base of the rickety wooden stairs. She was tall, in her mid-
20s, Abby guessed, with smooth chocolate-colored skin.

“Bon jour!” The woman yelled, hoping to get someone’s attention. “Bon jour!”

Abby looked around for someone to help, but all available hands were with the traumatic
amputee. So she walked outside and assisted the woman into the main ward.

“Hey, I need some help over here!” Abby yelled as they came through the door.

No one responded. They were all preoccupied with the flurry of activity in the trauma room.

“Hey, can I get some help, pleeeeease?” Abby pleaded.

The woman let out a blood-curdling scream.

“Okay, breathe like this.” Abby demonstrated the panting breathing common to Western
women trained in Lamaze birth.

The woman tried her best to mimic Abby.

“That’s right,” Abby comforted her. “You’re doing great.” The woman screamed again.

“Ma’am, what is your name?” Abby said, trying to get her to focus on something other than
her pain. “I’m Abby, what is your name?”
The woman understood Abby’s English. Panting between syllables, she managed to get out,
“Ni . . . co . . . lette.”

“Ni-co-lette?” Abby mimicked her syllabication in an attempt to make sense of it. “Ni-co-
lette,” Abby kept repeating. “Oh, Nicolette! Is that right?”

“Oui.” The woman smiled, comforted by Abby’s attention and patience, but let out another
scream that hurt Abby’s ears.

“Nicolette, I’m going to help you, okay?”

Abby yelled in to Angelique. “Is there a bed that’s free?”

“The floor,” Angelique shouted back. “We’re full—there is no bed to waste on a delivery. And
we cannot spare a doctor for something nature takes care of by itself.”

There was no time to argue, Abby helped the woman into the storage area off the main
ward. It was fairly large and bright with a large open area in the center surrounded by a
broken bed frame, a small high bed with bars that resembled a crib, and a broken ceiling fan
on the floor. Abby grabbed an old mattress off a broken stretcher and helped the woman to
the floor. Angelique leaned out of the trauma room, handed Abby sterile scissors, and
pointed out the bowl of gloves. Then she tossed Abby a few towels, a stethoscope, and some
advice: “Do the best you can.”

Abby’s heart was pounding, but she managed to compose herself and position the woman so
she could examine her.

“Nicolette,” Abby said as she tucked her own hair behind her ears and then stretched on her
gloves. “I’m going to check the position of your baby.”

The woman screamed with another contraction.

“Breathe, Nicolette, breathe like I showed you.” And again Abby demonstrated the panting
rhythm.

“Where is your husband? Is anybody with you?” Abby asked, trying to take the expectant
mother’s mind off her severe labor pains.

“I have no one but a sister. My husband . . .” She struggled to find the English word. “ . . .
est mort—dead,” she clarified.

“Oh, I’m sorry. How long?”

“Two years.”

Two years? The incongruity confused her for a moment but there wasn’t time to wonder . . .

“Oh, no, you’re crowning. Go ahead and—”

But before Abby could finish, the tiny baby emerged from the woman’s body with barely a
shove.

The little one wriggled and whimpered and then breathed normally, and finally Abby did also.
She took the wet child in her arms, cut the cord with the scissors Angelique provided, and
offered the tiny girl to her mother.

“Nicolette, you have a daughter.”

 There was no response.

“Nicolette!”

Abby shook the new mother. Her head wagged from side to side from the force of Abby’s
hands, but the woman was unconscious. Abby placed the baby on the mattress next to her
mother and saw the pool of blood streaming from between the woman’s legs. Her pulse was
weak and rapid; her skin cold and clammy. Abby put the stethoscope against the woman’s
chest and heard her rapid heartbeat.

“Oh my God,” Abby said out loud. “Oh my God,”

Abby grabbed Nicolette’s hand and held her own finger against the base of the woman’s
thumbnail, pressing the pinkness out of it until only white remained. Abby watched for the
pinkness to return. It didn’t.

“Somebody help me! My patient’s bleeding out!”

Abby tried desperately to prop up her legs to keep the blood near her major organs, but
without surgery, she couldn’t stop the bleeding, let alone tell where the bleeding was coming
from.

The team in the trauma room was still busy working on the young soldier, and there were no
available hands. Nicolette soon stopped breathing and her heart ceased beating, and Abby
began CPR. But the woman’s rapidly emptying heart had nothing left to pump. And as she
lay dying, her eyes met Abby’s.

“Nicolette, stay for your baby,” Abby whispered through compressions.

Despite Abby’s efforts, the new mother passed to her next life.

Abby leaned exhausted over the lifeless woman who now lay in a pool of her own blood. Too
shaken to move, Abby’s hands remained crossed over the woman’s heart. Soon Abby’s own
breathing slowed and she grew cold and dizzy. But then the tiny life the woman bore began
to shriek wildly and caught her attention. Abby finally removed her hands from the woman’s
chest and reached down and picked up the crying child. It was then that she realized she had
delivered the most beautiful baby girl she’d ever seen. The infant had creamy pale
cappuccino skin, the color of light coffee ice cream, with sweet tiny cherry lips. She had ten
fingers and ten toes and little more than ten minutes of life, and she was already alone.

“She’s beautiful.” Abby heard Damon Albrecht’s voice from behind her. In his hand he carried
a metal bowl. He placed it on the floor next to her. The bowl contained warm water and a
small, white washcloth.

“She has no mother or father,” Abby responded as she reached in the bowl, squeezed the
excess water from the cloth, and began to wash the brand-new baby.

“But she has life, and you helped give her that. In this place, that is no small feat.”

Abby had no words.

“You handled the delivery like a pro—”

“For God’s sake, the mother died!” Abby snapped back, suddenly managing to express her
frustration. She was barely in Kisangani for an hour and a life in her care had already
expired. She had failed this poor mother. This ill-equipped place had failed her. These people
who called themselves nurses and physicians had failed her, Abby thought. She held the
baby in one arm, and with the other, she closed the woman’s eyes and stroked her head.
Albrecht signaled two young men to cover the woman’s body and remove her. Then he sat
down on the floor next to Abby. He took the washcloth from her hand, rinsed it in the bowl,
and continued to wipe the baby clean while Abby held her in her arms.

“We got lucky in there. That soldier survived. But there aren’t enough of us, Abigail. You’ll
find that out quickly here. There isn’t enough of anything here. But you do the best you can.
I meant what I said—you looked like a pro.”

“I was an OB nurse before I worked in the ER. I was also a med student for a while.”

“Med student?”

“Third year—but I couldn’t resist the glamour of nursing.”

“But you were almost a doctor . . . ”

“Being overworked and underappreciated is more comfortable for me.”

He smiled at her sarcasm. Their eyes met, but Abby quickly looked away.

“Seems to me you are a doctor, nonetheless.”

She could tell he was looking at her and had to admit she felt a little calmer.

“She’ll want to eat soon,” Abby said as she cradled the baby. The infant girl instinctively
turned her mouth toward Abby’s breast and began to fuss. Abby could feel the baby’s tiny
nose nuzzling her nipple through her white V-neck top and flimsy bra. She adjusted her
position, aware of Albrecht’s eyes.

He said, “Perhaps we can find a wet nurse in the camps.”

“Camps?” Abby asked.

“Refugee camps. They’re all around here. Hundreds of thousands of people with no homes,
their villages destroyed by this inane fighting. Most of the patients you’ll see here are from
the camps.”

“Oh,” Abby said, the realization of where she was beginning to set in.

“In the meantime, ask Angelique to release the storehouse of infant formula we keep for
emergencies.”

“What will they do with her mother?”

“They’ll clean her up and bring her to the camps and try to find family or friends to bury her.
Then they’ll tell them about the baby, and maybe someone will come and claim her—but I
wouldn’t hold your breath.”

“She has a sister.”

“Even so—don’t expect her to come.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t her family want her baby?”

He dropped the cloth back in the bowl, and rose to his knees. He plugged his stethoscope in
his ears and gave a quick check of the baby in Abby’s arms. “Yes, I’m sure they would want
to help,” he said. “The people here are very committed to home and family. But no one is
anxious for another mouth to feed nowadays. I suspect they may think she is better off in
 the hands of the international aid community. So like I said, I wouldn’t hold your breath for
anyone to come for her.”

He removed the scope from his ears. “She seems fine.”

He reached up and handed Abby a small sheet from a pile on a nearby stretcher. Abby took
it and wrapped the baby in it.

“I suggest you keep her in here—away from the general patient population.”

“In here? It’s just a . . . storage room.”

“You don’t suggest we put a brand-new healthy infant in with children suffering from malaria,
cholera, pertussis—”

“I get it.”

“She’ll be right off the main ward in case she needs anything. You can put her in this.” He
grabbed the wheel of a small high bed and shook it to test its steadiness.”

“They used to perform surgery on children in this.”

Abby made a face.

“At least she won’t fall out,” Albrecht said, pointing out the low bars that surrounded the
small mattress.

“Okay, thanks.”

“I’ve got to go. I promised I’d check on an old patient of mine.”

“House calls?”

He smiled modestly.

“I’ll be back later. Get used to things, Abigail.”

He gently caressed the satiny cheek of the brand-new infant with one finger of his sun-
tanned hand. “Welcome to the world, Little One. Meet your guardian angel.” He squeezed
Abby’s shoulder, rose to his feet, and left.

Alone now with the new baby, Abby couldn’t resist the temptation to test the softness of the
infant’s skin by pressing her lips to the baby’s forehead. Abby’s kiss stirred the infant. Her
arms and legs began to wriggle, and for the first time, her puffy newborn lids separated.

Her first sight on this earth was Abby’s smile.

 CHAPTER FOUR: A ROCK TO THE HEAD

Rating: PG-13 (or the new equivalent)

Summary: Abby gets acquainted with Kisangani and bonds with an orphaned
newborn she delivered, while an entourage that includes Carter searches for Luka
outside the remote village of Matenda. Sometimes new friends help see the world
clearly—sometimes not.

Author’s Note: This is not an easy story—but it is not all about angst. It’s about
learning. And, most definitely, it’s about love. Settle in as these middle chapters
will have adventure and set the stage for the drama to come.

Thank you again for your interest. I hope you can feel my gratitude.

CARTER SAT IN the front passenger seat of the tan Land Rover on the bumpy road to
Matenda. It was evening, and they had been in motion for hours. Driving was Debbie, a Red
Cross worker well known in these parts. She was strong, blond, and pretty—“outdoorsy,” one
might say. She didn’t know what to make of Carter, but she watched him from the corner of
her eye as they rolled toward Matenda. Carter sat sideways with his back to the door. His left
knee rested on the bench seat, and his left arm embraced the headrest. He was keeping his
eye on the back seat where Gillian sat. She was weepy and depressed at the thought of
claiming Luka’s body. Carter, in turn, didn’t know what to make of Gillian, though he noticed
she and Luka had gotten close during his recent visit to Kisangani. They were close enough
that at the end of each night, Luka would rub out his cigarette and follow Gillian into her
room—but not close enough that he wouldn’t offer Carter a turn.

“Thanks for the ride,” Carter said to Debbie. Not one to be complimented, she explained she
needed to deliver supplies to the Matenda clinic anyway.

“So who is the dead guy?” she asked.

Gillian began to sniffle, but Debbie was oblivious.

“A friend,” Carter said, looking at Gillian. Debbie got the message and glanced at Gillian
through the rear-view mirror. “Sorry.”

She spoke to Carter in slightly lower tones: “Did he have a death wish?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean these parts have been overrun by soldiers for the past week. I thought everybody
split from here the other day.”

“I know. I was here.”

“So why’d your friend stay?”

“He’s a doctor.”

“You are too, aren’t you?”

“I am.”
 “But you don’t have a death wish like he does?”

“Who knows?” Carter replied. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back.

ABBY SAT IN a wheelchair with a broken footrest as she fed the tiny baby she delivered late
that afternoon. The wheelchair was part of the furnishings she assembled for the makeshift
nursery created in what was the hospital’s storage room. Fortunately, it was bright, and the
cinder block walls were painted a happy shade of yellow. In the center was a small, high bed
on wheels. Abby used it as a crib for the newborn by folding a standard bed sheet many
times to fit the tiny mattress, which was surrounded by low metal bars that would prevent
the infant from falling out.

In a supply closet, Abby found a few disposable diapers, several old-fashioned cloth diapers
and safety pins, as well as a few tiny undershirts that were still too big for the newborn but
would have to do. She found a lightweight blanket and came across a couple of plastic
nursing bottles. Abby spent the early evening washing and sterilizing these by hand in hot
water, and then finally sat down to feed the baby some more of the powdered infant formula
that Angelique provided. Abby prepared it carefully using her own ration of bottled water
from the cafeteria and prayed the formula would agree with the little one’s tiny tummy.

The relative peace of the hospital that evening was shattered by the wails of a woman out in
the main ward. Abby stood to go help just as Damon Albrecht stepped in.

“What’s going on out there?” Abby asked.

“They brought in another rape victim.”

“Rape?”

“It’s rampant around here. Husbands go off to fight, others feel they can . . . take their
place,” he explained, trying to pick delicate words.

Abby looked toward the direction of the cries. “I don’t understand,” she said softly, shaking
her head and refusing to let the information enter. She held the baby closer.

“Many of the women feel powerless to do anything. That poor woman must have fought
back. Sounds like she’s hurt.”

“Are you going to treat her?”

“I try to let female staff treat rape victims. I just think it may be more . . . comfortable . . .
for them. Angelique is checking her out. If the woman’s okay, she’ll send her home.”

“Until the next time some guy decides to—”

“Unfortunately,” he said a little too casually for Abby.

“You sound like you accept it—like it’s a fact of life.” She snapped at him and inadvertently
pulled the bottle from the baby’s mouth.

“No, Abigail. It’s a fact of war.”

The infant started to squeal. Her hands formed little fists, and she shook them. She looked
as angry as Abby felt. But Abby was ashamed that she took it out on Albrecht.

“I’m sorry, Damon. I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry. I understand,” he said and touched her arm.

“How’s your patient?” Abby asked, changing the subject and placing the nipple of the bottle
back in the baby’s mouth.

“What?”

“You said earlier you were going to the refugee camps to see a patient. How did it go?”

“Oh. Not well—10-year-old with polio. How are you doing?”

“I think the other nurses think I’m incompetent. I can’t seem to find anything. I’m better off
in here with her,” Abby said, rocking the baby who suddenly seemed more interested in
sleeping than in eating.

“What about a name for this little girl?” Albrecht asked. He leaned over and placed his hand
on the baby’s forehead. With his thumb, he quickly lifted each of her tiny lids to check her
eyes.

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Why not? She doesn’t seem to have any family.”

“I don’t know—”

“Go ahead.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” Abby said, smiling down at the little girl.

The noise out in the main ward subsided. Abby looked out of the storage room and could see
Angelique sending the rape victim on her way. The woman’s sobs turned to sniffles and then
grew fainter the farther she walked from the hospital.

“Seems like Angelique has everything under control,” Albrecht said, trying to get Abby’s
attention again. “I could use some help in the main ward. Why don’t you give me a hand?”

Abby removed the bottle from the mouth of the baby, who had fallen asleep anyway. Abby
held the girl on her shoulder and rubbed her back to try and raise a bubble before returning
her to the makeshift crib. Then she set the baby down—reluctantly. She already felt empty
without the tiny girl’s warm body in her arms.

DEBBIE AND CARTER spotted the site at the same time—in the evening light, the one-room
A-frame clinic looked intact from the road, but as they pulled closer, they could see that the
rear of the structure was fully collapsed. Two shirtless men were pulling wooden planks away
from the damaged part of the building. As the Land Rover pulled up to the wooden steps
leading to the front of the clinic, they were met by a man.

“Are you from the hospital in Kisangani?” the man asked in beautiful, melodic English
embellished with French and Swahili.

“Yes—what happened here?” Carter responded.

“Where is everybody?” Gillian insisted on knowing right away.

“Who are you?” Debbie chimed in.

“I am Bendu Nyobi. My men and I were hired by the Alliance du Medicin to check out the
aftermath of the firefight on the clinic here.”

“Firefight?” Carter asked, his anxiety level rising.

 “It’s all over now, but rival factions plowed through here a few days ago. They had rockets
and other heavy weaponry. They did a lot of damage to the back of the building. Most of the
patients were removed from here days ago. But we were told a doctor stayed behind with
three criticals. The patients are out back—they didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”

Gillian started to weep. “Where is the doctor?”

“We found him under the rubble. It took my men a day and a half to get him out. He’s on a
stretcher just inside.”

Gillian asked through her tears: “Is he alive?”

Carter didn’t wait for the answer and ran for the door to check for himself.

Inside the room on a narrow cot lay Luka, eyes closed, face bruised, hands and neck cut.

Debbie followed with Carter’s bag. He grabbed it from her and pulled out his stethoscope and
a small flashlight.

“Luka,” he said. “Luka can you hear me? Luka!”

There was no response.

“Resps are a little weak,” Carter said with the scope in his ears. “Heart rate’s good.”

Gillian stood at the door, and Carter nodded to her that he was alive. And she slid down the
wall in relief.

“Luka, wake up!” Carter shouted at him.

This time, Luka’s lids fluttered at the sound of his name.

“I thought you left,” Luka said in a whisper.

“Apparently nothing I say means anything. I asked you not get yourself killed, remember?
Hours later, they are ready to bury you.”

Luka smiled and slipped out of consciousness again. Carter put his hand on his forehead:
“Good to see you, my friend.”

Bendu Nyobi entered. “How’s he doing?”

“Looks like he’s had a rough time, but I think he’s going to be okay.”

“That’s good. When we dug him out, I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.”

“I’m John Carter. I want to thank you,” Carter said. He stood and held out his hand.

“For what?”

“For saving my friend—this is Luka Kovac. He and I are doctors in the United States.”

“It was one of my men that saved him really. The Alliance hired the three of us. I have a
small plane tied out in the clearing about half a kilometer from here. Dr. Kovac was lucky.
We pulled out the third body from under the debris just before you arrived.”

“Did you say you have a plane?”

 “Yes—single engine, two-seater with a cargo hold.”

“Do you think you could fly Dr. Kovac back to the hospital in Kisangani?”

“Already taken care of. I radioed the hospital before you got here that I’d be there tomorrow
with the doctor.”

“Mind if I tag along?” Carter asked.

“The pleasure will be mine.”

“Are you and your men still working on the debris pile now?”

“Around the clock. I need to be finished before I leave here with Dr. Kovac tomorrow.”

“Come on, I’ll give you a hand,” Carter volunteered.

“It’s a tough job, Dr. Carter. We’re pulling boards one by one and it is hot—even though the
sun is down.”

Carter unbuttoned his shirt, removed it, and threw it on a cot next to Luka where he would
later spend the night. Bendu gave Carter gloves and thanked him.

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Nyobi. I owe you.”

“It’s Bendu, please.”

“WHAT DO YOU think?” Albrecht asked as he and Abby leaned over the bed of a young man
18 or 19 years old.

“What do I think?” Abby looked surprised.

“Yes, what’s your diagnosis?”

“Well the diagnosis is really for a doctor—”

“I’ve seen you with these patients. You move like a doctor. Go ahead. Give it a try.”

Abby sighed deeply but took a stab as long as he was interested in her opinion.

“Well, judging from the painless diarrhea, muscle cramps, cold skin, sunken eyes on top of
the vocal changes, I’d say . . . cholera? But is that even possible?”

“Not only possible—likely. Very good, Abigail.”

Abby smiled at her small victory.

“Beautiful and smart. I knew it.”

The compliment embarrassed Abby a bit, and she withdrew.

“Well, if you don’t need me anymore, I’ll peek in on the baby.”

CARTER WALKED AROUND to the front of the clinic after the last board was removed from
the debris pile around back. Sweaty and exhausted, he leaned against the wooden fence that
ran alongside the clinic and rested his chin on the back of his hands.
 He didn’t hear Debbie come up behind him, but he felt her use the towel in her hands to
wipe the perspiration from his back. Then she flung the towel over the fence and stood next
to him.

“Bendu’s men will keep me and Gillian company on the way back. You can fly with Kovac if
you want.”

“Okay.”

Carter was far off. The toweling helped but he needed something different—like an ice pack
on the back of his neck. He forced away the memory of Abby breaking open a pack that day
in the hospital. She had wrapped it around his neck and held it there. He liked to imagine it
was an excuse to encircle him with her arms. He tried to erase the memory of her mouth
right there in front of him—an easy target. The day the city feared smallpox had been
released was the first time he ever kissed her. And that was the moment he chose: She was
looking to him for reassurance; he was looking at her lips. She wondered if they would be
okay; he wondered what her mouth felt like. He couldn’t help himself, and he finally kissed
her. And when he pulled away, she seemed a little reluctant to release him—or maybe he’d
imagined that, too.

“How come you came back for him?” Debbie’s voice interrupted.

“Huh?”

“Kovac—Must be like a brother to come all the way back here for him.”

“Actually, for a long time I wanted him out of the picture.”

“Why?”

“Luka and I were sort of . . . rivals,” Carter said. He laughed and shook his head
remembering a time that seemed so long ago.

“Who won?”

“Well, I got the girl, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So you won.”

He gazed through the trees beyond the tall, swaying grass out onto the dark horizon.

“It’s all the way you look at it, I suppose.”

“Ouch,” Debbie said under her breath.

Carter swept his eyes along the purple night sky. He found himself squinting to stretch his
vision beyond the curve of the globe to the edge of the continent and across the sea to
where Abby probably lay sleeping in a nest of steel and concrete.

“It’s so beautiful here,” he said, his eyes on the sky, his mind in Chicago.

He pictured Abby asleep on her pillow—the way he saw her several mornings ago when she
awoke filled with anger. Now that he was foolish enough to leave her in a Paris hotel room
with a note and a check, he was sure she emptied her mind of him once and for all.

“Maybe you ought to think about staying,” Debbie suggested and moved closer to him.

“Maybe I should,” he said to the air.

“We had a really long drive today.” She put her hands on his shoulders and began kneading.

“Yeah, and I’m tired—it’s been a rough few days,” Carter said turning toward her, which
forced her to release her grip on him.

“Oh . . . ” said Debbie. “Well . . . okay . . . good-night.”

“Good-night. Thanks for the lift.”

Debbie watched as he walked up the steps to the clinic.

ABBY CHANGED THE baby’s diaper once more, did her rounds in the main ward, and then
went outside in the muggy evening air. She folded her arms across her chest, and rested one
hip against the side of the building and wondered how she ended up in this place.

Albrecht came up behind her holding an open pack of cigarettes in one hand and two open
bottles of beer in the other.

Abby slid one cigarette from the pack and reached for one of the bottles by the neck.

“It’s sad here,” Abby said into the breeze.

Albrecht assumed she was making conversation, but only she and her conscience heard the
faint sound of an excuse for a smoke and a drink.

“You’re helping to make it better.”

“One person can’t do anything.”

“That’s the only way to do it. One person, then another and another . . .”

“You’re one of those optimists, aren’t you. I’ve heard about people like you,” Abby teased.

“You don’t look for the silver lining in the cloud?”

Abby exhaled loudly and thought a minute with pursed lips. Then she looked at him and said,
“I wouldn’t know what to do with the silver lining if I found it.” Truer words were never
spoken.

“Nah, that’s not me,” Albrecht explained. “If I ever feel helpless like that, I do something to
remind myself that I am powerful and in control. You ought to give it a try.”

“I’ll do that,” Abby smiled.

“Do you have family?” Albrecht asked.

“Mother and a brother.”

“Miss them?”

“They don’t know I’m here.”

“No husband? Boyfriend? —If you don’t mind my asking.” He smiled boyishly and shook his
blond hair from his green eyes.

Abby suspected he got away with a lot of things that way. But she didn’t answer.
 “Kovac? The doctor friend that’s missing?”

“No.”

“That ‘Carter’ guy?”

Once again she didn’t answer, and he knew he struck a chord.

“He’ll be worried to know you are here, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know about that.”

She saw his face in her mind. She looked at the cigarette between her fingers—poised for
lighting but as yet unlit. And she swirled the beer around in the bottle—open but as yet
untouched.

Abby handed them both back to Albrecht. “Thanks anyway. Good night.”

THE MORNING IN Matenda was bright and crystal clear, oddly free of the curtain of haze that
usually hung in the air. When Carter opened his eyes he was surprised to be met by the sun
—he expected to wake up earlier. As his head cleared he realized what kept him in bed
longer then he expected was a vivid dream.

“You said her name.”

“Huh?” Carter looked over at Luka, who appeared conscious, though his eyes were closed
and his voice was weak.

“Abby.”

“What?” Carter was confused.

“You said Abby’s name in your sleep.”

Carter stood and grabbed his stethoscope and listened to Luka’s chest.

“I did?”

“Yes. Is she okay?”

“Well, she thinks you’re dead, so she can’t be that okay. But you can take comfort in the fact
that she probably wishes it were me.”

“Sounds bad.”

But Carter didn’t respond. He busily assessed Luka’s condition, which was weak but more
stable than the night before.

“We’re getting you out here today, my friend,” Carter said.

But Luka once again drifted into sleep.

Carter walked outside to spend a few moments alone in the warm sunshine over by the
fence. Luka confirmed for him that even his sleep was occupied with thoughts of Abby, even
though she seemed to push him out of her head so easily.
GAMMA DIED, AND the feeling of loss was compounded by Abby who, instead of helping him
through the ordeal, ran to her brother’s side when he called from a truck stop in Des Moines.
She expected to be back that night. He waited for her—until he received a message from a
motel that they’d missed their flight back to Chicago. Her voice was breezy and casual as if
her presence could wait another day. As if it wouldn’t matter to him. As if he didn’t need her
to be there with him. As if . . .

She called when she returned to Chicago the next day—several times in fact. But Carter was
busy making arrangements—though he could probably have stopped for a moment and
spoken to her. Finally, Margaret, the housekeeper, brought the phone to him, and there was
nothing he could do but talk to her.

“Dr. Carter, please. Miss Lockhart has called four times. I don’t know what to say to her
anymore.”

He took the phone and rubbed the shoulder of the woman, who herself was dealing with the
loss of someone who clearly was more than an employer to her. Carter took the call more to
ease Margaret’s stress than to hear Abby’s voice.

They spoke for a few minutes, and Carter was polite but distant. The harder Abby tried to
make up for her “misdeed,” the harder Carter pulled away.

“Can I help with the arrangements?” she offered.

“No, it’s tomorrow at 10.”

“What about picking out a casket . . . clothes?”

“Dad and I went yesterday, and the staff at the house will dress her.”

“How about flowers…?”

“Nah, I did all that. Lilies.”

“How about you?”

“I’m okay.”

“Well, do you need some company?”

“Nah, I’m staying at the house with my father.”

“What about your mom?”

“Couldn’t reach her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, that’s typical of her—she’s never there when she’s needed.”

“Maybe you . . . you and your dad . . . would like to get some fresh air. Want to grab a bite?”

“There are people coming to the house all day—people from the Foundation and the Board,
everybody trying to pay their respects. I can’t really leave.”

He could feel that he was hurting her, punishing her . . .

 “Do you still want me to come tomorrow?” she asked tentatively.

. . . and he tried to fight it.

“Yes, of course I do. I’ll send a car for you—say, 9:30.”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

“Bye. Call me if you need—”

But he had already hung up.

It had worked. He had succeeded in making her feel bad, making her regret that she didn’t
ignore Eric to stay with him.

So why didn’t he feel better?

Because all he succeeded in doing was pushing away the one person in the world he needed
most. The part of him that loved her so deeply battled with his spiteful spirit and made sure
his conscience hurt. Nevertheless, his spite stood strong, while his heart missed her kiss and
the touch of her hand on his arm.

“WHAT IS IT—a woman?” Bendu Nyobi’s lilting accent jarred Carter back to the present.
Bendu was younger-looking than his 50 years, owing to his large strong frame and imposing
muscular physique that put younger men like Carter to shame. His dark-brown skin was
pulled taught over every muscle, and the hot Congolese sun reflected off every one. His
melodic form of English almost sounded like singing rather than speaking. His voice was a
deep baritone, which added to his strong presence, as did his smooth, hairless torso.

Carter turned his head toward Bendu, who spoke from inside the screen door of the clinic. He
smirked at Bendu’s uncanny intuition.

Bendu stepped out onto the porch of the clinic. He filled his lungs with the clear air, came
down the steps of the clinic, and sat near the bottom.

“Ahhh. It is a woman,” Bendu perceived and smiled broadly. “I’ve seen that look on the faces
of many men.” He let loose a hearty laugh that Carter found irresistible. He turned away
from the fence and sat down on a tree stump across the way from Bendu.

“She is . . . was . . . my girlfriend.”

“You’re not sure?”

“Well, she broke up with me . . . I think. And then I left, so . . .”

“This ‘maybe/maybe-not’ girlfriend—do you love her?”

Carter looked down and couldn’t answer.

“Does she love you?”

“No.”

“So where is she now?”

 “I left her in France. I’m sure she’s back in America by now.”

“You took her to France only to leave her there?”

“I didn’t take her there—she followed me to Paris to stop me from coming here.”

“Let me understand.” Bendu rubbed his chin and furrowed his brow, feigning confusion. “This
woman who does not love you dropped everything and left her home to fly across the ocean
to you?”

Bendu’s voice sang to Carter in so many ways.

“When I was 11 years old, I did something stupid,” Bendu recounted in his beautiful accent.
“My sister held a toy that my grandfather had given us. I was too impatient to wait my turn,
and I grabbed the toy from my sister with such force that I cracked it into pieces so neither
of us could play. My mother grabbed me by the hand and brought me to our drinking well
and made me swallow a ladle of water in front of her. I said, ‘Why Mama, why?’ She said,
‘Drink it, Bendu, I want to see where the water leaks out.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean,
Mama?’ And my mother came close to my face and said, ‘Son, I am looking for the holes in
your head.’ ”

“Dr. Carter,” he continued. “I’d like to give you a glass of water right now.” Bendu’s laugh
sent birds from their perch.

Carter smiled, and his face turned a little red. He admired Bendu’s wisdom and had to admit
that for first time in weeks the vision of Abby’s face made him smile again. But how could
Bendu know the depths of her disregard? At first he had no intention of sharing his pain with
this stranger, but then—

“A few weeks ago, my grandmother died,” Carter began. He picked up a small rock and
pounded it on the side of a tree stump as he told his tale. “She was more like a mother to
me than my own mother. I was the closest person to her, and I had to make all the
arrangements. I needed Abby—that’s her name. I needed here there—just this once. I
needed her there for me the way I was always there for her. But she went to him instead. I
mean, she just left—”

Carter choked. The pain was still fresh for him.

“Oh, so she made a choice and you lost? Who is this man she chose instead?”

“Her brother.”

“Her brother? Well, then I see why you’d be threatened.” Bendu laughed ferociously.

“You don’t understand. He and her mother suffer from a mental illness that makes them
behave—erratically. Her brother had disappeared. Of all days, he resurfaced that day. She
went to get him and try to coax him into treatment.”

“Big responsibility.”

“Her family’s been her responsibility her whole life, since she was a little girl.”

Bendu could see Carter’s face soften when he pictured Abby as a child.

“I don’t think she ever got to be a little girl,” Carter said softly, caressing the rock in his hand
now instead of pounding it against the stump.
“Sounds like she learned pretty early how to protect herself from the sadness. She learned to
take charge—do what needs to be done without asking questions.”

“I suppose,” Carter said.

“The lessons of childhood are the deepest,” Bendu observed. “They are automatic—like
reflexes.”

“And I’ll be back tonight—the flight’s only an hour,” she had said.

“Go get your brother. My grandmother will still be dead when you get back,” he answered.

He could make it hurt again just by thinking about it.

“Still—she should have stayed,” Carter mumbled.

“Is that right?” And with that, Bendu reached down with one hand and grabbed a large rock
as big as his huge palm and lobbed it directly at Carter’s head. “Catch!”

“Hey!” Carter shouted and then dove to the ground. The big stone sailed passed him,
narrowly missing his skull. It struck the fence behind him and gauged out a chunk of wood.

“What are you doing? You could have killed me!” Carter yelled as he sat in the dirt. He was
breathing heavily from the near miss and began brushing the sand from his pants.

“No, your instincts protected you. You learned early—big rock, big ‘ouch.’ ”

Bendu walked to Carter and towered over him on the ground.

“When your instinct is to protect yourself, it is not a choice.”

He reached a hand down to help him up.

“You did not lose the competition, my friend,” Bendu laughed as he walked away back up the
stairs to the clinic, leaving Carter to shake the sand from his pants. “There was no
competition to lose—the instinct to protect yourself is not a choice.”

Before Bendu’s words could sink in, Gillian was in front of him.

“John, do you think this is a good idea—to let Mr. Nyobi fly Luka to Kisangani?”

“Yes, I’ll look after him. You drive back with Debbie and meet us at the hospital.”

Gillian looked at the ground and sniffled a bit.

“He’s going to be okay, Gillian. Don’t worry.”

Carter followed Bendu back into the rickety building. They gathered their belongings and
placed Luka on a primitive stretcher—nothing more than a sheet woven around two wooden
poles. They carried him half a kilometer through the grass to the piece of land least covered
by foliage and thus deemed “the airstrip.” The single-engine plane engine sputtered, and
soon they were airborne and on their way to the outskirts of Kisangani, where Carter’s recent
journey had begun.

BACK AT THE hospital, Abby’s eyes opened at dawn. It was not the first time she had
awoken since she went to bed the night before. The time difference, impulsiveness of the
journey, and the unfamiliar bed took their toll—as did the heat. So she found herself out of
bed many times during the night and seized the opportunity to hand-wash her few articles of
 clothing in the tiny bathroom sink. Several times during the night, she stared outside the
door of her bungalow and raised the courage to run at full speed through the darkness over
to the hospital to check on the baby. She wasn’t confident that anybody would feed her,
change her, or hold her when she needed it.

This morning when Abby arrived at the makeshift nursery, she found the baby awake and
fidgeting badly in the arms of Damon Albrecht.

“Ahhh. I think she wants you,” he said, and he handed Abby the infant.

Abby took her, and immediately the emptiness of the long night disappeared.

“So what have you decided to call her?”

“I can’t—really, I can’t.”

“Please.”

“I shouldn’t . . .”

“Yes, you should.”

“It’s not right.”

“Not right? What’s not right is that a living soul shouldn’t have a name because of the
misfortune of being born an orphan.”

Abby thought about his words. He made sense.

“Well, her mother’s name was Nicolette . . .”

“Wasn’t very lucky for her though, was it?”

“No, but it would be nice for a daughter to keep part of her mother with her. How about
just . . . Colette?”

“Baby Colette, nice to meet you.”

At first, Abby wasn’t even sure she liked the name. But as she looked at the infant, she
thought it suited her well—it was dainty and feminine yet not so cute as to be weak.

“Colette,” Abby repeated, rocking her.

“I thought I would find you here—I have news.”

“News?”

“About your friend, Luka Kovac. The team the Alliance dispatched found him yesterday—
alive. We heard from one of the contractors via radio during the trauma yesterday. I’m sorry
the message sat until this morning.”

Abby was elated, and her eyes smiled as widely as her mouth. “How? What?”

“Dr. Kovac was working at the clinic in Matenda. There was a lot of fighting in the area, and
the clinic was abandoned, but Kovac remained with a handful critical patients who couldn’t
be moved. Apparently, there was firefight that damaged the clinic. The Alliance hired a team
to dig through the debris. They recovered three bodies—a woman and two children—and
they found Dr. Kovac, who survived. The contractor radioed yesterday that he’ll airlift Kovac
here to the hospital today.”

It was just like Luka to stay with the critical patients. Anger at him fought with her
admiration, while relief spread through her body.

“I thought you might like to know,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“When you’re through here, Abigail, I need temps and pressures on all the new ones in the
ward.”

“Sure—but . . . uhhh . . . Damon? Was there . . . anyone else . . . with Luka when he was
found?” Abby asked tentatively.

“Not that I know of. The message just said the contractor found him and would fly him in.”

She gave him a quick tight-lipped smile, and he left. She was alone again with the baby. She
liked it that way—even though the infant’s soft smell and even softer skin made her think of
Carter whether she wanted to or not. It was a strange uncontrollable feeling—strongest when
the baby was hungry, and Abby could feel the tickles of her tiny mouth and little soft tongue
against her neck or shoulder or chest. Abby’s anger at Carter waned a little every hour
simply because it was replaced by worry. He was still out there out looking for Luka. She was
sure he wouldn’t stop until he found him. He could be relentless that way.

THE MILITARY POLICE snatched Eric from under her eyes, and she was helpless to do
anything but watch. What was worse—Eric blamed her. Worse than that—he was right. But
Abby could see his illness building. She knew he was sick, just like Maggie. And she needed
to find where they took him. She got a flight to his Air Force base near Omaha, Nebraska,
and left directly from work. She didn’t know how to negotiate a military installation, but as it
turned out, she would have help. Carter, who had a shift he couldn’t switch, asked Michael
Gallant to accompany Abby. Gallant was an officer in the Army as well as a med student and
could help her by “speaking the lingo” to the other military folk.

As they walked to the taxi, Abby asked Carter to pack a bag with a few things for her before
he met her in Nebraska the next morning. She needed a few T-shirts and also some
underwear. She was careful to caution him to “pull from the top” where she kept her
“respectable” undergarments. Of course, the discussion evoked thoughts of the silky things
she kept on the bottom, which he forced out of his mind.

A sweet hug, and she was off. He’d have to memorize what she felt like for a night. He
slapped the roof of the taxi, signaling they were ready to move, and he watched as the cab
pulled away—just in time for the first snowflakes of the season to fall. And they fell and fell
and fell until the next morning. The city awoke under a blanket of white. The trains and
planes stayed tucked in an extra day, and the pilots rolled over and went back to sleep.

When she arrived in Nebraska, she found Eric—and Maggie—and sent Gallant on his way.
She stayed behind to struggle with Eric, suddenly on the inside of bipolar disorder, and
Maggie, suddenly not.

How lucky could she be? She sat on the steps of the military facility, and he surprised her by
driving up in a rented car despite all the talk of snowed-in Chicago. A smile of disbelief
crossed her face. He was so pleased with himself that his surprise worked. He walked over to
her. She stood on the step where she had been sitting, which put her face to face with him,
though he normally towered over her. She hesitated a minute and just looked at him, and
then slipped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly. He couldn’t stop smiling.
She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder, grateful for his friendly face in the
line of enemy fire. She held on tight and didn’t let go until she heard Maggie’s voice over her
shoulder.

“John!”

They pulled away from each other at the sound of his name. It hurt a little.

“How are you, Maggie?” He kissed Abby’s mother on the cheek as she approached him on
the stairs. ”You’re looking very well.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said and turned to her daughter. “Abby, I got us a
room at the Holiday Inn just outside the base.”

Maggie looked at Carter.

“It was nice of you to come for Abby, John.”

“I’m sorry that Eric’s having a rough time now,” he answered.

“Thank you. Look, John, why don’t I call back and get a room for you, too, while Abby fills
you in.”

“That’ll be good, Maggie.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Abby said.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

When she was gone, Carter and Abby resumed their hug. She told of her frustration in his
ear.

“Eric’s sick, Carter, and he knows it, and he’s mad at me for seeing it.”

He pulled away to look at her. “It’s going to be hard for him now. You think they’ll Court
Marshal him?”

“No, they’ll probably discharge him, though, on the condition that he gets treatment,” she
explained and then turned the subject to him. “How did you get a flight?”

He looked at her with a smirk. “I didn’t.”

“Then how—” She thought a minute. “Did you drive all the way from Chicago?”

“The highways were pretty clear. Once I got out of Illinois, there was hardly any snow. Only
took about eight or nine hours.”

“Only eight or nine hours?”

He tilted his head from side to side meaning more or less.

“How much more?”

“Never mind. I got here. That’s all that matters.”

Perhaps another woman would have smothered him with kisses and cried at the beautiful
gesture. Not Abby. She looked at him with wide eyes, forever surprised at any kind gesture
someone presented her with—even Carter.
 Later, when Maggie was asleep, she slipped out of the sliding glass doors of their second-
story motel room and rendezvoused with Carter on their adjoining balconies. She sat on a
patio chair and recounted how Gallant struggled to cajole superior officers out of information.
How Eric refused to see her. How she couldn’t get clear information from the Air Force
attorneys and doctors. And of course, she told him of Maggie.

Carter sat on the wooden wall separating their balconies, his legs dangling a bit. He listened
to her every word.

“You must be exhausted,” she said finally. She got up and stepped between his legs and
wound her arms around his waist. “Thank you for coming,” she whispered against his chest.

He whispered back, “You’re welcome.” He pulled her close against him, stroked her hair, and
kissed the top of her head. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

He would have walked the 500 miles.

“You’d better get some rest,” she ordered and pulled away.

“Okay. I brought your bag, by the way. I’ll get it for you. It’s out in the car.” He spun his
legs around and dropped onto his side of the wall. “Meet me out front.”

He went back in his room, grabbed his keys, and met her a few minutes later at the front
door of the room she shared with Maggie.

“Thanks,” she said. As she reached for the blue canvas bag, he reached for her wrist and
pulled her outside the room with him onto the second-story walkway. He stepped backward
until he was up against the railing overlooking the motel parking lot. He lifted her wrist up to
his shoulder—she didn’t need any more coaxing after that. She lifted her other hand until
both her arms encircled his neck, and she gave him what he wanted—a proper good-night
kiss. She leaned her whole body against him. As they kissed, he clutched her tightly. With
her arms up around his neck, her shirt lifted and he rested his hands up under the material.
He caressed the skin on her back and the curve of her waist, tickling her slightly. She let her
head fall back and her eyes drift closed, and the tension waned from her body.

“Abby?”

It was Maggie’s voice.

“Abby is that you out there?” She yelled from her bed inside the motel room.

Carter had to lean his head all the way back to pull his lips away from Abby’s. She wouldn’t
let go.

“Your mom’s calling you,” he informed her.

“I know.” And she reached up to reconnect with his lips.

“Abby!” Maggie yelled this time.

He pulled his head away and laughed. “Aren’t you going to answer her?”

“No.” And she stood on her tiptoes to make up the distance between her mouth and his.

“Abby, come on,” he said, only half teasing. “Answer her.”

She let out a big sigh. “Yes, Mom. It’s me.”

 “Abby the door’s open, and it’s chilly. Don’t you think it’s chilly?”

“I’ll be in a minute!” Abby answered, feeling 16 years old. She aimed for his mouth again.

“Oh. Hello, John,” Maggie appeared at the door, tying her bathrobe.

“Hi, Maggie,” he said, righting himself after leaning on the railing and releasing Abby’s arms
from around his neck. “I brought Abby a bag of some things she may need . . . from
home . . . from her home . . . from Chicago . . . just things . . . things she may need.” Carter
suddenly felt awkward as Maggie took on the mother role, and Abby smiled at this side of
him she’d never seen.

Maggie smiled. “That was nice of you, John. I’m sorry I didn’t know you were out here with
Abby. I thought she came out for a cigarette. She still has that nasty habit, you know.”

“Okay, Mom! I’ll be right in.” She rolled her eyes, and Carter caught it.

“Good-night, John. Thank you again for coming.” She flashed him a charming smile that he
returned.

Maggie closed the door.

“I’d better go in and keep an eye on her.”

“She seems like she’s doing well.”

“We’ll see.”

Carter noticed that Abby did not seem comfortable with her mother medicated and rational.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. He kissed her forehead and touched the tip of her nose
with his finger.

“Good-night.”

“Hey,” he said to get her attention as she reached for the doorknob to her room. She looked
over at him.

His eyes lingered on hers a moment, and then he reminded her, “I’m here if you need me.”

Now she was the one to flash the pretty smile. She wanted so much to sleep next to him that
night, but the other side of the wall would have to do.

Maggie quickly fell asleep again on one of the two full-size beds in the fairly large rectangular
room. Abby turned out the lights, and the room was bathed in the gray-blue light of the
television screen. She took the bag Carter brought and tiptoed into the bathroom. She
flicked on the light, turned the water on in the shower, set the bag on the toilet, and opened
it. He did as he promised and packed her a few T-shirts and underwear—respectable white
and pink cotton numbers, as she asked. But at the bottom of the bag she noticed a plain
manila envelope—the type in which you’d find business correspondence. Only this one was
filled with something soft. She tore it open, and turned it over to empty the contents. Out
slid her lavender bra, the one with the tiny white satin butterfly between the dainty cups.
She shook a little harder, and out slid the matching panties and a slip of paper. It read:
“Oops. I pulled these from the bottom.”

ABBY HELD THE warm little baby close to her neck, her little round head in her right hand
and her little round bottom in her left. Abby kissed her soft small cheek and the infant
snuggled against her shoulder. Abby touched a little whisp of the baby’s hair with her
fingertips, closed her eyes, and spoke under her breath, “Where is he, Colette?”
 IT WAS DARK in the windowless rear cabin of the small cargo plane, which made it a
challenge for Carter to check Luka’s eyes and ears. Luka lay on a stretcher strapped tightly,
and Carter sat next to him on a wooden box. The rickety plane was small—a seat for the
pilot and one next to that. The rest of the plane was dark and empty, and the noise of the
engine made every word a shout.

Luka woke up about half an hour into the flight.

“I thought you left days ago,” he said, struggling to push out the words. His eyes were
barely open.

“I did,” Carter answered as he checked Luka’s pulse.

“Then what are you doing back?”

“A friend needed my help.”

Luka smiled. “I thought maybe you had a fight with Abby,” he teased.

“That, too.” Carter smiled, but Luka could see it hid something bitter.

“Call her,” Luka said.

“Lost my cell phone,” was Carter’s excuse.

“Don’t make a mistake, John. Call her.” Luka was serious this time.

Carter reached into his duffle bag and pulled out a pen-size flashlight to check Luka’s eyes.
Click. It didn’t light. Click, click. Nothing. Click, click, click. It wasn’t working. Yet suddenly,
Luka’s eyes were bathed in a bright, narrow strip of light. Carter looked to his side and
followed the light and saw the source was a small, round hole in the hull of the plane. At
first, it puzzled Carter, but in an instant, there was another hole just like it and another and
then another, another, and another. Until he realized the plane was being sprayed by bullets.

“Hey! They’re shooting at us!” Carter yelled to Bendu, who was piloting. He ducked to the
floor and covered his head with his arms. “Heyyyyyyy!”

ABBY SAT ON the edge of the bed of a 6-year-old boy and fed him water one spoonful at a
time as he recovered from surgery to remove a bullet from his neck. Then she took the
temperature of a woman being treated for a bacterial infection and dressed the wound of an
elderly man cut with a farming tool. In between her work in the ward, she scrubbed her
hands clean and spent every moment she could with Colette. She held her and changed her
cloth diaper and then washed the old one by hand in a kettle of hot water. She’d linger over
her feeding to play with her and watched her as she fell asleep in her arms. Abby thought
Colette got more beautiful with each passing hour as her newborn puffiness subsided. Her
skin stayed the color of coffee with lots and lots of cream. Her dark eyelashes were oddly
long for such tiny baby and they hid her unusually light eyes. Her sweet lips were the color
of cherries.

Abby was busy kissing Colette’s tiny hands when she heard a commotion outside.

She tucked her back in the makeshift crib. The baby was fully awake but in good humor, so
Abby was able to step away and see what the stir was all about.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” Bendu yelled to Carter.

“No holes, if that’s what you’re asking, ” Carter shouted back.

 “How is Dr. Kovac?”

“Out cold but in one piece,” Carter yelled back. “How’s the plane? I smell smoke.”

“I think the wing’s on fire,” Bendu said as he tried to peer out the side of the plane.

“We’ve got to land,” Carter yelled.

“We are almost at the hospital in Kisangani,” Bendu yelled to Carter. “Three kilometers or so.
I am going to try to keep us the air until then.”

“We’ve got to land NOW!” Carter voice was shaking with fear.

Bendu shouted back: “Believe me, you don’t want to be stuck in the jungle with a sick man
and a sick plane.”

Bendu struggled to keep the plane in the sky, but as the earth pulled it nearer, the plane
bumped into treetops.

“Dr. Carter, hold on!” Bendu yelled. “Hold on!”

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Abby asked as she came down the wooden steps of the hospital with
her arms folded across her chest. She walked out into the sun over to Albrecht. He and the
rest of the staff were outside looking skyward, their hands shielding their eyes from the sun.
Abby followed their gaze and her eyes fell upon the smoky injured plane in the sky.

The ambushed craft wafted along the trees struggling desperately to maintain altitude.

“Oh my God,” Abby gasped.

“It’s the plane from the clinic in Matenda, Abigail. Looks like it’s been hit,” Albrecht said and
put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Hit?” Abby asked, suddenly shivering despite the blistering sun.

“Fired on. Machine gun—turret-mounted probably. These plane don’t fly very high.”

“Luka,” Abby whispered to the air and took a few steps forward. She felt helpless as she
watched the aircraft sail through the sky like a paper plane.

Albrecht yelled over to some of the men watching with them. “We’re going to need stretchers
for the pilot and Dr. Kovac.” And they ran inside at his orders.

They all watched as the plane dropped from the sky about a kilometer from where they
stood. And when it fell, Abby’s heart fell, too. All was still, hearts stopped, breathing ceased.
And then in a moment an explosion could be heard, muted by the dense jungle but identified
by the large plume of smoke and fire that trailed up to the sky.

“Come on!” Albrecht yelled and the whole staff followed him and ran toward the crash site,
including Abby.

Albrecht stopped, grabbed Abby’s arm, and pulled her back. “No, Abigail, stay here with the
patients.”

“No!” she yelled, anxious to get to Luka.

“Abigail stay here!”

 “You’re going to need help!”

“Somebody needs to watch these patients.”

“But I want to—”

“Stay here with Colette . . . please.”

He looked deep in her eyes and gripped her wrist tightly. He breathed deeply, and the scar
that ran from his hairline to the corner of his eye grew a darker shade of red. She nodded
and obeyed and just watched as they ran over brush and grass and through the trees toward
the plume of smoke.

Abby walked back into the main ward shivering. She crossed her arms hard across her chest
to keep herself from shaking. And as she walked toward the back of the long ward, each
patient to the left and right of her lifted their head and followed her with their eyes as she
passed them. They were all curious about the commotion and frightened by the absence of
personnel in the already sparsely staffed hospital.

When she reached the end of the long row of beds she turned around and began checking
I.V.’s one by one, but she saw the patients’ nervous faces and stammered through an
explanation.

“An airplane . . . it crashed.” She said to her captive audience.

“They were flying a patient—a doctor—who was sick.”

Her English puzzled them.

She spread her arms like the wings of a plane.

“But they shot at the plane. Pow, pow.” She made the sound of the gun and they all noticed
her shaky voice and watery eyes.

“ . . . and the plane came down.” She grabbed an emesis basin, held it up, and let it drop to
the floor with a crash.

They understood.

She let no tears fall in front of the patients—people who had far more misfortune than she.
But she struggled to hold them back and contorted her face to contain them so she could
attend to the patients. And as she adjusted the I.V. on an elderly woman, the patient
reached up and took Abby’s hand and bid her not to cry, “Ne pas pleurer, cher.”

Abby was touched by the gesture, but the woman’s kindness only served to release her sobs.
With the ward quiet, Abby excused herself and went into the makeshift nursery and saw
Colette had fallen into a peaceful sleep. Abby knew she shouldn’t disturb her, but she picked
up the infant and woke her nonetheless. The baby squealed at first and then began to shriek.
She locked her tiny knees in protest and flexed her heels. She waved her quivering arms in
fury. Knowing no one could hear her over the baby’s wails, Abby cried, too. Far from home in
uncomfortable heat with horrible food surrounded by dying patients, an orphaned baby, and
Luka likely dead—again: It was all too much for her—especially since Carter was nowhere in
sight. When did it happen? When did she grow accustomed to leaning on him? She couldn’t
remember. All she knew was that she needed him now.

As she soothed the baby, Abby comforted herself: “Shhhhh. It’s going to be okay.
Everything’s going to be all right.”
Colette quieted down and fell back to sleep in Abby’s arms. She tucked her into the bed just
as shouts approached the building. She went to the door and was met by two young men
carrying a stretcher. Angelique was behind. “Bring the pilot to the trauma room,” she said to
the men. Abby stepped aside to let them pass.

Behind Angelique, Guillaume, the driver who picked her up at the airport along with Albrecht
and Claire, carried a stretcher with the help of another young man. On the stretcher was
Luka.

“Put him in the isolation ward,” Angelique told Guillaume. It was the little room off the main
ward with its own separate entrance courtesy of a broken screen door.

“Luka,” Abby whispered when she saw him. He was unconscious, unshaven, and bruised—a
far cry from the handsome, well-groomed doctor she dated for a year.

“He’s okay,” Angelique said. The pilot said he was under the rubble of the damaged clinic for
a couple of days. He’s dehydrated and banged up. But he was strapped down tight and the
pilot managed to drag him out.

Abby mouthed, “Oh, my God.”

Explanations over with, Angelique began barking orders, and everyone obeyed.

“Abby, I need some 5-0 silk for the pilot’s forehead and mwah bwah mah mwah wah . . . ”

Angelique’s voice became a muffled swirl of sound in Abby’s mind as something caught her
eye outside the doors of the main ward. She watched carefully and tilted her head curiously.
She caught sight of Albrecht approaching the wooden stairs of the hospital. His knees
struggled to manage the weight of a man in his arms.

“Get me a stretcher!” Albrecht yelled. “He’s not conscious, and he’s got a chest lac.”

Abby’s feet were stuck to the floor and wouldn’t let her move. She studied the picture
carefully, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. But when Albrecht reached the top
step, her fears were confirmed, and a wave of nausea flushed over her: The man Damon
Albrecht carried in his arms was Carter, and the “chest lac” was a deep and bloody gash over
his heart.

He fell out of the sky.