Falling Again in El Salvador Read online

  You wanted to get back to basics, she reminded herself.

  And now you’re getting what you asked for. At least it’s just a two-mile hike. With aching muscles and a touch of sleep deprivation. While carrying a giant backpack that contains all your worldly possessions.

  With a sigh, she eased the backpack onto her shoulders and began to hike down the road toward Miraflores.

  * * *

  Bryce Hamlin could see that the baby was breech.

  He’d suspected as much. He’d been monitoring Mrs. Martinez’s pregnancy closely ever since she’d arrived at the medical outpost several months ago with her family, all of whom had been suffering from malaria. Mr. Martinez had not survived. Mrs. Martinez and her ten-year-old son, Manuel, had recovered, but she had been six-months pregnant at the time and Bryce knew that a hard pregnancy could often mean a dangerous birth.

  So he wasn’t entirely surprised when the camp medical director, Enrique Garcia, told him that Mrs. Martinez had gone into labor and that the midwife needed his help. Enrique had stopped Bryce just as he was readying his motorcycle for the trip through the rain forest to pick up the new obstetrician, who should be waiting at the Miraflores bus stop and who was probably already wondering where he was.

  As Bryce came into the main birthing tent, one of the midwives, Anna, met him with a nod. “We’re having a rough start,” she said. “She’s fully dilated, but labor isn’t progressing. I’m still not certain about a natural birth. A C-section could help to avoid complications.”

  Bryce nodded. A C-section might be necessary, but he wanted to avoid one if at all possible. Without the luxury of equipment such as ultrasound machines or fetal heart monitors, a cesarean birth could create as many risks as it prevented.

  Right on cue, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor flared across his hands, reminding him that a lack of modern medical equipment wasn’t the only risk factor. He forced himself to ignore the tremor and focused on assessing the position of the baby’s head and back. He placed his hands on Mrs. Martinez’s abdomen, relieved that she seemed to feel calm.

  “You couldn’t just wait for me to get back with the new obstetrician, could you, Mrs. Martinez?” he teased.

  She smiled back at him. “You’ve taken such good care of my family since we arrived here. I guess this little one wants you as its doctor, too.”

  It was all too easy to feel the baby’s position through Mrs. Martinez’s thin skin: a frank breech position, the baby was ready to make its way into the world buttocks-first. He was needed here. The new doctor, whoever they were, would just have to wait a little longer.

  “We’ll try a little longer for a natural delivery,” he told Anna and Mrs. Martinez. “But let’s all be ready in case we have to do a C-section.”

  As Mrs. Martinez pushed with each contraction, Bryce patiently waited for the baby’s bottom half to emerge. Anna stood at Mrs. Martinez’s head, glancing worriedly at Bryce from time to time, but Bryce continued to wait, letting Mrs. Martinez and the baby do most of the work. Despite the risks involved in a breech birth, he knew the baby’s best chances lay in practicing immense patience at the start of labor, even when every instinct clamored for him to do something. In this baby’s case, the best thing he could do was wait.

  His trust was rewarded as the baby’s hindquarters slowly began to emerge. Bryce gently pulled out the baby’s legs and grabbed the towel that Anna handed him.

  “It’s a girl,” Anna whispered to Mrs. Martinez, whose face was a mix of pain, joy and exhaustion.

  Bryce wrapped the towel around the baby’s body and began to pull gently along with the contractions, first helping the baby’s left shoulder be born, then the entire left arm.

  Now for the tricky part.

  He slowly rotated the baby in a 180-degree circle. With the baby still facing downward, he felt for the baby’s cheekbones with his fingers. There—he could just rest his fingers on the baby’s cheeks for leverage.

  Bryce nodded at Anna. “Now,” he said.

  Anna placed her hand on Mrs. Martinez’s abdomen and pressed down while Bryce pulled, and suddenly a procedure that had been happening very slowly became very fast—the baby’s head shot out into the world, Bryce found himself holding a very slippery and squirmy bundle and the baby filled her lungs and gave a full-throated cry, announcing her arrival.

  Now for the best part.

  Bryce swaddled the baby in the towel he’d used to deliver her and placed her in Mrs. Martinez’s waiting arms. It was a sight that never got old—a new life coming into the world, a parent gazing into a newborn’s eyes for the first time.

  “Congratulations, Mrs. Martinez,” he said. “You both did great.”

  Mrs. Martinez was able to spare him a quick glance and a smile before she turned her gaze back to the bundle in her arms. “I’m so glad you were here, Doctor,” she said, though her expression was wholly absorbed in the little one she held. “I knew we were never in any danger the whole time.”

  Bryce’s hands twitched. He’d lost track of time during the labor, and the tremor in his hands was always worse when he was fatigued.

  “I’ll let you two get to know each other,” he said, and stepped outside the birthing tent.

  * * *

  Outside, Bryce sat beneath a sturdy balsa tree and leaned his back against the trunk. He let out a long slow breath. His hands, the traitors, had stopped their trembling. They hardly ever shook now, but the tremors had a way of flaring up at the worst possible moments. He flexed and stretched his fingers. Taking a few minutes to calm himself before and after a procedure always helped to settle things down.

  Years ago, Bryce had been a talented surgeon, just one month away from completing his residency. He’d always dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon, performing operations on the brain and spinal cord. But with one wild swerve from a drunk driver on a highway, his life was changed forever. After the accident, hundreds of hours of physical therapy had allowed him to regain much of the control and flexibility in his fingers. But no amount of treatment could ever give him full recovery of his hands or stop the occasional tremor that flared through them. He’d never be able to work as a surgeon again.

  For a while, he’d thought his medical career was over. But then a mentor had recommended that he give up his career in neurosurgery and re-specialize in obstetrics. As an obstetrician, the risk of his hand tremor affecting his patients was negligible.

  It wasn’t quite as glamorous as neurosurgery. It didn’t provide the same excitement or thrill. But it offered other rewards. He’d been surprised to find how much he liked being able to form a connection between his patients and their families. Case in point, the small hands rummaging through the pockets of his white coat now, searching for chocolate.

  “There’s nothing in there, Manny,” he said, meeting the guilty eyes of a ten-year-old who’d been caught red-handed. “But I’ve brought you something even better today. You have a baby sister.”

  Manuel Martinez wrinkled his nose. “A sister? What am I supposed to do with a sister? Girls are boring.”

  “You might not always feel that way,” Bryce laughed.

  The wrinkle stayed in Manny’s nose. “Mother is going to name her Rosibel,” he said. “It means kind, sweet and beautiful.” The look he gave Bryce was full of disgust. “Can you believe it? The baby’s already a girl, and now she’s going to get a name that’s even girlier.”

  “It’s a pretty name, and very fitting,” said Bryce. “Have you seen her yet? She’s cute.”

  “I saw her,” said Manny in tones of great despondence. Bryce guessed that it might be some time before Manny let go of his hope for a little brother. “She can’t do very much.”

  “Well, she’s only a few minutes old. Your expectations might be a little high. You know, you couldn’t do very much, when you were born.”

  Manny gave Bryce a look indic
ating that despite his extreme skepticism, he would allow Bryce this illusion due to their deep friendship and mutual respect for one another. The boy had latched onto Bryce from the moment he’d arrived at the camp, and seemed to hero-worship him almost instantly. Bryce suspected that it was because Manny missed his father.

  Manny gazed intently at Bryce and said, “Dr. Bryce, I thought that only women doctors delivered babies.”

  “That’s simply not true,” said Bryce. “Any kind of doctor with the right training can deliver a baby. It’s a very important job.”

  Manny seemed to ponder this for a moment. “If we all start out as babies, then delivering them must be the most important job, because without doctors to deliver the babies, then there wouldn’t be any more people.”

  “Sounds like a fair argument.” Bryce would never admit aloud how much the boy’s words bolstered him. It wasn’t that he didn’t think an obstetrician’s work was every bit as important as a surgeon’s. It was simply that every so often he had to fight back a small nagging feeling that he wasn’t doing what he was meant to be doing. That obstetrics was a wonderful career, but ultimately, it was just a consolation prize. Most of his family and friends were surgeons, and although they had never said so outright, he couldn’t escape the feeling that they all secretly pitied his inability to be the exemplary surgeon he’d once been. It was one more reason to get out of New York. In El Salvador, no one cared about who he used to be. No one expected him to be Bryce Hamlin, superstar surgeon. Medicine International had given him a chance for a fresh start.

  “Will the new doctor who’s coming be a woman?”

  Bryce jumped up with a start and uttered something that made Manny bend over with laughter. “You have to put a coin in the camp swear jar, Dr. Bryce!”

  In all his concern over Mrs. Martinez, he’d completely forgotten that he’d been about to drive to the Miraflores bus stop to pick up the new doctor. Worse, it had never even occurred to him to tell anyone else that he hadn’t left as planned.

  And now the sun was dipping low on the horizon. Sunsets in El Salvador came fast. Fortunately, Bryce was pretty fast, too.

  He ran across the camp to where Enrique was loading boxes of malaria vaccine onto a small white delivery truck.

  “Enrique!” he yelled. “Did anyone pick up the new doc today?”

  “I thought you did,” Enrique said.

  “I was about to, but then Mrs. Martinez went into labor, and I lost track of time.”

  Enrique stopped loading the vaccines. “Then you’d better take the milk truck. You’ll never get back before dark, and you’ll need some cover after nightfall.”

  “I can get there faster on my bike.”

  Enrique shook his head. “You and that bike. I know it’s fast, but you seem to think it can perform miracles. Take the milk truck. We’re supposed to get rain tonight.”

  But Bryce was already rummaging through one of the camp’s outdoor storage trunks for a spare helmet. “The mountain villages need those vaccines,” he said. “You said yesterday they’re almost a week overdue.”

  “Then they can wait another day.”

  “Not an option,” Bryce replied as they headed toward his motorcycle, parked just a few feet away. “No reason to do one task when we can do both. What’s this new doctor’s name?”

  “I can’t remember. I took a look at her file this morning, but our internet’s been down all day and I can’t log into the system. Are you sure you won’t take the truck? It’s slow, but it’s reliable.”

  “My bike’s reliable!” Bryce said, mildly offended. The motorcycle was his pride and joy, and he maintained it with loving care. It had never broken down, exactly, but he did have to be careful of hidden stones and tree roots whenever he tore along the unmarked jungle road that led from the camp to wider civilization. “She’s already had to wait long enough. The least I can do is get there quickly.”

  Enrique looked at the sky, dubious. “And if it rains?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get back here before you know it. Meanwhile, you can take the truck out to the mountain towns and come back in the morning.” Bryce hopped astride the bike and snapped on a pair of heavy goggles in anticipation of the muddy road ahead. He started the engine and felt the thrill of anticipation that always came whenever he felt the motor thundering beneath him.

  “You’ll never make it back before nightfall,” Enrique shouted above the noise of the engine. He was still shouting as Bryce gunned the engine of his motorcycle and took off at top speed.

  * * *

  Cassie trudged along the road, trying to find a positive side to her situation. The long walk gave her a chance to stretch her cramped legs after so many hours of travel. And the cool breeze against her face felt energizing. It would have been easier to focus on the positive if the straps of her backpack weren’t digging into her shoulders quite so much, or if her feet weren’t quite so sore.

  Embrace the moment, she kept telling herself.

  But it was hard to embrace the soreness in her feet. She tried to focus on the birdsong in the air, but was quickly distracted by another noise: an engine.

  It sounded like a motorcycle engine. Even though it had been a long time since she’d ridden her own bike, she hadn’t lost her ear for engines. This one sounded very well maintained. Whoever was riding it knew something about motorcycles.

  The noise grew deafening as the driver burst from the rain forest on a very nice motorcycle, indeed. He was riding a Suzuki V-Strom 650, if she wasn’t mistaken. One of the best bikes for rugged, unpredictable terrain.

  As the rider pulled up beside her, his half-shaven face hidden by splattered mud and thick goggles, she allowed herself a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of such a beautiful machine. The body was powerfully built, gracefully compact and radiating an almost magnetic heat.

  The bike was nice, too.

  The rider simply sat next to her for a moment. Cassie felt as though he were staring, but she couldn’t read his expression—the goggles completely covered his eyes. Was this the ride she’d been waiting for?

  He cut the engine and eased his body off his motorcycle. He was six feet of lean, angular muscle. He wore a leather bomber jacket and jeans that hugged his thighs. And his clothes were streaked in mud. A shock of brown hair flopped over his forehead, which he pushed up as he casually lifted the goggles to the crown of his head, revealing deep-set brown eyes.

  Eyes that Cassie recognized: pools of tenderness in an angular face.

  Eyes she hadn’t seen in five years. Not since medical school.

  Eyes that belonged to...

  “Bryce?” she said, not prepared for the well of emotion that sprang to her voice.

  “Hey, Cass,” he said. “Sorry I’m late.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  CASSIE LOOKED THE SAME. The thought reverberated in Bryce’s mind as he tried to absorb the shock. Five years had passed since he’d seen her, and yet she looked exactly the same. Her blond wavy hair was chopped into a short bob, and there were faint thin lines around her blue eyes. But they were unmistakably Cassie’s blue eyes, and seeing them for the first time in five years sent the same jolt of electricity through him that he’d felt when they first met.

  Recovering from the accident that damaged his hands had been hard, but recovering from Cassie had felt almost impossible.

  And yet, somehow, he’d done it.

  When he’d found her brief note on his nightstand, he couldn’t believe she’d actually left. She was the first woman, the only woman, he’d ever been able to imagine a serious future with. He’d thought she wanted the same things he did: a life together, with the possibility of a family someday. Accepting that she hadn’t wanted that was like trying to accept a knife wound to the heart.

  At first he’d thought it was because of a decision they’d made that had led to disciplinary action for him
at the hospital. She’d pushed him to perform a risky surgery, and even though he’d known he would face censure from the hospital, he ultimately agreed with Cassie that the risk was worth it. Unfortunately, the hospital board didn’t see it that way, and he’d been denied his prestigious fellowship and placed on probation afterward. He’d known Cassie felt guilty about that, even though he had been the one to make the final decision. But the way she’d left—without even discussing it with him, just leaving a note and disappearing—made him realize that she wasn’t simply feeling guilty about a risk they’d taken together. No, it had to be more than that.

  Most likely, he’d been kidding himself about the depth of their relationship. Seeing what he wanted to see instead of what was actually there.

  The more he’d thought about it, the more that had made sense. Cassie’s boldness, the fearlessness with which she approached life, had been what attracted him to her at first. His own parents, both surgeons themselves, had been extremely overprotective. They’d seen countless trauma cases in the ER, and were always warning him of ways he could get hurt. Cassie, adventurous and unafraid of taking risks, had been a breath of fresh air. But the way she left had made him wonder if she’d ever really cared about him at all. Or if she was simply attracted to the excitement of their clandestine affair. Dating between medical students and residents was forbidden, after all. Their whole relationship had probably just been another thrill for her.

  Her note had asked him not to call. And so he hadn’t. Not even when, a few months later he’d been hit by that drunk driver. He’d spent years trying to put the accident and the breakup behind him. In El Salvador, he’d finally been able to piece together a life that wasn’t overshadowed by anyone’s expectations of who he used to be.

  With Cassie standing in front of him now, a ghost from his past, he wanted to turn his motorcycle in the opposite direction and drive away. But he also found himself gripped by a perverse desire to gather her into his arms and feel the crush of her lips against his again.