CHAPTER 4
Mary looked at the family in front of her, taking in the look on their faces. She would see grief clearly etched in every line and sorrow like a flag. They looked like they had lost everything and had nothing left.
“Good day,” she said.
“Yes?” the older woman asked.
“I’m sorry, can I come in? I’m not going to take much of your time. I have something to give you,”
The woman shoulders rose and fell.
“Okay, come in,”
Mary followed her inside the house and stood, waiting to be told to sit. She did not want to seem rude, and it was their house.
“Please, sit,” the son told her.
Nodding, Mary took a chair.
“I’m really sorry for coming when this clearly looks like a bad time but I have news to tell you. I think you would want to hear it.”
“Okay?” the father asked.
“I worked in the war as a volunteer nurse. My job brought me close to many people who were either gravelly injured or dying. I nursed some back to health and some, just couldn’t make it. I had a patient that got hit by a canon and was brought in. I treated him a couple of times and thought he would recover but he caught an infection which we had no sufficient means to treat at that time and…and he passed away. I was the nurse who was with your son till he took his last breath,” Mary said, her voice solemn.
“Oh. Oh, you were with him,” the older woman repeated, her voice breaking with every word.
“I remember him because he was one of the best patients I ever had. When he was brought in, we told him that we had to amputate his right arm to save his life. To my surprise, he took it with so much calm and said we had to do what was needed to save his life because he wanted to be able to go home and see his family.” Mary looked at the mother “He talked about how he missed you fussing over him, your meals and seeing you smile.”
She turned to the father.
“He talked about how he missed your stern lectures and advices you gave.” Then she turned to the brother, “He talked about you the most. He said you had gone off to school far away and he missed you the most. He told me about the good times he had with you and how much he wanted to see you again.”
“He said all that?” the mother asked, tears pouring down her face. Mary nodded and tried to smile a little. “He talked about all of you everyday, wrote letters that he planned to give to each of one of you when the war finally ended. He talked about how the war had changed everything and how he hoped everyday that he would come back and meet his folks in one piece. If there was one thing I learnt from Johnny, it was that he loved his family.”
“He did”
“When we found out that we could not treat the infection fast enough to save his life, we told him that there was no hope. He was the kind of person that wanted to know how things were without any pretense. I knew he was devastated, all he wanted was to see all of you and each day as he became more delirious, he asked for a paper and pen to write. Some days what he wrote was barely legible and some times he would tear up the papers. But, he kept writing. He told me he had to say something to his family. Tell them one last time how much he loved them.
Two days before he died, he told me to write a letter for him. He made me promise to give that letter to his family once the war ended. I get requests like that from many soldiers but Johnny’s request was one I could not refuse,” Mary explained. Then she reached into her bag and brought out the well faded and worn letter that she had carried for months. “This is the letter he asked me to give you.”
Mary stretched it out to the mother who collected it, tears in her eyes. Looking at her read the letter, Mary felt it all over again. The pain that had sunk her heart when Johnny had caught the infection, the rage she had struggled to confine when she realized that they could do nothing to help him, the utter helplessness she had seen in his eyes after he had fought tooth and nail to hang on , the bleak expression on the other nurses faces as they watched him fade away, the bodies that had been carried out of the medical tent everyday; people who had wanted to go home to their families, men who had just gotten married to their sweethearts, boys who had joined the war because they thought it was the right thing and who the war had changed to men.
She thought about the smile she had to wear on her face each day as she tried to give people hope, the tears she shed in secret when the others were not looking, the bile she had learnt to swallow as she saw gruesome wounds and blood in every corner.
She also thought about Johnny. He had been the best patient, like a burst of fresh air when everything was bleak and gloomy. He had come into the tent with a smile on his face and had kept that smile on each day till his end. Everyone had loved him- it was hard not to love a person who had joked and laughed and made every volunteer medical personnel attending to the injured smile.
Johnny had come to them and had given them hope. Unfortunately, they could not keep his hope alive. Mary felt her heart race hard and tears ran down her face freely.
“I’m sorry I could not save him. I tried all I could, but it just wasn’t enough,” Mary said quietly.
“It was not your fault. I’m sure you did everything you could. Thank you,” the older woman said.
“You could have done something to save him, I refuse to believe that there was nothing you could do,” Mary heard the older brother say.
“I refused to believe that there was nothing we could do to help him, so I tried every means possible. Believe me when I say if I could have given a part of me to keep him alive, I would have done it,” Mary replied. She could understand the brother’s denial and refusal to believe her. If it had been her brother or someone she loved, she would have her doubts.
But it was true, she had tried everything, every drug they had, but nothing had worked.
“You could have saved him,” the elder brother stood up ,” You are a nurse, trained to help people that are sick. You could have saved him, done something. You are here because of the guilt you feel for not doing your best. I bet you took one look at him and wrote him off, going to some other person.
How many other people did you leave to die?!” His voice was rising ,” How many people did you let die? Answer me!”
“Joel, sit down! You will not talk to her like that. She went to the war to help people and I’m sure she did all she could for Johnny. You will not stand here and accuse her of leaving your brother to die,” his father ordered.
“You really believe she wanted to help him? They had no obligation to keep them alive, none at all. Johnny was vibrant, active and full of life. And you knew his as well as I did. He was not the kind of person to just give up like that!”
“I…l,” Mary’s voice was breaking, “I did everything to save him, you have to believe me.”
“Why then did you come?” he asked her.
“I came because Johnny asked me to give you a letter. It was the last letter he wrote before he died,” Mary explained.
“When you came here, you said it yourself. He wasn’t the only one that gave you a letter to give his family. You had others, many at their dying moment, give you things to give the people they had left behind. What makes Johnny’s letter better or different?”
“I don’t know how to explain Johnny to you. He brought life to us where we had dead and dying people all around. He made us have hope, hope that what we were doing was not in vain. You should know better than I do that Johnny was the kind of person you could not easily forget.”
Mary looked at him and willed him in her mind to believe him, but she saw in his eyes that he was not going to.
CHAPTER 5Joel refused to believe that the woman sitting down had tried all she could to save his brother. She was here because of guilt, nothing more.The Johnny he knew would have fought hard to stay alive but he also knew that the amount of people they must have treated everyday would be more than the nurses and doctors could handle. She would have taken one look at his brother, looked at other patients around and left him there.The only thing he could not answer was why she wanted him to believe so bad. Well, he would not. He would not believe her lies or allow his parents to believe the same thing too.“What is your qualification?” he asked her. She must have been a novice without any experience except from the ones she learnt during the war. Maybe she had given Johnny the wrong vaccine.“Excuse me?” Mary asked him.“What is your qualification? Your level of experience? Did you go to any
CHAPTER 6.Mary stared at the door as Joel slammed it behind him and felt tears well up in her eyes. How could he not believe her that she had done her best? She still carried the guilt- it haunted her every day since Johnny died, blaming herself even when she knew it wasn’t her fault for not being able to save him. She had almost given up nursing after his death, too consumed by grief to continue, but the realization that there were others she could save had kept her working. She had worked harder than ever, refusing to rest, in a bid to tip the scales in favor of the soldiers who survived.Shaking, she placed her hands on both sides of the chair and lowered herself into the seat, not trusting her legs to keep her standing.
CHAPTER 7.Joel paced around his room, clenching his fingers in frustration and running his hand through his hair. He’d tried to get down to work, sorting out his medical journals, without much success. It was the sixth time he had tried to read the journal, or do much of anything today, and every attempt had failed. His mind had either wandered off, leaving him staring at his illegible writing when he realized it, or a memory of the past with his brother had flashed before his eyes, leaving him tired, angry, and frustrated all at the same time.The cloud of grief that had descended over his family had not left, and he could see it in his mother's eyes when s
CHAPTER 7.Joel paced around his room, clenching his fingers in frustration and running his hand through his hair. He’d tried to get down to work, sorting out his medical journals, without much success. It was the sixth time he had tried to read the journal, or do much of anything today, and every attempt had failed. His mind had either wandered off, leaving him staring at his illegible writing when he realized it, or a memory of the past with his brother had flashed before his eyes, leaving him tired, angry, and frustrated all at the same time.The cloud of grief that had descended over his family had not left, and he could see it in his mother's eyes when s
CHAPTER 8Mary woke up clutching her bedsheets. Coming to terms with her environment, she sighed and got up from the bed. It was way before dawn, but she knew that going back to bed and trying to sleep was futile.Sleep had eluded her for the months since she had returned home. It was a routine she was used to- going to bed late, waking several times during the night, and eventually abandoning the idea of going back to sleep.She quietly walked into the kitchen, hoping to at least get something to eat. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well do something else, and food was what held the most appeal to her.She opened the plate that was covered on the table and saw the sandwich her mother had made the night before, but she hadn’t had enough appetite to eat. Who knew food could look so much better when you couldn't sleep?"Mary." Her mother's voice startled her, and she promptly dro
CHAPTER 9Joel looked outside the eastern window of his office and sighed. The view never ceased to amaze him. It was therapeutic- soothing and calm. It was also a place where he knew he could be himself without worrying about the ghosts of the past.He had moved to Cherry Springs, California, a month ago under the recommendation of a doctor he had met after he realized he could no longer sit at home without giving his folks much to worry about. And he hadn't had a chance to regret it, not one day.At the crack of dawn, he took a walk each day, taking in the scenery and clearing his mind. The wide-open prairie and the view of the mountains held him spellbound every time. He would breathe it all in for a couple of minutes and begin his daily walk to a river he had stumbled on the first week he’d moved here.He would stand by the river and watch it flow, admire its simplicity, and feel the tension the previous day had
CHAPTER 10Mary picked up the newspaper and flipped through it. She wasn't interested in its contents, but it gave her something to do instead of dwelling on her thoughts.She briefly read some of the columns, was convinced that there was nothing in it, and was about to close it when she saw it.Opening the paper fully, she took a second look at what had grabbed her attention. It was an advertisement placed in one of the middle sections. However, it wasn't the fact that it was an ad that piqued her curiosity. It was what the ad specified. A doctor urgently needed a female nurse with experience.Well, she was a nurse, and one with a lot of experience. Checking further, she saw that the address was in California. She had heard things about California- about the sights and much more. It was one of those places she had dreamed about settling in before the war began. This could be her opportunity to move there finally.
CHAPTER 11Joel handed his patient a small bag that contained all she would need to take for her medications."Thanks, Doc."No problem. Just keep that foot away from sharp things next time," Sam admonished."Oh, I will do my best," the woman answered with a smile, her husband's hands around her waist as he supported her into the coach."And don't forget to come back later in the week so I can take another look at it. Okay?""Will do, Doctor," her husband answered.Joel nodded and walked back into his clinic, well aware that dusk was fast approaching. Today had been another hectic day. He neatly arranged his medical tools, rechecked the records to see that he had administered the right treatments to the right persons, and noted down in the notebook he carried around with him the names of the patients he needed to see on his way home.Satisfied that everything was in place, he locked the doo