Joan Kilby - Child of Her Dreams

Ben gave the mother several packets of electrolytic solution. “Mix with boiled water,” he said, miming what she was meant to do with them. “Baby drink.”

She nodded again, then wrapped her baby and placed him in a colorful woven sling across her back. With a grateful smile that needed no words to be understood, she took her leave. From the doorway Ben watched her bare feet squelch through mud till she got to the hard-packed dirt road on a journey of perhaps many miles to her village.

Turning, he glanced at his watch, and his spirits lifted when he saw that the bus from Guatemala City would arrive soon. Eddie, his younger brother, had just finished his internship and at Ben’s urging was going to replace him here at the clinic funded by International Médicos.

Ben strolled through the narrow streets lined with two-story adobe houses to meet the bus, greeting villagers with a smile and a wave, sometimes pausing to ask after a sick relative. Underlying his eagerness to return to the United States was a sense of loss at the prospect of leaving the town and its people behind.

The gray clouds building overhead distracted him from the excitement of seeing Eddie. July was smack in the middle of the rainy season, and this year had been unusually wet. Ben’s main concern was the mosquitoes the river bred and the diseases they carried—malaria and dengue fever. But there were other dangers. The river was already high and threatening to flood its banks.

The bus arrived in a festive blare of marimba music spilling through open windows and lurched to a halt outside the cantina. Passengers spilled out. Ben searched the assemblage—Mayan Indians, Ladinos, backpacking travelers—and the odd goat—for his brother.

Eddie stepped off at last, dazed, his arms wrapped around a duffel bag and a backpack slung over his shoulders. His blond hair was mussed and his clothes wrinkled, as though he’d slept in them, which Ben knew he probably had.

“Eddie, over here,” Ben called, striding toward him.

Eddie saw him and dropped his duffel bag in the dirt so that Ben could embrace him in a fierce hug.

“Great to see you, buddy,” Ben said, leaving one arm draped over his brother’s shoulder. “How was the trip?”

“Interesting.” Eddie pulled a downy chicken feather from his hair. He looked at it, then at Ben, and grinned. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

“Believe it, bro.” He ruffled his brother’s hair. “Better cut that mop or you’ll find worse than chicken feathers in there.”

“Oh, yeah?” Eddie punched him in the ribs. “What’s with the face rug? Wait’ll Mom sees that.”

Ben stroked his carefully clipped mustache-and-goatee combo, smiling through his fingers. “I kind of like it. Gives me a certain polish, don’t you think?”

He picked up the duffel bag and started walking to the clinic, weaving through rusted-out cars, bicycles, mule-drawn carts and pedestrians. “How are Mom and Dad? Did you get to Austin to see them before you left?”

“Yep. They send their love. They’re looking forward to having you Stateside again, but aren’t too happy with you for dragging me down to this mountain wilderness.”

Ben gazed around him, at the Spanish colonial architecture, the Mayans in their colorful native dress, the pine-covered Sierra Madre. “I’ll never forget my stint here. It’s been a fantastic experience that I wanted to share with you.”

“I’m not complaining,” Eddie said. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“Dr. Ben! Dr. Ben!” A ragged group of five or six children ran alongside the two men as they moved through the crowd.

“Hey, kids.” Ben broke his stride and gestured to his brother. “Dr. Eddie,” he said, then added a few words in the local dialect.

“Dr. Eddie!” The children crowded around him, touching his hand or his sleeve. Then they laughed wildly and ran away down the street, scrawny dogs chasing at their heels.

“What did you tell them?” Eddie asked with a wary grin.

“That you were my brother.”

“That’s obviously a recommendation. I hope I can live up to your reputation.”

Ben eyed him with affection. He almost wished he hadn’t urged Eddie to come here; he’d missed him, and now their separation would be prolonged further. “I’ve gotten attached to these people, especially the kids, but I feel better knowing they’ll be in good hands.”

“Thanks.” Eddie looked beyond the rooftops into the distance, at the cone-shaped mountain rising above the plain. “That a volcano?”

Ben nodded. “Volcán Santa Maria. It’s considered active. The region is also prone to earthquakes. We’ve had a couple of mild quakes during my time here but nothing to write home about.”

Ben stopped in front of the clinic, a low whitewashed adobe building with chickens pecking in the yard. A sign beside the door displayed a large red cross and the words International Médicos.

“Here we are.” Ben pushed open the door. “Clinic out front, residence in back. It’s simple, but it’s home.”

Eddie wandered through the clinic, surveying the meager shelves of medical supplies, the primitive equipment. “It’s a change from a big-city hospital,” he admitted in massive understatement. “What are some of the health issues you deal with?”

Ben perched on the edge of the small desk in the corner. “Oh, God, where to start. There’s dysentery, insect-borne diseases, outbreaks of cholera and hepatitis. Malnutrition is a big problem, especially among the children. I spend most of my stipend providing food for hungry kids.” He shook his head. “Infant mortality is high. No matter how hard you try there’s so much to battle—disease, poverty, ignorance.” As he thought of some of the little ones he’d lost, his voice became unsteady. “I hate it when the children die.”

He pushed off the desk and moved across the room. “There are bright spots, reasons for optimism. I’ve set up a vaccination program, one for oral hygiene, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I travel to the more remote villages and treat those who can’t come to me.

“Come and see where you’ll be living.” Ben pushed aside a curtain of woven fabric in deep blues and reds and led the way into his private quarters. One end of the room was fitted with a hot plate, fridge and sink, while the other end held a single bed that doubled as a couch, a bookshelf crammed with paperbacks and, Ben’s pride and joy, a turntable and speakers he’d picked up in Guatemala City to play his record collection. He put on Harry Connick, Jr.

“Man, our musical tastes never did coincide,” Eddie complained. “Don’t you have any Shaggy or New Radicals?”

Ben wrapped him in a headlock. “No, but I’ve got a cold beer. Want it? Say uncle.”

“Piss off.” Eddie hooked a foot behind Ben’s ankle in an attempt to bring him down, but he was laughing too hard.

Ben released him and went to the fridge, a relic of the fifties, and reached past shelves of medicines for a couple of long-necked brown bottles of Guatemalan beer. He flipped the caps off and handed one to Eddie. “Luckily for us, doctors have to store medicine. Refrigeration is a perk of the job.”

“Is that a fridge benefit?” Eddie asked, raising an eyebrow wryly. He unstrapped his backpack and pulled out a bottle of duty-free Jack Daniels and a newspaper. “Care for a taste of home?”

Avid for news, Ben bypassed the bourbon to pick up the recent copy of USA Today. The headline story blared in inch-high black print: Supermodel Collapses on Milan Runway—Miraculous Return From the Dead.

A photo, obviously taken before the model’s collapse, showed her draped in designer clothing and glittering with diamonds against a backdrop of an Italian palazzo.