Dianne Drake - The Doctor's Lost-and-Found Heart

“Did you?”

She nodded, and her eyes softened. “And Ben got in so much trouble. But he felt threatened, having this new sister just drop in from nowhere. Maybe if my parents had adopted me when I was a baby … ” Pausing, the slight smile of reminiscence dropped from her face. “Jack, you’re pretty straightforward. I don’t think you’d soft-pedal something to spare someone’s feelings.”

“That’s a pretty low opinion of me.”

“But I heard you at the hospital back in Texas, the way you talked to people, your interactions.”

“I’ve been accused of being blunt.”

“Then be blunt with me. Tell me what you see when you look at me. You’ve traveled extensively, lived in so many places around the world—South America, Africa, the Mediterranean regions. More than anybody I’ve ever known. So, when you look at me, do you see anything you recognize? A nationality? The hint of something you’ve seen before somewhere? Because of your background, I’ve wanted to ask you almost from the first time we met. But how do you simply blurt out something like that? And I’ll admit I’m a little afraid to know.”

“It wasn’t in your adoption records?”

She shook her head. “There weren’t any adoption papers, no records. Nothing.”

Jack swallowed hard. But didn’t answer.

“I’ve tried to find out. But the best I’ve come up with is that the adoption agency told my parents they believe I’m from some sort of Mediterranean background. Except …”

“Except you don’t believe that.”

“Except when I look in the mirror and want to believe that I am, the image looking back at me doesn’t have a clue. But you do, don’t you? You’re trained to observe, and you don’t miss things. That’s what makes you the best in the world at what you do.”

“Hospital infections and what you’re asking me to do are two entirely separate things, Amanda,” he said, not sure what to do with this. “What I do with a hospital infection is make a logical guess based on what I see, then do the tests to prove I’m either right or wrong.”

“How often are you wrong?”

He shook his head. “Never,” he said, clenching his jaw so hard the ache was starting to set in.

“Then make a logical guess based on what you see.”

“Why me?”

She smiled. “Remember the first time we met? You asked for a list of my credentials, even though I’d already worked with your nephew for several months, and his parents were pleased with his progress. But there you were all big and blustery and none too friendly, making your demands. Then what I found out later … You actually called and checked me out. Asked every last reference on my list about me. Which was fine. I wish more people would do that when it comes to hiring the people who take care of their children. And while that really wasn’t your responsibility since you’re Michael’s uncle, not his father, I liked that you were so forthright. Pegged you for a man who would always be honest, maybe sometimes brutally so. And you have your suspicions about my heritage, don’t you?”

“I’m not even sure why you’d come to that conclusion.”

“Because of the way you look at me. Sometimes you stare, and it’s so … penetrating.”

“The way a guy stares at a gorgeous woman, you mean?”

She shook her head. “That’s not it. Oh, I’ve seen that look, more here than back in Texas. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You give it away in your eyes, Jack. Not for long, but there’s this flash … I saw it when I asked you. Saw it before that, actually.”

She was probably right. What had caught him off guard, and what he’d tried to cloak, was that he saw Rosa in Amanda. Same eyes, same beautiful wild hair, same delicate bone structure. It was a look he wouldn’t confuse with any other look in the world because the person he’d loved most had had that look. He’d come unglued, tried not looking, but sometimes couldn’t stop himself. He was like a moth attracted to the flame. So if Amanda had caught that flash in his eyes, she’d caught it correctly. “Maybe this is something you should discuss with your family.”

“I have. Too many times. Which is why I’m talking to you now. Why I’m asking you. Please, be honest with me, Jack. Respect me enough to do this one thing. When you look at me, who are you seeing?”

“A beautiful Mapuche woman.” They were words he shouldn’t have said, but words he felt bound to say because anything else bought into the lies that had cost Rosa her life. And for Rosa, he had no choice but to be honest.

“Mapuche?”

Nodding, he said, “Someone I loved once, a long time ago, was Mapuche. They’re an indigenous people from the Pampas. I lived with them for a couple of years, working as a doctor in some of the villages.”

“And you recognized that in me?”

“I did.”

“Then thank you for your honesty.”

“Amanda, I …”

She shook her head. “Just leave it where it is, Jack. I asked, you answered. It’s what I wanted.” More than that, it’s what she needed, and she was numb with it, didn’t know what to think, what to do. But Jack had given her something no one else ever had and for that she was grateful. “I think I always knew,” she whispered.

“Knew what?” he asked gently.

“That what my parents told me was … off, somehow. Doesn’t matter, though, does it?”

“Who we are always matters, Amanda.”

“Or who we aren’t? Anyway, I have a very important date in a few minutes, so back to the problem at Caridad. What’s your plan?” She needed time to think about this, to readjust. To let the emotion catch up. But not here, not now. “And tell me what we can do to assist you.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

She cut him off by nodding her head. “I’m sure.” Not said convincingly enough, but Jack understood. The tone of his voice, the sense of concern emanating from him—yes, he understood.

“Fine.” He paused, nodded. “But anytime you want to talk …”

“The hospital, Jack. Please, make this about the hospital now.” No matter how distanced she was feeling from everything she knew.

“Well, then, no more cleaning, to start with. I need to find the source of contamination before I do anything else, then culture it to see what grows. Which means I’ll look in all the usual places and get creative after that because in my experience the usual places don’t really yield what I want.”

“It’s an odd specialty.”

“But, as they say, someone has to do it.”

“Why?”

“Public health was always what I wanted to do. You know, take care of the people no one else wanted to take care of.”

“Because of Robbie?” she asked. Jack’s brother Cade had told her once about Robbie, about how his parents hadn’t wanted to raise a child with severe autism.

“You know about my brother?”

She nodded. “The child nobody wanted.”

“After he died, I wanted to find a way to take care of people who were overlooked the way he was. He died because no one noticed him.”

“He ran off, didn’t he?”

Jack nodded. “No one saw that he had been missing for a while and he wasn’t found until it was too late. When I became a doctor I wanted to make a difference for people who, like Robbie, weren’t noticed until it was too late, which was why I chose public health. What I do now grew out of that as conditions in some of the places I chose to work in weren’t good. So, you’d cure the patient and find the source of the illness in so many cases—fleas, ticks, four-legged critters, bacteria.”

“But you quit or, at least, you’ve stepped away for a while, haven’t you? That’s what Cade told me. He said it’s why you were hanging around Big Badger, why you were thinking about working with them at the hospital they were starting.”