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“It’s good to see you again, Megan.” Nik turned and held out his hand in Daria’s direction. “I want you to meet Daria McClusky. She’s a botanist on sabbatical to write a book about local orchids. I thought you two might like to meet. Daria, meet Megan Cantrell.”
“Welcome,” Megan said warmly, stepping toward Daria.
Daria held out her hands. Megan had an oval face, high cheekbones, and wide-spaced eyes that spoke of her intelligence. There was such a fierce energy surrounding this woman that Daria was stunned by it. No question, she was a tour-de-force. “Hi,” she said, smiling, “it’s nice to meet you, Megan. Nik said you might like some volunteer help?” Daria released the woman’s hand. “I’m not a licensed child care specialist, but I love children. He thought I might be helpful to you when I need a break from writing my book.”
“Oh,” she bubbled, “I’d LOVE to have you help us, Daria! We need all the help we can get around here. I’m missing Maria today. She’s home sick,” and Megan looked to her left toward the table where the Indian women were serving the hot cereal to the noisy, impatient children.
“Well,” Nik murmured, giving Daria a significant look, “why don’t I perform my medical duties around here, and perhaps Megan can sort of fold you into her working day? Get a feel for what it’s like around here, Daria?”
“I’d like that,” Daria murmured to the red-haired woman. Megan was either in her late twenties or early thirties. It was hard to tell because she was so energetic, her face, even with the scar, youthful looking and reminding Daria of a young college-aged woman. Still, Daria saw oldness and tiredness banked up in Megan’s eyes, too. Her hands were red and chaffed, telling Daria that the woman didn’t take care of herself. Either that, or she was doing a lot of hard handwork all on her own. “How can I help?”
“Well,” Megan said, giving her a worried look, “you are probably going to faint, but I need someone to wash the children’s clothes. My washer died on me and I’m trying to get a replacement from Lima down here, which is next to impossible. Liz has it in Cusco, but the train owner wants to charge us an arm and leg to transport it down here.” She pulled Daria along to another room, a smaller one. “And until this situation can be resolved, I’ve been using a washboard and washing all the kids’ clothes by hand.”
Daria saw the washer and dryer. There were two huge service sinks nearby. Megan walked over to them and picked up a washboard.
“I need you to wet the clothes down, soap them up and scrub them on the board. Then, put water in this sink and rinse them out. My dryer still works, thank God. Nothing dries down here, but it will with this dryer.” She pointed to a pile of children’s clothing piled up in a mound nearly four feet tall. “Are you still game?”
Daria grinned and pushed up her sleeves. It was chilly in the structure as it was naked gray concrete and little else. “You bet.”
Megan held up her reddened hands. “See these? I’ve been doing this four hours a night, every night, for the last two weeks.” She smiled and flexed an arm, pointing to its bicep. “And I’m going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger pretty soon if Liz doesn’t get that washer down here to us ASAP.”
Daria nodded. “You do know there’s a laundry place in town?”
Megan’s full mouth twisted. “Yes, I know the owner. He’s an unmentionable word in my world. I can’t afford it, anyway. He won’t give me a discount. We’re on a very tight budget and getting the kids three square meals a day is my priority.”
“Okay, I’ll go to work.”
“Don’t over do,” Megan pleaded, touching her shoulder. “And if you need me? I’ll be somewhere around here. It’s not that big of a place. You’ll find me.”
Daria smiled and watched Megan hurry away, her denim skirt flapping around her thin ankles. Sadness moved through her. How could Megan be this cheery after what had happened to her? She was only four months out of her trauma and it was obvious that it still affected her heavily whether she wanted to admit it or not. Daria’s admiration and respect for Megan increased exponentially. Obviously, the woman was made of tougher stuff than she herself was.
Nik was just wrapping up his last examination of the day on a tiny six-month-old baby girl when Daria moved quietly to the small, cozy nursery room. It was the warmest room in the place and she closed the door behind her, watching him gently handle the infant. If he was aware of her, he made no indication, bending over the cooing baby in his arms, her tiny arms and legs moving energetically, gurgling and smiling. The cloth diaper made Daria wince a little. The old-fashioned way, with cotton fabric, made for good diapers. No first-world amenities down here. She watched as Nik rubbed the stethoscope between his hands to warm the metal up before placing it on the baby’s chest. How he cared for the infant made her melt inwardly. There was exquisite tenderness in this man as he listened to the infant’s lungs and heart. He picked the baby up, holding her on his knee, bracing the infant with his free arm and hand, listening to her lungs some more.
It was the soft words in Spanish that he spoke to the baby, smiling and tickling her, that made Daria’s smile widen. The baby gurgled happily, her large brown eyes glistening and pinned on Nik, whose face was only inches away. He put his stethoscope away and took the baby’s temperature with an ear monitor. Taking each of her tiny hands, he let the child grasp his own long index finger. Nik was testing her strength and coordination. And when he was done with the examination, he hoisted the child up into his arms, pulled a pink alpaca blanket across her tiny body, laying her against his shoulder, gently patting her back. There was a loud burp.
Daria laughed a little.
Nik turned, smiling over at her. “You caught me.”
She ambled over to the table and she held out her hands. “Can I hold her? Would she want to come to me?”
“I don’t see why not. Meet Gabriela. Megan found her shortly after her birth, dropped off at the front gate to the orphanage, wrapped in a Quechua blanket. Let’s get her dressed in her onesie? You can then sit in that rocker over there and I’ll get her a warm bottle of llama milk and feed her. Sound like fun?”
It did. Daria found the clean pink onesie and brought it over to the table. Nik was a breeze at putting it on the baby.
“You’ve done this a few times.”
He smiled and nodded, brushing his fingers across the baby’s mussed black hair, patting it down into place. “I come over here every month. There’s a lot of sick children who are dropped off here. All malnourished, needing a lot of TLC, vitamin and mineral packs, and medical intervention of one sort or another.”
“Who pays for your supplies to help them?” Daria wondered, taking Gabriela from him.
“I do,” he said, stuffing everything into his ruck and velcroing it shut. “It’s the only allowance I give myself: to buy the medicine these children need at a Cusco pharmacy.”
“Korsak wouldn’t buy it out of his millions of dollars of drug money?” Daria asked, sitting down in the rocker, smiling into Gabriela’s huge, wide eyes as the baby gazed up at her.
Snorting, Nik said, “No. Stay here and just rock her. She loves to be rocked. I’ll get her bottle warmed from the kitchen…”
There was such peace in rocking back and forth with a baby in her arms. Gabriela’s angelic little face was precious to Daria. She watched as the baby’s eyes closed, nearly asleep by the time Nik quietly returned with a bottle in his hand.
