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They couldn’t understand why Arissa didn’t want to do all that. They couldn’t understand why she wasn’t desperate to find out where she came from. Of course, they couldn’t begin to realise what it felt like to be abandoned by her mother. To have to spend endless nights wondering if she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t pretty enough.
Her adoptive parents had told her she was a special angel sent to them from heaven. They’d filled her with such happiness, but told her honestly about her start in life. Arissa had never wanted to be anyone’s ‘project’. And after that first reaction of sharing her background, she’d learned to keep quiet.
She’d originally lived in one of the smaller villages in Temur Sapora, so no one in the capital city knew her story. No one questioned her dedication to getting the safe haven project off the ground and she’d managed to keep that part of her past out of the public eye. So, trying to connect with patients—opening herself up to people, even just a little—was something she’d struggled with. So, she’d taken steps to stop closing herself off to her patients and their families. Working in paediatric oncology meant she was exposed to a huge amount of joy and pain—she had to be able to have difficult conversations at any point in the day. She had to give people a spark of hope while keeping things realistic. And sometimes she just had to be there, in body and in mind. And she couldn’t do that without connecting with people, without exposing a little of herself.
Watching Philippe do things so easily reminded her how hard she’d found her job for a while. It didn’t make her resentful. It just made her a little sad that she’d had that experience.
Philippe appeared behind her as she was finishing some notes on a child she’d just seen.
‘I phoned to check on the kid yesterday with the fractured ulna and radius. They had to pin it, but the operation went well.’
‘So, no more diving off the rocks and crashing into the sea bed?’
He smiled. ‘I think we can safely say his mother will have him bound to some kind of deckchair for the rest of the holiday.’
Arissa pulled a leaflet from the wall. ‘I might give the paed ward a call and ask them to steer him towards the community centre. They have less harmful activities for kids during the day that could stop him getting bored.’
Philippe looked over the leaflet and nodded. ‘No worries, I’ll do it. Nothing worse than a bored, overactive nine-year-old.’
She gave a grateful smile and picked up the list for this afternoon. It was an immunisation clinic and was packed full. Several of the babies had missed some of their routine vaccinations due to coughs, colds and a bout of chicken pox that had been doing the rounds of the local nursery. She put a star at several of the names, taking note that if they didn’t show today, she would give them a follow-up call.
‘We should break for lunch. Want me to go and grab something?’ Philippe asked.
She laughed. ‘What—like yesterday?’
Yesterday he’d gone to grab lunch and couldn’t make up his mind, coming back with the most bizarre range of foods she’d ever seen—none of which had gone together.
The muffled scream came out of nowhere and they both froze.
Arissa turned, trying to locate where the sound had come from, but Philippe was quicker, heading straight to the front door of the clinic and out onto the street.
She followed him with rapid steps. He stood for a few seconds until he heard the scream again, then moved across the street,
A few people glanced at them. It was a baby crying. Babies cried all the time, but the noise put Arissa’s teeth on edge.
Outside the grocery store a tired-looking woman had a small baby on her shoulder, patting its back soothingly.
Arissa recognised her instantly. It was Mariam, one of the local mothers who was due to attend with her baby this afternoon.
She shook her head at Arissa. ‘Looks like we won’t be getting this immunisation either.’ She sighed. ‘Rosni has been unsettled all night and she’s got a bit of a temperature. Her big brother just had chicken pox. I wonder if she’s next.’
The baby screamed again, a high–pitched noise, and Philippe held his hands out straight away, giving Arissa a warning glance. ‘Would you mind if I take a look at her?’ he said.
