Doctored (20 page)

Maddie almost answered, but glanced towards Deanna, who was sitting on her cot.  Her back had stiffened up at the word, clearly able to hear Kimberly despite the whisper.  She knew Kimberly was trying to verify something she had heard the other day, to get concrete and reliable words from someone in-the-know.  She shrugged.  “She was a nice woman and a good teacher,” was all she would give the woman.

“But she left with the chief’s daughter?” she continued on eagerly.

Maddie glanced at the woman.  She was clearly enjoying the gist of the conversation.  She wondered how she would fare if this woman found out about her and Deanna.  “That’s what they say,” she shrugged.  “I wouldn’t believe everything I heard though.  She did her job well.”

“Well, I heard...” she began again and kept going until Deanna turned and said, “I’ll have you know that more than half of that bullshit you just spouted is untrue.  Lenny was everyone’s friend here, and anyone who says something bad about her will have to answer to me.  I considered her a good woman and despite what they may ‘say’ about her, I think it’s terrible to keep talking about it.”

Surprised at the doctor’s defense of this unknown woman, Kimberly looked at her contemplatively.  “Were you one of her special friends?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you’re disgusting.  Just because someone is friends with someone else of the same sex doesn’t mean there is something going on.  What about you?  Is that why Lenny’s story intrigues you so much?  You are looking for
special
friends?”

“Well, why, I never....”

“Maybe you should,” Deanna muttered, too low for the nasty woman to hear.   Louder, so that Kimberly could hear her, she said, “You didn’t know her so why don’t you just let the stories die down.  She didn’t deserve this and you won’t get anywhere repeating what you have heard.”

“Well, I just wanted to know....”

“Then you should ask her, and as she isn’t likely to make another appearance here, you’ll have to let it go.”

Sensing she wasn’t going to win this argument with the young doctor, she went to attack, but Magda walked in at that moment.  Kimberly liked and respected Magda and didn’t want her to think badly of her so she shut her mouth with an almost audible snap.

“Everyone ready for bed?” the Swiss woman asked politely.

“Yes, we just came from the village,” Deanna told her, to change the subject.  She glanced at Kimberly who deliberately turned her back to change for bed.  Her glance took in Maddie, who rolled her eyes, her own back firmly to the other nurse.

“Oh that’s nice.  I hear you delivered kittens,” the woman teased with a delighted smile.

“Yes, I did and Maddie had the wonderful idea of putting her on another cat.  We found a dog willing to take them.”

“Did you say a dog?” she asked, wondering if the difference from English to French was causing her to misunderstand.

Deanna chuckled and nodded, finishing up her clothes change.  “Yes, it’s the darnedest thing, but the bitch is feeding them.  Apparently the formula we tried to feed them wasn’t suiting their delicate palettes.”

“Oh, I must see them!  May I go with you next time?” she asked, delighted.

Deanna promised and soon found a regular rotation of people coming with her to see the kittens being fed by the bitch.  The bitch didn’t like all the additional visitors, but since Deanna was a regular she accepted her.

Deanna found herself watching the kittens’ growth, enjoying their exuberance as they grew rapidly. 

“I thought you were a human doctor?” Burton sneered at her a few days later in the chow tent.

“Oh, come on, Richard.  We’re all one procedure away from being horse doctors,” Wilson teased him.  His eyes laughed at Deanna, who grinned in return.  She knew anything she did would annoy Burton these days since he hadn’t managed to have her replaced or dismissed despite his letter writing campaign.  “It’s a matter of goodwill.  You make the villagers happy and they spread the word that we are good doctors.  Hell, Deanna is regarded as a witch doctor…now that is an achievement,” he shared, with a genuine laugh of admiration.

“Yes, well, I won’t be wearing the costume,” Deanna said wryly and they all shared a laugh, all except Burton who was certain the young doctor was making fun of him somehow.

Deanna really enjoyed the time with the villagers over the kittens.  It also allowed her to find places and time with Maddie.  She’d been a little distant lately and all she could attribute it to was a letter she had gotten and not shared.

* * * * *

“What is it?” she asked, exasperated.  She’d had a hard day in the clinic and had desperately been looking forward to some time alone with Maddie.

“It’s nothing,” she shrugged.

“You won’t tell me?  Then there is nothing for us to talk about,” she got up to go back to the camp.  She was too tired to try to pry it out of her.

“Wait, don’t go,” the redhead pleaded prettily.

“Look, I’m tired.  You’ve been annoyed with me for days and won’t tell me what it’s about…” she began.

“I got my letter.  I either have to re-up or go home,” she explained. 

“Is that what this is about?  Why you’ve been so upset lately?”

Maddie’s face gave her away.  There was more, but she wasn’t going to share it, obviously.  “I don’t know if I want to re-up, but I know I don’t want to stay here forever.”  She’d known the letter would come eventually, but seeing it had surprised her.  After all, Leida had left a while back and they’d arrived at the same time.

“Then come with me.  They’ve been after me to move on for months,” Deanna told her earnestly.  “We can go as a team.  I’ll write a couple of letters and get you put on...” she trailed off as she saw Maddie’s face.  “What is it?”

“I don’t know that I want people to know that we are a
team
,” she put a bit of emphasis on that final word, giving it more than one meaning.

“Are you afraid people will find out about us?” she asked, worriedly, wondering if Maddie was having second thoughts.

“I don’t want anyone to
know
…people like Kimberly especially,” she sneered at their local gossip.  “She’s so nasty....”

“Yes, she is; however, I want you to go with me.  Are you thinking of going back to the States?”

“I did promise only one rotation to my folks,” she explained and, looking at Deanna, she thought she would promise her anything.

“What about me?” she asked softly, feeling like they were on the edge of a very important step in their relationship.  Maybe she had expected too much from Maddie.  Maybe she didn’t really want this.

“I love you,” she assured her earnestly.  Even though Deanna had never told her the same words, she thought she felt the same.  “I just have a lot to think about,” she told her honestly.

“Well, you know where I stand.  I want you with me,” she told her, but she wanted to plead with her not to leave, not to leave her.  Her heart was squeezing painfully in her chest.  Her hand came up unconsciously to rub her eyebrow.

“Stop that,” Maddie said as Deanna’s fingers grasped at the short hairs worriedly and Maddie leaned in and kissed Deanna, her soft lips feeling so familiar and still she couldn’t get enough of them.  She loved kissing this woman.  She was so special, so incredible.  She never made Maddie feel like a second class citizen, unlike many in the medical profession who felt nurses were just servants with medical knowledge.  Deanna treated her as an equal and still managed to maintain her doctor status, more knowledgeable, personable, and yet, brilliant.  As a lover, Maddie had never had someone as caring, someone who actually thought of her first.

* * * * *

“I can’t do this,” she told her a week later as they met by their rock.

“What do you mean?” Deanna looked intently into Maddie’s eyes.

“I…just…can’t…do…this,” she gestured with her hands helplessly.  Indicating them, everything around them.  “I can’t…do….us,” she finished lamely.  They had finally managed a couple of hours away alone and had hidden from the village and camp to spend them together, but Maddie had resisted Deanna’s attempts to make love to her.

“Don’t say that.  Don’t give up,” Deanna felt herself pleading as she realized the enormity of what Maddie was saying.

Shaking her head, Maddie backed away slightly.  “I want…I wanted…” but she shook her head harder as she began to cry.

“We can do this, we can
try
,” Deanna tried to reason.  The tears were hitting her soul like a hammer on an anvil.

“Don’t you see…don’t you see?” she shook her head again, the tears rolling down her cheeks.  “We will never be accepted.  We can’t have this.”  Her hands gestured helplessly again.

“We can make it what we want.  We can do this,” Deanna stated firmly, willing it to happen.  “Don’t do this!  Don’t doubt us.  We can do this.”  She tried to take Maddie’s hands in hers, to compel her to change her mind.

Shaking her head, Maddie backed up and put her hands childishly behind her back.  “No, it was a fling.  That’s all,” she said dismissively, minimalizing it.

“We both know it was more than that,” she said sadly as Maddie’s words began to tear her heart from her chest.

“You can’t give me what I need…what I want!” she continued as though Deanna hadn’t stated the truth.

“What do you need?  What do you want?” Deanna asked quietly.  She felt the need to cry too.

“I want children and you can never give me that,” she grasped at the one thing she knew would hurt Deanna the most.  She watched as the pretty doctor’s face crumbled before her.

“I’m too young to make a decision about having children,” Deanna pointed out.

“You tell me you don’t want children of your own…” she recalled a previous conversation.

Deanna nodded in agreement.  “I don’t want children of my own.  It makes no sense with all these children,” she indicated the ones in the village, “that I would procreate and bring more into an already over-populated world.”

“But don’t you see, I want to have children.  I want to procreate.  I want the joy of giving birth, even the heartache that family and children cause.  I want that.  You can’t give me that.  You don’t
want
to give me that.”

Deanna shook her head.  “No, I can’t give you children.  We could adopt,” she pointed out.  She gestured towards the village again and Maddie knew she meant the countless orphans they saw all the time.

Maddie shook her head.  “No, I want my own.  I want…” she didn’t go on as she watched Deanna realize the futility of arguing with her.

Deanna looked at her sadly.  How could she argue with her?  She couldn’t give her what she wanted.  She couldn’t give her something so simple.  She had to try though.  “We could find someone who would want to give you a child, for us, for…” she tapered off what she was going to say as she saw the horrified look that came over the other woman’s face at her suggestion, at what it would mean.  She shook her head sadly.  “You don’t want that do you?  You don’t want a family with me?”

Maddie looked down quickly so that Deanna wouldn’t see the truth in her face.  “No, I don’t want you,” she confirmed, twisting Deanna’s words, deliberately, cuttingly.  “How could I let someone…” she left off when she saw the hope spring in Deanna’s eyes, she looked down again before she changed her mind.  “I can’t do that,” she finished.

“Don’t say that.  We can work it out….”  Deanna wanted to plead, to argue, to get her to capitulate to her plan.  She wanted them to walk off hand in hand into the sunset…together.  She wanted them to leave here, to go to other camps, maybe other countries…as a couple.  She’d had their future planned out…together.

“No!  I can’t do this!  I won’t!” she argued fiercely.  She wouldn’t let Deanna talk her into it.  She didn’t want this.  She didn’t want her, she lied to herself.  She knew she was afraid of what people would think of her if she became a lesbian.  As she walked back alone, she glanced up and recognized Kimberly from afar.  People like
that
…

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A film crew drove into Mamadu the week before Maddie was officially due to leave.  They asked that the doctors each give a plug about the work they had been doing.  Maddie, along with the others, watched as Deanna spoke clearly and succinctly:

“Every year over three thousand field staff in Doctors Without Borders help in over sixty countries worldwide to provide medical treatment and assistance to those who would otherwise have no access to healthcare of any kind.  With the outbreak of hostilities and humanitarian crises all over our planet, this means we need help in many areas of field work.  We are recruiting you,” with that Deanna pointed into the camera.  “We need technical people, doctors, surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, plastic surgeons, and administrators, even farmers and other volunteers.  If you don’t think you can help, you are probably wrong.  Please check with your local recruiter to see if you can help.  If you can’t help physically, your money will go a long way to supplying these people,” her hand swept to the ward of sick and dying people, “with medicines and help.”  She finished the taping and then they filmed her again, this time in French.  Instead of saying Doctors Without Borders, this time she said Médecins Sans Frontières.  Her rich voice was pleading without begging, assertive without being belligerent, and the film crew chief was certain it would go well in the series she was filming for the association.  They needed to recruit as many people as they could, and they needed money.  Doctors like Deanna Cooper were a godsend.  She was pretty, which was a bonus, she was young—they dirtied her up some so she didn’t look quite so young—and she was earnest.  They needed to make some posters with her face on them.