Dear Mom,
Thank you so much for the treats. I can’t tell you how much they lift everyone’s spirits in this terrible monsoon season.
The weather is tough to describe and tougher to endure. The only thing worse than the rain is that my friend Ethel’s DEROS came in. That’s Army-speak for the date eligible to return overseas. In other words, her date for going home.
(You remember me telling you about Ethel—the one who plays the violin and wants to be a big-animal veterinarian?) Anyway, in September, she’ll be leaving Vietnam. Going home.
I can’t imagine doing this without her.
But I will, I guess.
Over here
Frankie heard the sound of incoming choppers and put down her pen.
Sighing, she stowed the unfinished letter and most of the treats in her makeshift nightstand and dressed in her still-damp fatigues and put her boots back on.
Her shift was over, but what did that matter, as understaffed as they were? There were wounded incoming and nurses would be needed. Slipping the still-wet poncho over her clothes, she headed for the OR and saw a pair of ambulances drive up to the Pre-Op door, just off the helipad.
Jamie was already in the OR, in his surgical cap and gown. “No rest for the wicked, eh, McGrath?”
She handed him a Twinkie. “None at all.”
* * *
In late July, on a day with no incoming casualties expected, Barb organized a MEDCAP trip and the three nurses and Jamie headed for the helipad, where a stripped-down Huey waited for them. Today they were catching a ride to St. Elizabeth’s Orphanage, which was housed in an old stone church not far away.
Holding her olive-green boonie hat on her head, Frankie angled forward and ran for the helicopter and jumped aboard. For the first time, she didn’t move to the back. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore, didn’t want to think of Finley every time she climbed into a helicopter.
Instead, she sat carefully on the floor near one of the gunners, whose machine gun pointed down at the land below. She cautiously swung one leg over the edge, then the other. Barb sat in the other open door. Ethel and Jamie sat in the back. When the chopper lifted, Frankie’s breath caught.
And then they were up, flying over the countryside.
Frankie had never felt so free, so fearless. Wind whipped across her face. The green landscape below was stunningly beautiful; she saw the thread of sand along the turquoise South China Sea.
The helicopter banked hard, turned inland, and swooped low over some rice paddies. Frankie saw a red dirt road that sliced through a dense swath of elephant grass; there, the chopper paused, hovered, the rotors thwopping loudly, the grass flattened by the wash. Slowly, the bird lowered to the ground and touched down just long enough to let the MEDCAP team get out, and then flew away, headed north.
As the medical team approached the orphanage, the doors banged open and children in ragged clothing surged forward, waving their hands, jostling each other in excitement. They knew the Americans brought candy to hand out to the children. Behind them, Vietnamese nuns, dressed in black habits, wearing conical straw hats, looked on wearily.
The nurses were swarmed by a group of young girls, all reaching out, wanting to touch them. Beside Frankie, Barb dropped to her knees, let the children touch her hair as she handed out suckers. Then she lined the kids up for vaccinations.
For the next four hours, the nurses administered vaccines and gave out vitamins, tended to rat bites and treated malaria. Jamie stitched up wounds and even pulled a few rotten teeth.
They were packing up to go when a petite, pretty young Vietnamese nun came forward. She walked up to Frankie, looking hesitant. “Uh … madame?” she said in French-accented English.
“Yes?” Frankie said, wiping the sweat from her brow, resettling the bag of her medical supplies over her shoulder.
“You could please follow me?”
Frankie followed the nun into the cool interior of the orphanage. Each room had been turned into a dormitory, with straw mats on the floor for sleeping. One room held a dozen or more cribs, where babies slept and cried. It broke Frankie’s heart to think of how many orphans were being made by this war. Who would care for these children and babies when it ended?
At last, they turned a corner and stepped into an oblong room. Burned-down candles sat on windowsills and along the floor—so, no electricity.
There was only one child in here, a toddler, a girl, on a mat with her knees tucked up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her bent legs. She seemed to be making herself as small as physically possible. Frankie looked questioningly at the nun.
“A heat in her forehead,” the nun said, touching her own forehead to communicate clearly.
Frankie knelt on the hard stone floor beside the mat. Up close, she could see that the girl was a little older than she’d thought, but her body had been pared down by malnutrition.
“She will not eat,” the nun said.
“Hey, little one,” Frankie said, stroking the girl’s messy black hair.
The girl didn’t move or respond, just gazed at Frankie through sad brown eyes. Her snarled hair obscured an ugly burn that puckered the skin along her jaw.
“What’s your name?” Frankie asked, touching the child’s forehead, studying the burn, which didn’t look to be infected.
Fever, but not a bad one.
“We do not know her name,” the nun said quietly, kneeling down to stroke the girl’s back. “Her village was bombed. She was found by one of your medics, hiding in a ditch.” She paused. “In her dead mother’s arms.”
Frankie felt a heaviness in her heart, a sorrow that she knew would stay with her. There was no defense against a thing like this. No matter how hard a shell she’d built up to protect herself, some pains couldn’t be forgotten. This girl would be one of them, one of the faces she would see in her sleep. Or on the nights she couldn’t sleep.
“We are calling her Mai. We do not know if she understands us. Some … of them … are too broken…”
Frankie wanted to take the child in her arms and tell her that it would be all right, but would it be all right for a girl like this?
Frankie dug in her bag for some baby aspirin and antibiotics. “These should control her fever. And I’ll give you an ointment for her burn. It will help with scarring.”
Then Frankie reached back into her medical bag and pulled out a cherry sucker, which she offered to the girl.
The girl just stared at it.
Frankie unwrapped the sucker, licked it and smiled, then offered it again.
The girl reached out slowly, took hold of the slim white stick. Staring at Frankie, she brought the sucker to her mouth, licked it.
And licked it again.
And again.
Frankie waited for a smile that never appeared. She wished she were surprised, but she understood this child’s trauma all too well. More and more villages were being burned or bombed. More Vietnamese were dying, leaving their children alone in the world. The tragedy of it all was overwhelming.
She started to get to her feet.
The girl reached out, touched her ankle.
Frankie sat back down.
Tears glistened in the girl’s eyes.
Frankie took the child in her arms, rocked her gently, hummed “Puff the Magic Dragon,” until the girl fell asleep. Frankie stared down at the wounded child in her arms, this girl who was too small for her age and scarred for life and probably all alone in the world, and her heart ached for Mai and the children like her, devastated by this war. She stroked the girl’s hot forehead and kept singing, holding back tears one breath at a time.
“McGrath? The chopper’s on its way back. We need to go.”
Frankie turned, saw Jamie standing in the doorway.
She put the sleeping child on her mat and leaned down to kiss her scarred cheek. “Sleep well, Mai,” she said in a taut voice.
Her balance felt off as she stood up. Her feet were tingling.
Jamie was there instantly, holding her steady. She reached for his hand, held it, not daring to look at him.