Hope House Read Free Page B

matter of my saving the life of a child, then that’s all tha t matters. Just tell me where I need to go.”
    “ Well, we have to run some tests to be sure the marrow is a true match and that you’re healthy. Are you still located in Bradfield?”
    “Yes, but I’m in Boston at work now. I could come right over.”
    “ We don’t require such a rush but certainly the sooner you get here the sooner we could—theoretically speaking—do the transplant. I’m sure the parents would be grateful, not to mention the little girl.”
    Gloria closed her eyes. “A girl?”
    “ A five-year-old girl. I can’t give you details about her because of privacy laws but she is a remarkable child.”
    Saving another child’s life wouldn’t bring her own unborn daughter back but it might help balance the scales.
    Gloria obtained the contact name and floor at the hospital and hung up. She walked back into the conference room where she told her co-workers about the call. She asked everyone to keep fingers crossed that her marrow would be compatible and would save the child.
    Brian spoke first. “You know, surgery is involved with a marrow transplant. It’s not like donating blood.” She rubbed her arm. Track marks littered her sleeve-covered arm from the bi-monthly donations at the Red Cross. Each of those pints had the potential to help someone but her marrow could single-handedly give the little girl a new chance at life.
    “And your point is?” she asked, smirking.
    “That the quote on this plaque is dead on, Gloria.”
    Charlene added. “You are a true humanitarian.”
    Stephen shouted, “Go on, go to the hospital. We’ll formalize your partnership later.”
    Gloria nodded, backing from the room and thanking everyone again. In her office, she put on her long wool winter coat and left the building, her mind racing, wondering what this anonymous child looked like.  
     
    2.
    Maison D’Espoir, Haiti, late morning
     
    Martine Jean-Baptiste clenched her fists tight as Dr. Tad Boucher ran the wand over her big tummy. “ Souplé, fe pitit mwen yo ansante ,” she begged. Her back was sweaty against the paper-covered blue vinyl table.
    He frowned at her. “Speak in English, Martine! You know how. No Creole.”
    “Please, let my children be well,” she slowly added in his language.
    He smiled at her. “They are healthy. Ansante .”
    She grinned back and said, “No Creole.” He laughed, took the wand off, and pulled her flowered blouse down.
    “You’ll give birth to the twins soon and then you can take a break for four months.”  She needed a rest. Martine was only twenty-two, yet she felt so much older; growing tired just walking around the clinic, slipping into naps. She slowly sat up, and he held her hand to help her off the table. His fingers mixed with hers and together they looked like piano keys.
    She looked at Dr. Tad, a tall man with a shiny balding head, a ring of thin brown hair making a letter U around the top and sides of his glasses. He was older than her, but not an old man. Perhaps forty. Behind him on the tan wall hung his medical diploma. “Harvard,” it read. Dr. Tad told her it was a first-class school. He was a good doctor so she knew he must be right about the college.
    “I am happy they are well. If they were not, if they had the club feet like two times ago, I would be sent off.” Just the thought of banishment from Maison D’Espoir made her stomach jump. She did not know what she would do if she could never see her friends or Dr. Tad again.
    Martine lived in a beautiful pink four-bedroom cottage shared with six other girls. As nurse, she had the privilege of her own bedroom. It had blue walls, like the sky, with rainbows painted on them. Her Maman had once told her that God painted rainbows across the sky to give the poor some beauty and magic to look at, to dream about. When Martine was a child living next to a dump, death and filth all around her, rainbows were the only beauty she ever