A Family for the Children's Doctor. Dianne Drake

don’t know what you did to her,” Grant Makela said, showing Adrian to his little room. It was a sparse cell—bed, bathroom, chair, closet. Nothing inviting. Nothing nice. Just basic living space in the hospital resident quarters. “One of the reasons we all come out is because of Caprice. She’s extraordinary. Such passion.” He tossed Adrian’s duffle in the door. “She was pretty cheerful when we went to San José, but now…” He shrugged. “All I can say is good luck. She’s scheduled you to be on her surgical team, meaning the two of you are going to working in some pretty tight quarters. With the way she’s acting right now, all I can say is better you than me.”

      “That ought to be fun, the two of us in the OR,” Adrian replied, thinking about the corrosive way in which the two of them had started. It was his fault entirely. He admitted that. Regretted it. But Caprice was as stubborn a woman as he’d ever met, and she wasn’t going to give him any mercy. Briefly, he wondered if anybody had ever earned her forgiveness.

      Grant shrugged. “Well, whatever it is, I hope you get it worked out pretty soon, as we’ve got a full docket to get us started. Starting at seven tomorrow morning, by the way. And brace yourself for some long days. We work, on average, sixteen hours. Sometimes more. People are already lining up outside.”

      Adrian went to the window and pulled back the blinds. Sure enough, there was a single line with about thirty people standing in it—mothers and fathers with children, grandparents, brothers and sisters—all people affected by a facial deformity in their lives. All there with the same purpose. “They’ll be here all night?” he asked.

      “Some of them have been here since this morning. They come prepared for this.”

      “But you won’t be able to see them all.”

      “One way or another, everybody gets seen. Whether or not all the children get scheduled for a procedure is another thing. We prioritise. First, severity. Is the deformity affecting a substantial life issue like eating or drinking? Second, age. Caprice is very sensitive to how cruel people can be to children with facial deformities and she also knows that the older the child gets the more hurtful people can become, so she likes to get to the older children as soon as she can. Then another priority is the children who are likely to be abandoned because of the way they look, or may have already been abandoned. They go to the top of the list, too.”

      “Then it’s not just about the procedure.”

      Grant laughed. “Once you’ve been around for a couple of days, you’ll learn that there’s much more to this than only the medical procedure.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, it’s going to start early, and I’m ready to turn in for the night. If you’re hungry, there’s a staff lounge down the hall. Refrigerator is full. We keep it stocked as there won’t be any regularly scheduled meals, so help yourself. And I’ll see you bright and early.” With that, he gave Adrian a salute, backed out the door and closed it after him, leaving Adrian standing in the middle of his sparse room, wondering just what in the world he’d volunteered to do.

      He didn’t stand there thinking for too long, however. Once he’d shoved his foldable clothes into a drawer and hung up the rest in the closet, he left his room and hurried down the hall in search of a telephone. His first few hours with Caprice Bonaventura had gotten off to a rocky start, but maybe there would be some good news from home. Maybe Sylvie had come to her senses, brought Sean back, and life was back to normal.

      She was always restless the night before they opened the clinic. Tonight she was even more restless than usual. Probably because she was tired. Probably because she wasn’t sure that, come morning, her anesthesiologist would still be there. Certainly, he’d started off on the wrong foot, and not just by almost leaving. Actually, it wasn’t that he was mean or grumpy or had any personality traits that truly rubbed her the wrong way either. It’s just that, well…she didn’t know what it was. More than that, she didn’t want to think about it.

      Taking a look to make sure Isabella was fast asleep, Caprice decided to wander down to the cafeteria and scrounge a cup of coffee. There was always a pot brewing, and while a good jolt of caffeine wasn’t what she needed to calm her nerves, just sitting and relaxing might help. So she let Josefina, Isabella’s caregiver, know where she was going before she trotted off to the cafeteria. Josefina—she counted her blessings for that woman! She was a smart, sharp-tongued, outspoken, grandmotherly woman who truly loved Isabella. Caprice had known her since the first time she’d come to Costa Rica, nearly five years ago, and counted her as a dear friend. In fact, Caprice trusted her with Isabella as much as she trusted her own mother. If not for Josefina’s devotion, these long trips wouldn’t have been possible as Caprice would not have left her daughter home in California for more than a week or two. Not even with her own mother. Yes, the woman was truly a godsend, she thought as she closed the door behind her and scurried down the hall.

      The cafeteria was dim inside when she got there, with only the minimum of lighting turned on. And so quiet that the faint electrical hum of the vending machines and refrigerator seemed almost an intrusion. A very nice mood here for the middle-of-the-night coffee craving, she thought as she found the coffee-pot, poured herself a cup, and took a seat at the table in the corner. It was obscured from almost everything else in the room by the vending machines, and she was glad to tuck herself away to be alone for this little while. She rarely got to do that, rarely got to have time to herself.

      Sighing, she took her first sip of coffee, then settled back into the hard-backed metal chair and stared up at the green light from the coin return on the candy-bar machine reflecting off the ceiling. On the other side of the room, voices entering whispered in muffled tones, apparently in respect for the quiet atmosphere there.

      Ten minutes. That’s all she would allow herself, then she’d return to Isabella, and try to get some sleep, too. Or else she’d be all baggy-eyed and sluggish come morning.

      “You really do like doing this, don’t you?” he asked, his voice coming out of nowhere.

      Caprice startled. “I didn’t see you,” she gasped, immediately bolting upright.

      “I saw you,” Adrian said, taking a seat next to her. Without invitation. “You’re wound up pretty tightly for a woman who has a large medical operation ready to start in the morning.”

      “I’m always like this the night before. There’s so much to do, and I’m afraid I’ll overlook something, or miss someone who needs to be seen. A lot of people depend on our trips down here, and…” Why was she telling him all this? It seemed that she was always babbling on around him. He had that kind of effect on her. Wary, yet babbling away. Odd mix.

      “Somehow I don’t see you overlooking anything. My guess is that you’re obsessive over detail.”

      “Not obsessive. Just careful.” Maybe a little obsessive, but she wasn’t going to babble on about that, too.

      He chuckled. “There’s a fine line, and you’re over it, Dr Bonaventura. You couldn’t do otherwise.”

      “What makes you think you know me so well?” she snapped, that strange response to him clicking on with a slight chill wiggling up her spine.

      “Takes one look. Over-protective mother, a doctor passionate to her cause. How could you not be obsessive?”

      “Protective,” she corrected. “Not over-protective.”

      He chuckled again, then took a sip of his own coffee. “Your eyes practically popped out of their sockets when Isabella took to me. Oh, you were polite about it. But you were bothered. Admit it.”

      “You’re a stranger. I’ve taught her never to talk to strangers.”

      “It’s hard for children to make the distinction between strangers and friends when the person they trust most in the world introduces that stranger into their life. Child trusts parent, therefore child trusts parent’s judgment. You brought me into Isabella’s life and she trusted that.”

      He surprised her, sounding so insightful in matters to do with children. Of course, his own medical practice was devoted