and that was something that never failed him.
Damien and Daniel Caldwell. Two of a kind—well, not so much. They looked alike, with a few notable exceptions like hair length and beard. Daniel was the clean-shaven, short-haired version, while Damien was the long-haired, scruffy-bearded one. But they were both six foot one, had the same brown eyes, same dimples that women seemed to adore. Same general build. Apart from their outward looks, though, they couldn’t have been more different. Restlessness and the need to keep moving were Damien’s trademarks while contented domesticity and a quiet lifestyle were his brother’s. Which Damien envied, as he’d always figured that by the time he was thirty-five he’d have something in his life more stable than what he had. Something substantial. Yet that hadn’t happened.
It’s too quiet tonight, Damien scribbled into a short letter to his brother. It feels like it’s going to eat me alive. He’d seen Daniel a few months ago. Gone back to the States for Daniel’s wedding. And it was a happy reunion, not like the time before that when he’d been called home to support his brother through his first wife’s death. But Daniel had moved on now. He had a happy life, a happy family. Lucky, lucky man.
The work is good, though, bro. It keeps me busy pretty much all the time. Keeps me out of trouble. So how’s your new life fitting into your work schedule?
Daniel’s life—a nice dream. Even though, deep down, Damien didn’t want strings to bind him to one place, one lifestyle. Rather, he needed to do what he wanted, when he wanted, with no one to account to. And space to think, to reevaluate. Or was that another of his overcompensations? Anyway, he had that now, although he’d had to come to the remote jungles of Costa Rica to find it. In that remoteness, however, he’d found a freedom he’d never really had before.
And remote it was. Isolated from all the everyday conveniences that Costa Rica’s large cities offered. Not even attractive to the never-ending flow of expats who were discovering the charms of this newly modernizing Central American country.
Most of the time Damien thrived on the isolation, not that he was, by nature, a solitary kind of man. Because he wasn’t. Or at least didn’t used to be. In his former life, he’d liked fast cars, nice condos and beautiful women. In fact, he’d thrived on those things before he’d escaped them. Now, the lure of the jungle had trapped him in a self-imposed celibacy, and that wasn’t just of a sexual nature. It was a celibacy from worldly matters. A total abstinence from anything that wasn’t directed specifically toward him. A time to figure out where he was going next in his life. Or if he was even going to go anywhere else at all.
In the meantime, Damien didn’t regret turning his back on his old life in order to take off on this new one. In ways he’d never expected, it suited him.
Say hello to Zoey for me, and tell her I’m glad she joined the family. And give Maddie a kiss from her Uncle Damien.
Damien scrawled his initials at the bottom of the letter, stuck it in an envelope and addressed it. Maybe sometime in the next week or so he’d head into Cima de la Montaña to stock up on some basic necessities and mail the letter. Call his parents if he got near enough to a cell tower. And find a damned hamburger!
“We need you back in the hospital, Doctor,” Alegria Diaz called through his open window. She was his only trained nurse—a woman who’d left the jungle to seek a higher education. Which, in these parts, was a rarity as the people here didn’t usually venture too far out into the world.
“What is it?” he called back, bending down to pull on his boots.
“Stomachache. Nothing serious. But he wouldn’t listen to me. Said he had to see el médico.”
El médico. The doctor. Yes, that was him. The doctor who directed one trained nurse, one semiretired, burned-out plastic surgeon and a handful of willing, if not experienced, volunteers.
“Let me put my shirt back on and comb my hair, and I’ll be right over.” A year ago his world had been very large. Penthouse. Sports car. Today it was very small. A one-room hut twenty paces from the hospital. A borrowed pickup truck that worked as often as it didn’t.
Damien donned a cotton T-shirt, pulled his hair back and rubber-banded it into a small ponytail, and headed out the door. Being on call 24/7 wasn’t necessarily the best schedule, but that was the life he’d accepted for himself and it was also the life he was determined to stick with. For how long? At least until he figured out what his next life would be. Or if he’d finally stumbled upon the life he wanted.
“I wanted to give him an antacid,” Alegria told him as he entered through the door of El Hospital Bombacopsis, which sat central in the tiny village of Bombacopsis.
“But he refused it?” Damien asked, stopping just inside the door.
“He said a resbaladera would fix him.”
Resbaladera—a rice and barley drink. “Well, we don’t serve that here and, even if we did, I’ve never heard that it has any medicinal benefits for a stomachache.”
Alegria smiled up at him. She was a petite woman, small in frame, short in height. Dark skin, black hair, dark eyes. Mother of three, grandmother of one. “He won’t take an antacid from you,” she warned.
“And yesterday he wouldn’t take an aspirin from me when he had a headache. So why’s he here in the first place, if he refuses medical treatment?”
“Señor Segura takes sick twice a year, when his wife goes off to San José to visit her sister.”
“She leaves, and he catches a cold and comes to the hospital.” Damien chuckled.
“Rosalita is a good cook here. He likes her food.”
“Well, apparently he ate too much of it tonight, since he’s sick at his stomach.”
Alegria shrugged. “He’s hard to control once you put a plate of casado in front of him.”
Casado—rice, black beans, plantains, salad, tortillas and meat. One of Damien’s favorite Costa Rican meals. But he didn’t go all glutton on it the way Señor Segura apparently had. “Well, casado or not, I’m going to check him out, and if this turns out to be a simple stomachache from overeating I’m going to give him an antacid and tell Rosalita to cut back on his portions.”
“He won’t like that,” Alegria said.
“And I don’t like having my evening interrupted by a patient who refuses to do what his nurse tells him.”
“Whatever you say, Doctor.” Alegria scooted off to fetch the antacid while Damien approached his cantankerous patient.
“I hear you won’t take the medicine my nurse wanted to give you.”
“It’s no good,” Señor Segura said. “Won’t cure what’s wrong with me.”
“But a rice and barley drink will?”
“That’s what my Guadalupe always gives me when I don’t feel so well.”
“Well, Guadalupe is visiting her sister now, which means we’re the ones who are going to have to make you feel better.” Damien bent down and prodded the man’s belly, then had a listen to his belly sounds through a stethoscope. He checked the chart for the vital signs Alegria had already recorded, then took a look down Señor Segura’s throat. Nothing struck him as serious so he signaled Alegria to bring the antacid over to the bedside. “OK, you’re sick. But it’s only because you ate too much. My nurse is going to give you a couple of tablets to chew that will make you feel better.”
“The tablets are no good. I want resbaladera like my Guadalupe makes.”
Damien refused to let this man try his patience, which was going to happen very quickly if he didn’t get this situation resolved. It was a simple matter, though. Two antacid tablets would work wonders, if he could convince Señor Segura to give in. “I don’t have resbaladera here, and we’re not going to make it specifically for you.” They had neither the means nor the money to make special