THURSDAY MORNING DAWNED bright through the dust still coating the air. Another day without Sarah Beth, another day of bodies and chaos. Kaylan had slept for two hours on a pallet beneath one of the sheets next to the girl who’d lost her arm.
Two nights and a day had passed since the earthquake, and she still hadn’t called home. Rhonda needed her, and phone lines were still down. A member of the American embassy had found her and Rhonda and registered their names on a list with Sarah Beth’s. Families were to be contacted, but she had no way of knowing if her family had been called. They would be frantic by now.
“Rhonda, Kaylan.” Abe’s voice carried before he reached them. “A truck is here. Doctors, supplies. Water and food. Hurry.”
“Kaylan, you go with Abraham and Stevenson. Bring back what you can.” She hobbled after the boys as they raced ahead.
Home was a lifetime away, and she wondered if she would ever see the sun shining on the lake again. Moisture was absent from her mouth and lips, and her stomach had ceased to speak. Hunger pains had become familiar sensations, a new normal. Food was scarce. Kaylan passed her rations to Sophia and her friends, her water to Yanick and her baby. Kaylan wondered where Tasha and Kenny were. Would she see them again? Were they alive?
She grew weaker by the hour but powered through, determined to save one more life. Each nameless face bore the soul of Sarah Beth, of little Reuben, of the girl who had lost her arm. One more. Save one more.
More died by the hour.
Maneuvering around rubble, she finally arrived at the trucks. People shouted and shoved. A man hollered indiscernible noises, and she realized he was deaf. As she pushed to his side to help, the crowd shoved him to the ground. She lost sight of him in the throng. Anyone with a disability in Haiti was considered of less importance than the local animals. But she could do nothing to help as the crowd pushed her back and megaphones blared in an attempt to bring order.
Her leg ached, and she struggled to keep her weight off the wound. Blood seeped through the bandage. The stitches had busted. She gritted her teeth and welcomed the pain. It motivated her race to help the people around her—one more who wouldn’t experience the same fate as Sarah Beth. Their pain was hers. They were survivors of this tragedy. She would model their resiliency. Her pain would become her strength. The weak would not leave Haiti alive.
Water bottles were passed, and crackers flew into waiting hands. Kaylan was once again jostled, but Abraham and Stevenson appeared at her side and gripped her arms. They waded into the crowd and arrived at the truck carrying men and women in American camouflage. She scanned the faces, wishing Nick and Micah were among them, but their SEAL team would never let them come to Haiti. “I need food.”
“Help us, please.”
“Money, shelter.”
“Clothes.”
“Medicine.”
“Water, please, God, water.”
Creole and broken English swirled around her head like a whirlpool, and the stench of sweat and blood assaulted her nose.
“I work for the Hope Clinic. We need supplies. Medicine, food, water. We have a hundred under our care and haven’t anything to eat or drink.”
“A lot haven’t, ma’am.”
The soldier’s russet hair reminded her of Seth, and she offered the ghost of a smile. “Please, anything.”
“If we give you a crate, this mob will have our heads. Where’s the clinic? Maybe we can bring the next truck load by there.”
“A box, anything, please.” She was prepared to beg. The people needed something. Many had waited in a line for hours the day before, only to be turned away, water buckets empty. An eight-month-old baby had died the day before from lack of nutrients. Kaylan didn’t want that for Yanick’s child. Sarah Beth had helped bring that little life into the world.
The soldier looked at his partner and handed Abraham and Stevenson each a box of water and crackers. “I’m sorry I can’t do more.”
“We’ll manage. Thank you.”
A group of men crowded around her, and she lost Abe. Hands reached upward toward the back of the truck and jumped and pushed on Kaylan’s head to support their weight. She crumpled to the ground, feet trampling her.
She shielded her face, blood now pouring down her leg. “Abe. Stevenson.” Her words went unheard beneath the cries of a hunger-ravaged crowd. A box nicked her head as a man grabbed it and ran into the streets. She lay dazed, feet stepping on and over her.
A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her to the edge of the crowd. Abraham’s loud words gained the attention of a few of the men and they parted briefly as she was pulled to her feet.
“Kaylan, you okay?”
She sagged against him, her head pounding. Survival had driven the people to primal behavior. Only those strong enough, determined enough to fight for food and water would avoid starvation.
“When will this nightmare end, Abe?”
His smile was sad. “It is always a nightmare for the people of Haiti. But we know how to survive.”
“How do you survive this? No water, no food. No place to sleep. How do you live like this?”
“It is Haiti, Kaylan. We live like this because we must.” He threw her arm around his shoulder and supported her weight. Her eyes threatened to close. He squared his shoulders, his head erect. “Someday, things will change for us. I have hope for my people, hope for a better Haiti.”
“What hope?” She nearly shouted.
“You are alive, are you not? So am I.” His sharp, steady gaze challenged her to argue.
Abraham led them through the markets and back to the clinic. Blood had become more common than water, and crying ceased to have meaning. The smell of human flesh permeated the air from piles of bodies on fire in the street. Troops and reporters arrived, bearing cameras instead of supplies. Food, water, and medicine sat at airports in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, unable to travel the rutted, pothole-riddled roads to people in need.
Broken people, bruised bodies, shattered lives, shaken faiths, missing loved ones. No soccer games led by a group of rowdy children, no worship bells. Kaylan’s heart broke.
A group of people gathered at the end of the street around a pole leaning on the side of a dilapidated restaurant. Cheers and cries seemed foreign to her ears. She stopped, and her breath caught as the red and blue of the Haitian flag pulled into a sky clearing of dust. Blue shone through for the first time since the quake. A child sat on his father’s shoulders, hoisting the cloth higher and higher until it billowed in the air.
Abraham stood tall. “You see, Kaylan? There will be a better Haiti. One day. God is still in control.”
In the ashes and rubble the flag spoke of lespwa, hope despite the harshness. Kaylan didn’t understand it, couldn’t believe it. Too many lay dead, too much destroyed. Still, the image of the flag nagged her.
“How are you so strong? You pulled bodies and people from buildings. You braved the quake to save others when you could have died. Why?”
“You would have too.”
“I wanted to hide. I wanted to die when Sarah . . . when my friend died.”
“You kept going. You will rise above this.”
Kaylan didn’t think so. Something inside her had died when Sarah Beth breathed her last.
A cold, delirious voice halted Kaylan. His shouts filled the street.
“You, you brought this to Haiti. Where is your God?”
Eliezer rocked on the sidewalk like a drunken man in tattered and torn clothes. A gash stretched from his eye to his jaw. Kaylan instinctively stepped toward him, driven to inspect the wound.
“Eliezer, you’re hurt. Let me see.”
“Everyone is hurt. Why do you care?’
“I care. Let me see if I can help.” She released Abraham and stumbled toward Eliezer.
“Where is your God now, white woman? Haiti has crumbled, and my people are joining the spirits of their ancestors. Our graves overflow. Does your God care? No! If He is real, He let this happen.” He spat at her feet. “You serve Him, so this is your fault. They are buried in mass graves. They are forgotten and disrespected. Your fault. You and your government. You and your God.”
He pointed a bony finger in her face, his breath warmer than the afternoon air. “You should never have come to Haiti. My people die because of your God. Where is He?” A manic laugh burst from his lips, and Kaylan shrank back in fear. “Where is your pretty friend, white girl? She dead? Your God abandoned her too. And yet you live. Her death is on your hands. Curse you, and curse your God.”
Tears burned in her eyes. Abraham stepped in front of her, shouting at Eliezer in Creole.
“You should never have come to Haiti.” Heads, shaken from despondency, turned toward them in the street.
“Eliezer, your face could be infected. Let me help you.” She remembered Sarah Beth’s cuts and stepped forward again, unwilling to let him suffer when she could ease his pain.
He spit again. “Don’t touch me. I do not want your help. Leave Haiti. This is your fault. Your God is to blame.”
A crowd began to gather, and Kaylan glanced at Abe, his eyes filled with anger and fear. Tucking her under his arm, he hurried them down the street.
My fault Sarah Beth is dead. All my fault. I shouldn’t have come to Haiti. All my fault. Where are You, God?
Her leg buckled, and her head pounded. Abe shouted in the distance. Spots danced before her eyes, and the ground welcomed her fall. Her last thought was of the food she had failed to procure. She would have to try again tomorrow.