Without Borders (17 page)

He nodded and ran his fingers along the frame.

She stepped closer. His mother was stunning. Her long, dark hair fell around her shoulders in shiny waves. She had Felipe’s earth-shattering smile with a hint of Marisol’s mischief. “She looks like you. Mari too.”

“
Gracias
.”

Annie kept her eyes on the photo but laced her fingers between his. “What happened to her?”

“Malaria.”

“I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand and looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction.

Felipe pulled her into a rope hammock that stretched along the corner of the balcony. “It was a long time ago.”

Her breath caught at his expression, and the burn of tears washed up her throat.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she leaned in to him, trying not to think of her own father’s health. At least she’d had twenty-one years with him. Probably a few more, if she was lucky. Felipe only had eight before his world crumpled.

“It is not nothing. I can see.” He pulled her toward him. The thick rope dug into her arms, and she settled in next to him. Her head fit snug against his shoulder, and the feather-thin cotton of his t-shirt caressed her cheek.

“My dad is sick,” she said. “Heart failure.”

“I am sorry.” He wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, and his shoulder muffled Annie’s sniffling.

“Sorry,” she muttered, pulling back. “I didn’t mean to be such a Debbie Downer.”

“Debbie who?” His eyes narrowed.

She laughed through her tears. “Never mind.”

“Okay, Debbie. Do you want to see more on the grand tour?”

Annie shook her head and snuggled harder into his arms. “Later.”

The sun sank lower in the sky, and the town’s generator began humming seconds before the lights around them clicked on. Without a word, Felipe reached over Annie’s head and flipped them off.

“When will you apply for medical school?” he asked.

A rush of anxiety slithered into her chest. “When I get home. If I can come up with a good essay. My MCAT scores haven’t exactly been stellar.”

Beneath her Felipe shifted, and Annie glanced into his face. His cowlick was made worse by the weave of the hammock pushing against his hair, and his dark eyebrows were askew. It gave him a rumpled, just out of bed look that made her toes tingle.

“I am applying to a Master’s program. Public Health.” Frustration seeped into his features. “Or I am supposed to. My mother says I must have the degree before she will put me in charge of
Ahora.
”

“You want to be in charge?” She propped herself on her elbow to study him. To watch the way his full mouth worked around his words. To see which phrases brought out his full smile and which left him dimple-less.

Felipe nodded as fireflies flickered around them, lighting the sky. “But this is not what I want to discuss.” His hands inched up the bottom of her shirt, grazing her hip.

Annie raised her eyebrows. “What do you want to discuss?” She slipped her fingers beneath his shirt to trace his collarbone. “This?” She traced an imaginary line from his shoulder to his jaw. “This?” She lowered her forehead and let her lips flutter against his. “This?”

He tugged her closer and pulled her bottom lip between his. “
Nada
.”

At first it was only Leonardo and his brothers begging her to play.

“Annie!” The boy’s face had popped up in the open window of the maternity home the second she and Marisol returned. “Come outside.
¿
Play
fútbol
?”

Every bone in her body ached with exhaustion. She’d spent the last eight hours following Marisol from house to house as her friend checked in on elderly patients and caught up on local gossip. But the boy’s expression was too bright and eager for Annie to say no.

She left Marisol and wandered into the evening heat. The sky glowed pink and orange, giving her some reprieve from the sun’s beating rays. Soon it would be dark, and the lights in the town would flick on for a few precious hours. Once ten o'clock rolled around, they'd all be plunged into darkness until morning.

The boys drew lines in the rutted dirt road and divided themselves into two teams—or rather, Leonardo claimed Annie as his teammate and forced his brothers together. But within minutes, five or six more kids jumped into the mix. Then a few more. Before long, it seemed every child in Sahsa had converged on the soccer game. The teams and the rules were informal, and after a half hour of playing Annie drooped under a layer of sweat.

Felipe appeared as a mass of laughing kids moved down the makeshift field, leaving her behind to guard the goal. "Who's winning?" he asked.

It was the first time she'd seen him all day, not that she hadn't spent half the day thinking about him. The kisses. The touches. The way his teeth nipped her earlobe as they'd swung in the hammock the night before. "I have no idea. I just stand here, and anytime the ball comes this way I kick it back the other way."

The children ran toward them, the ball flying in front. Felipe dove into the mix, stealing the ball and driving it toward the other end of the field. The younger kids squealed and laughed, but the older ones tore after him, intent on taking back their command of the game.

She watched from the goal, her legs too full of cement to chase after them. The game spanned the width of the road, blocking any would-be traffic from crossing one end of Sahsa to the other. But so far, no cars had come through.

“
Annie, mira
.” Leonardo’s voice rang out over the sounds of the game, and he waved to her from across the street. It was the third time in the last ten minutes he’d insisted she watch him. Each time he sprinted down the street and made a desperate grab for the ball. The kid was all sharp angles and uncoordinated bouncing, and he never managed to connect his foot with the ball.

“At least he’s persistent.” She waved back, and he took off. Dust and flecks of mud flew up behind him, and Leonardo drew his foot back and kicked, completely missing the ball. Just like every other time. But this time, the crowd imploded as he hit the ground, taking out a handful of kids with him.

Annie ran toward them, expecting tear-streaked faces and bloody knees. But everyone seemed fine, laughing and shoving one another. Except Leonardo.

His lay on his side, knees curled into this chest, moaning. Felipe knelt beside him, talking in low Spanish she couldn’t understand.

“Is he okay?” It was a dumb question. Clearly he wasn’t okay. “I mean—”

“Help me get him inside,” Felipe said.

Together, they unraveled the boy and got him to his feet. Even with a coat of dirt and sweat caking his shirt, it was obvious something wasn’t right. His left shoulder was higher than the right, and he kept his arm plastered to his chest, unmoving.

“Do you think something’s broken?” Annie asked as they made their way into the empty maternity home. She eased Leonardo onto the nearest bed.

Felipe rolled up the boy’s shirt sleeve. “Dislocated.”

Annie leaned in closer. Leonardo’s face was covered in beads of sweat, and a dozen tiny scrapes marked his elbow. A deep rivet sank into his skin just below the shoulder. “What are you going to do?” she asked. She fought the urge to touch it, to press her finger against his skin and feel for the out-of-place bone she knew was missing from the space.

Leonardo and Felipe began talking then, so quickly that Annie’s mind only translated every fifth word. Something about pain. Maybe corn?

“He said this happened before. Three months ago. His aunt pushed it back into place,” Felipe translated. He wrapped a piece of tape around the boy’s sleeve, keeping it rolled out of the way.

“Maybe it never got reset right?”

Felipe shrugged. “This happens one time, it happens many times. He will need to learn how to fix it himself.”

“Fix it himself?” Annie’s cheeks scrunched as she sat beside the boy. No one should have to reset their own dislocated shoulder. Especially a kid.

“
Sí
. Or his family can do it. But we will do it this time.” He pulled a supply bag out from beneath one of the beds and began digging.

“Annie can fix, yes?” Leonardo looked at her with wide, pleading brown eyes.

She started to tell him no. That she was just a college student from the suburbs, and that his shoulder looked angrier than her drunk uncle on New Year’s Eve.

“
Sí
. I mean yes, right?” She glanced at Felipe, trying to look brave. If this kid’s aunt could do it, she could too—especially with a doctor’s supervision. Plus, she’d delivered a baby a few days ago. What was a measly shoulder after that? Of course, that woman had done most of the work for the delivery. “Or, I can watch, if you—”

Felipe grinned. “Yes, you can do it.” He held a bottle of clear liquid in one hand and a packaged syringe in the other. “But first I am going to inject him to make his ligaments loosen. Plus it will help with the pain.” He unwrapped the syringe, and beside her Leonardo went stiff.

“No, no.” The boy stood, still cradling his shoulder against his body. His gaze darted around the room before locking on the door.

Annie put a hand on his good arm. “
Todo bien
.” She flashed him a bright smile, feeling only slightly guilty about using his obvious crush on her to distract him from the syringe in Felipe’s hand. It was still covered by the cap, but she could tell that was a Godzilla-sized needle under the plastic. “
Siéntese
.”

Leonardo sat, but his stare pinged back and forth between the syringe and the door. She leaned forward and forced him to look at her.

“
Todo bien
,” she said again, as if Felipe hadn’t just uncapped the giant needle behind her. If Leonardo turned around and saw that, he’d be gone.
“¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?
” It was an Intro to Spanish level question—in fact her first Spanish oral exam had centered around birthday party vocabulary—but it was the first one she could remember.

“
Febrero
.”

“
Yo también.”
Annie feigned fake excitement, as she asked him more birthday details.
What day in February?
His was the twentieth, hers was the third.
Did he have a party?
Yes, with his brothers and some candy from the store down the street.

Felipe tossed her a baggie full of alcohol wipes. “Keep him talking, but clean his arm. Here.” He pointed to a spot on his own arm, then began drawing liquid into the needle.

Annie pulled out a wipe and gently rubbed the spot on the boy’s arm. It took six sets of alcohol pads, but finally she got his arm free of mud and sweat from his fall. She was running out of things to say about birthdays, but luckily Leonardo wasn’t. Maybe it was nerves. Or maybe he was a birthday fanatic, but he had a lot to say on the topic.

“
Bien
,” Felipe said. He leaned in and spoke to the boy. There wasn’t a hint of worry in Felipe’s face, and if she didn’t know better, she would have guessed they were talking about the weather instead of the gargantuan needle behind the doctor’s back. “
Mira a Annie.
”

Leonardo’s eyes locked on hers as he followed Felipe’s orders. The boy gripped her hand with the strength of a hundred hulking body builders, but Annie held in her gasp. He flinched for half a second as the needle went in, and the liquid disappeared into his body. Felipe pulled the needle out and recapped it with the protective covering.

“Good job.
Bien hecho
.” Annie patted Leonardo’s good arm, and the boy’s chest puffed out as if he’d just slayed a dragon.

“Now we wait,” Felipe said. He eased Leonardo onto his back and poked around on the groove in the boy’s shoulder. “You still want to reset the arm, yes?”

She gulped but nodded. “Can I feel it?”

He made room for her hand, and with fingers like feathers, Annie touched the spot on Leonardo’s arm. Where a normal shoulder would be hard, it was mushy.

“
¿Lista?
” Felipe asked.

“Yep.” Her voice cracked on the end, but she smiled as if she wasn’t twirling in a cyclone of excitement and terror.

“Put one hand around his wrist.” Felipe took her hand and clamped it to the arm clutched to the boy’s chest. “Put the other hand here.” He wrapped her fingers around Leonardo’s forearm, just above the elbow. “
Bien.
Keep this hand steady and move his wrist very slowly. So he makes a half circle. Like this.” He demonstrated with his own arm. “But if there is too much resistance or he is in too much pain, stop. Do not force it.”

Annie’s pulse thudded in her ears. “How do I know if it’s too much?”

“You will know.”

She gulped back her nerves, trying to find that excitement that had rushed through her a few minutes ago. “Okay. You talk to him this time. I have to concentrate.”

Before long, Leonardo was rambling about soccer teams. Her fingers were sweaty, and she prayed they wouldn’t slip from his arm, making things worse for everyone involved. As if moving the thinnest piece of porcelain imaginable, she lifted his wrist.

“
Bien.
Keep going,” Felipe said.

She did, until the boy’s forearm stuck out at a ninety degree angle from his ribcage. “Now what?”

“Keep one hand on his bicep and lift like this.” He raised his own arm above his head, keeping the elbow bent. “You will feel it move back into place.”

She licked her dry lips.
No big deal.
“Okay.” She inched the boy’s arm upward, and almost instantly his entire arm jerked into place. The odd curve in his shoulder disappeared. “I did it!”

“Better!” Leonardo’s face brightened, and he started to sit up.

Annie’s hands were still wrapped around his arm, and the feel of the bone sliding back out of socket made her insides drop to her feet.

“Owwww.” He collapsed back into the bed and wiggled in pain.

“It is okay,” Felipe said. He put a hand on the boy’s chest. “Try again.”

“Maybe you should do it?”

“He moved too soon. It is fine. Try again. I will hold him still.”

“Okay.” The arm was harder to move this time, as if the shoulder had gone from mildly annoyed to full-on rage. Leonardo groaned and writhed on the bed, and she paused.