Alfonso glared at Maxence. “How about you? How dare you berate me for being from a royal family, considering whoyouare?”
What the hell was that?Dree twisted her head to look at Max.
Maxence’s face was rigid with anger. “Me? I’mnobody.I amnothingbut a man who wants to be a priest, and nothing more. I will be an anonymous priest in a black Jesuit cossack, and I will make it my personal mission to change the world for the better one shovel of dirt at a time. My place is to obey the Pope and the Catholic Church, not toleadanyone, not tobeanyone, and that is all. When I take Holy Orders, I willdisappearinto the Churchforever.”
His conviction shocked Dree. She’d thought he was conflicted about entering the priesthood, or heshouldbe considering how he “slipped” every chance he got, but the adamance in his voice sounded like he had firmly decided to be a priest.
“We can’t all be so self-sacrificing, Maxence,” Alfonso said, his tone deeply sarcastic. “Some of us are not running away from what we were born to be.”
“We weretoldthat’s what we were born to be, but we do not have to succumb to what others tell us is our fate,” Max answered.
“This is ridiculous,” Isaak said. “Why are we even continuing this charade of a charity mission? Alfie has practically admitted this whole project is a tax haven and a scheme to sell overpriced pharmaceuticals to impoverished villages.”
“Ineed to continue,” Dree said.
Max’s head whipped around to look at her, and the other guys stopped their argument to listen.
She said, “I am doing somethingimportanthere. I mean, nursing in the inner city of Phoenix was important, but this feels like why I became a nurse. It’s grueling. It’s killing me. But I need to make it through the next few villages. We said it was a month, and we’ve only got a week left. I’m staying. I signed up for this.”
“But what are you going to do when this trip is over?” Alfonso asked her, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Are you going to continue to travel the world, eating a few lentils for supper and not bathing for weeks? Or maybe this is just a roughing-it vacation for you to see how the impoverished world lives.”
Maxence stepped forward, his fist beside his shoulder.
Dree grabbed him this time. She could probably bury a body out in the wilds of Nepal, but Isaak had said there was a layer of shale under the ground here, so it wouldn’t be easy.
Maxence said, “She’s a nurse, and she’s been working herself to death. This isn’t disaster tourism for her. She isn’t out here as a publicity stunt or financial strategy for a company. Dree is helping people, one person at a time. If she’s staying, I’m staying.”
Alfonso mocked, “Of course you are staying. You’re sleeping in her tent with her, and who knows what—”
Father Booker stepped closer. “Sister Andrea Catherine is an example of Christ in action to us all. I will not abandonhermission.”
Alfonso said to Father Booker, “You know she’s not a religious sister, right?”
“She is my sister in Christ, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for her.”
Dree was not going to cry. She wasnot.
Batsa stepped up to stand beside Father Booker. “I agreed to serve as a translator for a month. I will be staying to help Sister Andrea Catherine.”
Isaak told Alfonso, “If nothing else, I’m here as moral support. This mission may have begun as a strategic move for your company, but it’shermission now.”
Dree hadn’t meant this to be a mutiny, but it had turned into one.
The mountains turned to water in the morning sunshine. The tear that dripped down her face was hot, then turned cold in the freezing winter air.
Alfonso’s expression hardened. “My company will design and donate incubators and NICU micro-clinics to the country of Nepal. I will continue to survey and analyze sites for the clinics. I will not abandon this project. It will save the lives of premature infants, and I will not abandon them.”
With that impasse, they left the site and went to their motorcycles to travel to the next town.
As Dree was ready to mount hers, Maxence squeezed her fingers before he settled onto the bike behind her. “You did well.”
That day’s clinic was moderately heartbreaking, not the worst Dree had seen, but certainly not the best.
The daytime and nighttime temperatures had continued to drop, and Dree worried that their precious vaccine stocks would freeze even inside the tent that night.
The house where they set up the clinic was frigid despite a fire burning in the fireplace and a wood stove glowing in the corner. As the afternoon progressed, her fingers became colder and began to lose sensation. Her nose ran constantly, and the tip was chilled.
The motorcycle ride back to the campsite was punishing. After she began shaking too badly, Maxence tapped her to pull over and insisted they trade places so that he would block the wind from hitting her. She had to admit that with his big body in front, she huddled down behind him, and the wind wasn’t quite as cruel.
