Her bright eyes light up my soul.
‘I’ve even planned baby names,’ she says with a cheeky smirk.
‘I bet you have,’ I say, knowing she is pretending to joke but really isn’t. Nothing in Kate’s world goes unplanned as far as she can manage it. ‘We’re going to make this work, Kate. I don’t care if hell or high water, bombs, illnesses or bigoted parents come between us. When I get home, this is the start of us for real.’
She leans her head onto my chest and rests it there as I stroke her hair. I can tell she is worried about this trip. The truth is I am too, as it will plunge me into horrific scenes similar to those I’ve experienced first-hand and worked hard to overcome, but I’ve committed to this now and I can’t back out.
The news has been terrifying as the world’s media conveys what’s been happening in Haiti, and the scenes are all too familiar. There are thousands of people sitting in the streets over there with nowhere to go. Rescuers are trying to dig victims out in the dark using flashlights. Bodies covered with white dust are piled on the back of pick-up trucks as vehicles ferry the injured to hospital. It echoes desperately the carnage Kate and I witnessed together and, although I won’t admit it to her, I’m dreading reliving such an atrocity.
And so we won’t discuss that in detail. We’ll just get this over and done with and then we’ll start as we mean to go on.
‘Did you say a red front door or a green front door in our dream home?’ she asks me playfully as I walk down the steps of her apartment to the taxi waiting to take me to the airport once more.
‘Red!’ I call back to her.
‘Green!’ she says in typical protest.
I glance back as she waves at me in her dressing gown, a picture of beauty that I carry with me everywhere.
‘I love you, Kate!’
‘I love you more, David!’ she says to me, and I leave for the unknown territory I’ve pledged to, but also knowing one thing for sure.
The whole world stops, yet passion and ideas come to life when I’m with Kate Foley, and I can’t wait to get back to stop the clocks and make more magic with her again.
17.
KATE
Iwatch the world news on television when I come back from work after a particularly trying shift. Sitting there, my mouth is open in awe and I’m frozen to my armchair as the scenes of destruction in Haiti are played out in front of me on screen.
I can taste the smoke in my mouth, I can smell the blood, and I can feel the fear for real as battered and bloodstained bodies are piled high in the streets. Rescuers have been forced to dig through the rubble with their bare hands to free trapped survivors.
My heart thumps for David, so far away amidst a natural disaster that measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, leaving up to half a million people dead, with aid workers missing and frantic family members screaming out for loved ones who are long disappeared.
‘Oh, David, you shouldn’t be there!’ I gasp, fearing for thepost-traumatic stress and flashbacks he will suffer when he sees this for real. It’s all too familiar from before but it’s on an even bigger scale. Schools have collapsed, hotels have collapsed, neighbourhoods have disappeared and gravely injured Haitians call out for help, their bodies covered in dust and blood, survivors holding hands and singing hymns as they wait for help to come.
I feel bile rise in the back of my throat and I check my phone to see when I’d last heard from him. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since he landed in Haiti, and on his first phone call he sounded traumatized just as he was bound to be with such harrowing scenes.
‘I spoke to a little boy,’ he told me, ‘I think his name was Reuben, who was looking for his father in the rubble but his father was dead.’
‘That’s so awful,’ I said to him. ‘Please stay safe.’
He took his time to speak again.
‘We’re arranging to get him to Fort Lauderdale, working with the US forces to reunite him with some family there, but his eyes will haunt me for ever,’ he told me. ‘I tried to distract him by telling him stories about airplanes and machinery as he seemed so interested and gave him a chocolate bar and my badge. It’s heartbreaking, Kate, but I’m glad I came here.’
He sounded exhausted but strong and determined.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I told him. ‘But please come home safe.’
‘Don’t worry, I will,’ he replied, but that was almost a day ago.
As the news unfolds it’s frightening me more and more, giving me the most horrendous gut feeling as stories emerge of UN aid workers, Red Cross volunteers and many other helpers being caught up in the destruction as buildings continue to collapse and after-shocks ripple through the country. The scale of the devastation is unimaginable.
I’m still waiting for news from David when Sinead arrives in from work, rummaging through cupboards for a late-night snack as she normally does.
‘Any word yet from him?’ she asks me, and I shake my head.
