Read Online Do-Gooder by j. leigh bailey - Free Book Online
Authors: j. leigh bailey
Tags: Young Adult
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deserved more than they were willing to give. Then later, when I realized that if I didn’t do something to change my life, I’d end up dead, it helped again. I deserved more than that life. I wasn’t going to accept it anymore. I had a chance to do something different, something better.”
I swallowed. The decisions, the choices he’d had to make. I couldn’t even imagine them. I hoped to God I never had to find that kind of strength.
TWENTY MINUTES later movement on the road ahead caught my attention. A huge procession of people trudged in our direction, many carrying bundles of belongings. Those without the cargo had a child, or sometimes two, strapped to backs or settled on hips. I pulled the Range Rover as far over on the road as I could. The bright colors they wore contrasted sharply with the somber expressions on their faces. Some of the people were shoeless. I didn’t know why that stood out so much, but it did. Maybe because I wore shoes that cost more than a hundred bucks, and they had nothing, not even cheap sandals. I tried to count them, but when I reached 120 and hadn’t even made it to the halfway point, I gave up.
“Who are they?” I asked in a hushed voice. “Where are they going?”
No one looked at us as they walked past. Faces blank, eyes emotionless. Even the children, solemn enough to be part of a funeral procession, stared ahead as though neither their origin nor their destination made a difference.
“Refugees from the CAR. We’re not too far from the border right now, and the conflict there is getting worse.”
“Can you imagine,” I asked, licking my lips, “how bad things must be there to make this the preferable option?”
“War is never pretty.”
“I was born there, you know.” I watched a boy of about twelve walking next to his mother. He had a pack almost as big as he was strapped to his bony shoulders and held the hand of a girl half his age. His other hand was missing.
I had to swallow several times to keep my gorge down. I wanted to cry or hit something. I wanted to pack them all into the Range Rover with us and take them somewhere safe. These people, they were so absolutely defeated. I started to see why Chuck chose to stay and help. At least a little.
“In the CAR?” Henry kept his voice as quiet as mine. Somehow it didn’t seem right not to whisper in the face of this kind of devastation. Destroying a place is bad enough, but to destroy the human spirit this way was somehow much, much worse.
“Kind of a family joke. The only red-haired, blue-eyed baby to be born in the province since the French left.” An old man with several teeth missing shuffled past my window. “I loved it there. I loved the people, all of them. The staff. Even the refugees. I was just a kid, so the enormity of it, of this”—I gestured around us—“never sunk in. They were Sudanese refugees then. When I was seven, we left, Mom and I.”
“Why’d you leave?” Henry reached over and covered my hand with his good one. The warmth of the contact helped eliminate some of the empty chill filling me at the sight of hundreds of homeless people.
“I’ve never gotten a straight answer. I don’t know if we left because Mom and Chuck’s relationship wasn’t working out and she wanted to go back to the States or if it was too hard to manage a seven-year-old with diabetes from a run-down clinic in the CAR. I know that their divorce was final not too long after we left.”
He squeezed my hand, and we waited for the train of refugees to walk past.
Chapter 7
HENRY DECIDED he probably wouldn’t lose his hand. Actually, he said the swelling and discoloration weren’t getting worse, which amounted to the same thing. “The antivenin doesn’t actually heal anything,” he told me when I asked. “It just keeps it from getting worse. The rest will have to heal on its own. We caught it soon enough, and the bush viper didn’t get much of a hold. He was a young guy, not
I swallowed. The decisions, the choices he’d had to make. I couldn’t even imagine them. I hoped to God I never had to find that kind of strength.
TWENTY MINUTES later movement on the road ahead caught my attention. A huge procession of people trudged in our direction, many carrying bundles of belongings. Those without the cargo had a child, or sometimes two, strapped to backs or settled on hips. I pulled the Range Rover as far over on the road as I could. The bright colors they wore contrasted sharply with the somber expressions on their faces. Some of the people were shoeless. I didn’t know why that stood out so much, but it did. Maybe because I wore shoes that cost more than a hundred bucks, and they had nothing, not even cheap sandals. I tried to count them, but when I reached 120 and hadn’t even made it to the halfway point, I gave up.
“Who are they?” I asked in a hushed voice. “Where are they going?”
No one looked at us as they walked past. Faces blank, eyes emotionless. Even the children, solemn enough to be part of a funeral procession, stared ahead as though neither their origin nor their destination made a difference.
“Refugees from the CAR. We’re not too far from the border right now, and the conflict there is getting worse.”
“Can you imagine,” I asked, licking my lips, “how bad things must be there to make this the preferable option?”
“War is never pretty.”
“I was born there, you know.” I watched a boy of about twelve walking next to his mother. He had a pack almost as big as he was strapped to his bony shoulders and held the hand of a girl half his age. His other hand was missing.
I had to swallow several times to keep my gorge down. I wanted to cry or hit something. I wanted to pack them all into the Range Rover with us and take them somewhere safe. These people, they were so absolutely defeated. I started to see why Chuck chose to stay and help. At least a little.
“In the CAR?” Henry kept his voice as quiet as mine. Somehow it didn’t seem right not to whisper in the face of this kind of devastation. Destroying a place is bad enough, but to destroy the human spirit this way was somehow much, much worse.
“Kind of a family joke. The only red-haired, blue-eyed baby to be born in the province since the French left.” An old man with several teeth missing shuffled past my window. “I loved it there. I loved the people, all of them. The staff. Even the refugees. I was just a kid, so the enormity of it, of this”—I gestured around us—“never sunk in. They were Sudanese refugees then. When I was seven, we left, Mom and I.”
“Why’d you leave?” Henry reached over and covered my hand with his good one. The warmth of the contact helped eliminate some of the empty chill filling me at the sight of hundreds of homeless people.
“I’ve never gotten a straight answer. I don’t know if we left because Mom and Chuck’s relationship wasn’t working out and she wanted to go back to the States or if it was too hard to manage a seven-year-old with diabetes from a run-down clinic in the CAR. I know that their divorce was final not too long after we left.”
He squeezed my hand, and we waited for the train of refugees to walk past.
Chapter 7
HENRY DECIDED he probably wouldn’t lose his hand. Actually, he said the swelling and discoloration weren’t getting worse, which amounted to the same thing. “The antivenin doesn’t actually heal anything,” he told me when I asked. “It just keeps it from getting worse. The rest will have to heal on its own. We caught it soon enough, and the bush viper didn’t get much of a hold. He was a young guy, not
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