I’d been kissed before, many times, but never like that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I’d fallen asleep next to a blasting heater. In a sleep-induced haze, I figured it was just the warming temperatures outside. As strange as it seemed for Uganda’s summer to be during America’s winter, I was expecting it but I realized with a start that the unusual warmth was just a bit too hot.
I lazily opened my eyes and they were met with a dull pair of brown ones. I shot up.
“Mandisa!” She wasn’t responding to me and my heart leapt in my throat. “Mandisa, baby.” I pushed her growing hair out of her eyes and tried to get her to look at me, but it did no good. I jumped to my feet and pushed my door open. It was still dark out. “Ian!” I yelled, panicked.
Immediately, a disheveled Ian appeared next to me. “What’s happened?” he asked.
Tears began to spill. “It’s Mandisa,” I explained, pointing to my bed.
He ran to her side and felt her head and neck. “She’s burning up.”
“The kitchen!” I said, thinking of the nearest running water source.
Ian scooped tiny Mandisa in his arms and he practically swallowed her small frame.
We ran around the baobab tree to the kitchen and I started running the cool water, plugging the drain. The stainless steel tub was large enough to submerge her.
I tossed a bunch of kitchen towels in the sink to cushion her and Ian rested her in the water. The cool water was shocking enough she should have protested but not a peep came from her tiny lips and I found myself taking my panic to the next level.
We frantically doused her to get her temperature down.
“Sweetheart?” I asked her after a few minutes but she didn’t respond. “God, Ian,” I breathed out.
“I’ll get Karina,” he said and ran off toward hers and Charles’ cabin.
I continuously covered her in the cool running water and prayed like I’d never prayed before. I begged her under my breath to respond to me, but she just stared blankly ahead and my heart sank into my stomach.
“Where is she?” a sleepy Karina said.
“In here,” I heard Ian explain.
Karina came to my side quickly and brushed the hair from my shoulder with her hand, assuring me the way a mother would. “Ian,” she said, looking down on Mandisa. “Grab my kit, please?”
Ian ran from the room and returned with Karina’s big bag of remedies she kept handy at all times.
She pulled out a needle and looked over at me. “It’s just an acetaminophen injection because she won’t chew medicine.”
I nodded as if my approval was even needed, but Karina gave me that respect anyway. She filled the needle and Ian helped me lift her shoulders. Karina dried and swabbed the little fleshy part of Mandisa’s arm with alcohol then injected the medicine. I felt an almost immediate sense of relief knowing we were tending to the outside and Karina was tending to the inside.
Karina felt the water in the basin and asked Ian to drain it as Mandisa’s body temperature was making it warm. He did as she asked then plugged the drain once more. “Keep pouring that water over her head, Sophie.”
Ian and I worked methodically, pouring and draining, draining and pouring. Twenty minutes passed and Mandisa was noticeably cooler but still unresponsive.
“Why isn’t she getting better?” I asked.
“The medicine will make her sleepy,” Karina explained before grabbing my shoulder and turning me toward her. “She’s also very sick, Sophie.”
Karina took her temperature and it was within a safer range so Ian grabbed a large towel and wrapped her little body up. I grabbed a clean smock from the laundry that looked like it would fit her and helped Karina change Mandisa into it. When she was all dry, I made Ian take her to my hut to sleep while we figured out where we were going to put everyone.
Karina left to check on all the children in their dorms to make sure no one else had fevers.
“My heart is in my throat,” I said quietly after Ian tucked Mandisa in my bed.
He covered her loosely in my sheet and we silently watched her. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and the flood of memories from the night before surfaced, reminding me that I was allowed to hug him. I grabbed him and buried my face in his chest, so grateful for his comfort. He ran his hands down my hair and kissed the top of my head, making me sigh.