Love Heals a Naughty Girl

Chapter Six

They met that last morning at Panera Bread. Marissa said, "I regret that I will not always be able to talk, even when I want to. At times they say that I'll be tending patients non-stop, but even when I can't talk, it will mean so much, my love, that you called." Then she laughed and said, "Remember when I'd go offline during chat without notice and tell you the next day that I had phone sex? Well, look for me to say over and over how much I want you next to me in bed."

Byron then drove Marissa to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. She would never forget how uncommonly handsome he looked to her that day. He was so fit for his age, and his muscles could be seen even under his sport coat. After she checked her bags and got her boarding pass, Byron then stepped behind her and picked up her carry-on luggage while putting his arm around her. "I know a nice corner of this airport that makes waiting more fun. They serve a fantastic pasta, and I'm paying their violin player to add a romantic touch."

Marissa kissed his cheek. "Let's go."

As they sat side by side at a round booth, a server brought a bowl of all-you-can-eat salad. It sat there untouched as their restaurant's proprietor, himself Italian, drew sweet music from his instrument. Even their pasta remained untouched until it was almost too cold to eat. They were too busy with their arms around each other and sharing gentle kisses. No one near them seemed to mind. After, all it was an airport. One person in love would always go, and the other would always remain behind to wait for the other.

"Marissa, it will mean so much to both you and me that you go out where you will experience life in the raw. I've been in poverty-stricken countries, where what you'll eat doesn't come prepackaged. It's the real laboratory of life out there, where you'll discover a deep faith in God. But soon you'll discover your real rock-bottom morals. Even years ago before you finished sewing your youthful wild oats, I could see a solid, moral woman in you far better than you were able to see in yourself."

"In this drive you have to help others, you'll to discover resources you are now unaware of now. Your residency is only two years, but you'll get twenty years' worth experience out of it. When you come back to me, you may be shaking with malaria, still fighting those tropical intestinal parasites until you get de-wormed, and perhaps still recovering from wounds." Byron held her. "But scared, battered, or bruised, you're mine. You'll be even more beautiful within. Unlike the gloom I portrayed, I hope that your life experiences will be closer to mine and our future marital love ever deeper."

They ate little but sat sharing affection long after the proprietor left off playing his violin. He was so taken by the devotion that Marissa and Byron shared that he tore up their check and asked that they only tip his server. At length, Byron saw her through her security screening and was permitted to accompany her to her final waiting area.

Bryon said to her, "During that two years, I call you every day if need be. Sometimes your hospital will be located in a dead zone, where you will be unable to receive phone calls. He paused, "Marissa, do you know where the war you're following is now?"

She replied, "The Muslim Northerners in Sudan are still devastating the Christians, who live in the South. We will set up our hospital there 24-7. But I owe the best care I can give to all human beings."

Byron then said, "I'll pray for you."

At length Marissa was standing by the boarding gate. In tears, she reached out for Byron. They held a prolonged embrace. She held onto Byron ever so tight. They couldn't get enough of each other. They pressed gentle lips together for the next five minutes.

Byron well understood the danger Marissa faced in a war zone. He had to let her go without expressing his deep-seated fear that he would never see Marissa again. But she had to have this defining experience, one without him. If she came back alive, they would have the rest of their lives together. The one way to have her forever, in spirit or in body, was to let Marissa go.

How lucky, Marissa thought, that Byron saw so much potential in her. Somehow even at her lowest point in her life, she knew he loved her. She never felt good enough for him. But she had to have this ordeal, this Baptism of Fire, this test of faith, something that would take everything she had just to survive. She now understood that Byron knew she needed this, not for him. He loved her without reservation. But he knew she needed it for herself. If she came back with her body broken by war, she would be a whole person within nevertheless. When Marissa thought of the woman she would be when she got back, it excited her.

Bryon asked Marissa again, "Will you let me know if there will be any change in your final destination? If you cannot receive calls, then we can exchange emails. You know, my love, that I am going to worry every day because I love you so much."

She kissed him on the cheek and replied, "I'll be okay. I got somebody to come back to. That's all that matters."

"Marissa, I won't allow myself to believe you're not coming back. I'll wait forever. God, how I love you, Marissa!"

They shared a final embrace and another long kiss. They both again said they loved each other before she boarded her plane.

Over the next two years Marissa and Byron talked between bombardments on her hospital compound and the flood of wounded refugees. Marissa learned to make medical supplies out of common items they could scrounge up.

She gave blood now and then and should have stopped to rest for at least a day, but she never quit her post in surgery, sometimes tending patients forty-eight hours without sleep. Eventually she collapsed from exhaustion, but eight hours later she was back for three day's non-stop surgery.

When Marissa collapsed a second time from heat exhaustion, a coworker noticed a scab on her leg. There had been a burn victim, an enemy officer soon to be repatriated. She had donated skin as a temporary covering for his burns, saying to him she didn't care who he was. He was human, not her personal enemy. But her leg had become so ulcerated, and her health so fragile that it had failed to regenerate its own protective skin. They evacuated her from the war zone for what was supposed to be a month. She must have eaten her weight but perked up after two weeks. Her color returned. They ordered her to stay longer but she borrowed a vehicle without asking permission, showing up back at the hospital ready to work. For a while she winced in pain when she brushed against patients' beds or surgical equipment. When she did heal over, her scar remained.

When her hospital located even closer to the fighting, she got lucky. She was able to call Byron at his office or on his cell phone. When he answered and heard her voice, he sounded as if a great burden had been lifted from his heart.

"Oh, Marissa," he said, "I have been so worried for your safety!"

"I don't like for you to worry about me, my love," she answered. "I'm okay today except for lingering chills from a recent bout of malaria, but more aralen fixed me up. I had to get de-wormed last week. I'm a little weak but still at it. I haven't missed a day of work yet."

"So, will you be coming home soon?"

"Actually, I volunteered to work here another six months at the hospital." Marissa paused. "My life is small, unimportant beside the big job I have here. These people have nothing, and there's nobody to help if we leave." She paused. "After six more months they joke around that they will arrest me if I stay. Then I am coming to make you mine. All mine. I love you."

Byron shouted back over sudden roar behind Marissa, "I love you!"

Marissa paused. Northern Sudanese artillery shells had begun rain down on her hospital compound. She shouted into her phone. "We're under attack now. Gotta-"

Byron shouted, "Marissa!" Her phone was dead.

"Marissa! Marissa! Marissa!"