Dark Price of Paradise

That Single Accusing Voice

"I've given her a sedative. She can sleep here tonight. I will send Kane tomorrow to drive her to the clinic. She will stay there tomorrow so that I can observe her." Li said as he packed up his medicine bag. "If you are staying here tonight, keep an eye on her. The barbiturate should knock her out for the rest of the night, but we shouldn't leave her alone tonight."

"I was spending the night anyway, Doc." Nash admitted. "I'll go ahead and wait until Kane gets here with the Jeep tomorrow."

Nash had fixed Teuila breakfast in the morning. She felt better after eating the eggs. She drank coffee, which she kept mainly for Nash, since she had grown up drinking tea. The coffee helped her to wake up.

"You sound normal." Nash commented as he shoveled up Teuila's eggs. "You're voice has a little spark to it."

"You are all over reacting. I'm fine." Teuila knew she wasn't. She just didn't want to deal with all of this fuss. "I just need more time alone. To think all of this out."

"You are not fine. You attacked me last night. You start to get better then you seem to be worse." Nash reminded Teuila.

"You sound like Sefina, she essentially said the same thing." Teuila wasn't too sure they weren't right. Both of them seemed to agree without consulting each other. "Well, I'll stay at the clinic all day and help out."

Kane arrived and Nash walked to the Waka Post where he would work on the evening edition of his paper. The Morning was already being printed. He had put it together last afternoon, before coming over to Teuila's. Nash planned to rearrange some articles. Making sure that the islanders thought that Teuila was physically sick. He thought he might coordinate with Doc Bao to find out what might seem like a plausible explanation for Teuila's isolation until she could 'work things out' as she often put it.

Kane waited patiently while Teuila insisted on cleaning the breakfast dishes. She poured Kane a cup of coffee while Kane waited. She had to change the sheets, make the bed, clean the dishes, the kitchen table. Suggested to Kane she might be busy, so she might want to go on. Teuila said she'd walk to the clinic later.

"Do what you need to do. Li wants to examine you." Kane sipped the coffee. "We'll lock up and ride up together."

People only locked their homes on the island if they were going to be gone for more than a few hours. Kane was suggesting to Teuila that she would be gone for a while. Teuila had already known that they had planned to keep her for observation. She just hadn't wanted to go. All she wanted was to stay at home and not have people watching her like she was a child.

Li did a full examination of Teuila. Physically she was as healthy as the last time he examined her. As Li expected, what was affecting Teuila was not a physical problem. He had just wanted to be thorough. After the examination he had Teuila get dress and sit down on the examination bed again.

Li pulled up the stool he used when talking to patients. "Teuila, have you been hearing voices in your head?"

"I'm not crazy, Li." Teuila wasn't as sure as she sounded. "I hear one voice in my head, it's the same kind of voice we all hear."

"What kind of voice is that?" Li wanted to be sure he didn't misunderstand what Teuila said.

"It's like a self dialogue. Did you do this. What about that. Why did you do that. What were you thinking. That sort of thing." Li nodded and made a note of it.

"Teuila, have the voices been saying anything else lately?" Li noticed the slip as soon as he saw the fire in Teuila's eyes.

"Voice. Doc. A single voice." Teuila tensed up.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. Has this single voice been saying anything else lately?" Li corrected himself.

"No." Teuila knew better. Li was trying to help her. "I mean, yes. Sort of. I keep having these thoughts that I did wrong to kill the child."

"I know you are." Li patted Teuila's hand. "When I lose a patient my inner voice says to me that it is my fault. It tells me that I wasn't good enough. There are times that a doctor must choose to let a person die, instead of saving them. Because in the process their dignity and quality of life will never be what it was."

"That isn't the same, I murdered a baby." Teuila fought back the emotions and tears.

"No. You mercifully ended the life of a child that was dead for all extensive purposes. It's brain was essentially dead. Only his body didn't know it. You did the merciful thing to kill that baby." Li said. "As a doctor I am not supposed to approve of this sort of thing. But, as a person I don't know what else that could be done."

"Thank you, Li. Your opinion is important to me." Teuila felt some of the darkness lift from her. "Knowing that the baby was brain dead helps."

Almost immediately after Teuila said that her inner voice screamed at her. "You didn't know that. You killed the child before you knew."

Teuila silently answered her accusing voice. "I knew when I saw it, I didn't need Li's opinion. I knew."

Her inner voice said softly. "You aren't a doctor." It seemed to pout.

"I didn't need to be." Teuila replied.

Doctor Li didn't need to ask any more questions. He had a good idea what was troubling Teuila. He sent Teuila into the main office. Kane came into the office, leaving the new nurse to take the desk, and to keep an eye on Teuila to make she didn't try to duck out of the clinic.

The Lagas would be burying their child according to island custom. Which means the child would be taken out to the deep ocean, weighed down with stones and buried at sea. Li wondered if Teuila should attend.

"She should. If she doesn't Paul and Jill might be hurt. You know they don't blame her for what she did. For them it was a release from a nightmare." Kane said. "Nor does the family on either side. They knew what needed to be done. I think Teuila needs to know that."

"It will bring up what she's trying to block psychologically." Li argued. "Bring back those memories she has such trouble dealing with."

"Maybe that is a good thing." Kane said. "Teuila can't run and hide from what she had to do. She needs to understand that it was both necessary and merciful."

"She needs to believe it, Kane, to believe that she isn't to blame, we don't blame her for what she had to do." Li knew that understanding didn't always bring peace of mind, but belief in something did. If Teuila began to believe that what she did was right, it would be right."

Teuila spent the rest of the day helping out at the clinic. There may be only be a little over five hundred adults on the island, possibly a couple hundred children, on the island. Kane was trained as a nurse, in addition to the new Chinese nurse everyone knew as Kim. That was still three medical professional for over seven hundred souls.