Ten hours after my day had started at the makeshift clinic, I was nearing the finish line and dreaming of a cold shower, colder beer, and something more substantial than the light snack I had rushed to eat. Alejandra, one of the clinic assistants, knocked and opened my door.
“That bus has arrived,” she said. “Do you have it in you?”
The bus contained thirty orphans from a rural village outside Atenas, an hour’s drive west of the capital. We’d been getting updates throughout the day of its progress. The bus had been scheduled to arrive first thing in the morning, but heavy spring rains washed out a road and caused them to take a long detour. Then their bus broke down.
“I can hold out,” I said, “if you can find me some sugar.”
Over the next two hours, I examined eight children and three adults while sipping a warm soft drink and chewing almond cookies. I was examining a young girl whose name I do not recall but whose beautiful face would forever be etched in my memory when Alejandra interrupted again.
“Dr. Hill? Sorry to disturb,” she said, sticking her head into my room. “There’s a child here Dr. Rodriguez would like you to see.”
I was tired, with several more patients of my own still waiting. “Is it something in particular?”
“Dr. Rodriguez thinks so.”
I sighed. “Give me a minute.” I had become the most experienced doctor on staff.
I finished my consult and walked down the short hallway, mentally bracing myself for what was likely a complex medical condition. Lynn Rodriguez stood outside the door.
“I know you’re tired,” she said.
“We’re all tired.”
She pushed open the door. The young boy sat on the rolling stool with his back to the door. I guessed from his size that he was six or seven. An older woman, one of the caretakers from the orphanage, sat in a chair along the wall. She spoke to the boy in Spanish, and though I had picked up much of the language, I was not fluent and did not understand everything she said. From what I could surmise, she was trying to get the child to turn around and face me, but the boy would not do so.
“What’s his name?” I asked Lynn.
“Fernando,” she said.
At the sound of his name, the boy spun on the stool. When Fernando looked up at me, it took my breath away.
2
Just as quickly as he had looked at me, Fernando lowered his chin and turned his head. It was a self-defense mechanism to avoid my stare and stunned reaction. His mop of curly brown hair flipped across his forehead, seemingly too thick for his thin, small frame of caramel-colored skin, but long enough to cover his eyes.
Lynn whispered, “The children call him el hijo del Diablo.”
The son of the devil.
As I approached, Fernando glanced sideways with distrust and trepidation, a child who had been rejected and bullied and grown wary of the world and everyone in it.
“Hola, Fernando,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. He did not answer. I sat in the patient chair and allowed him to swivel atop the doctor’s stool, swinging his legs. “？Cuántos a?os tienes?”
My question was again met with silence. I looked to Lynn Rodriguez. “Supongo veintitrés,” I said. I am guessing twenty-three. I noticed the corners of Fernando’s mouth twitch, but he kept them from inching into a grin.
The woman seated with her back to the wall answered for him. “Seis.”
“？Seis?” I said. “No es posible.”
“Sí,” the woman said.
“But I understand he is as smart as a twenty-three-year-old,” Alejandra said, continuing to speak Spanish.