The Lies We Told by Diane Chamberlain

ticket counters. Rebecca watched Adam fill his lungs as if he knew he wouldn’t have another chance to catch his breath for the next two weeks.
    “Welcome to DIDA, bro,” she said, and they headed for the tents.
     
    Rebecca spent most of the day with the patients needing urgent care, while Adam worked in the emergency tent. Dorothea had been right about the children. They were everywhere. Asthma attacks were rampant. Broken bones. Fevers. Wounds that were already oozing and infected. Rebecca didn’t know how Maya worked with kids all day. It was the one area where Maya was tougher than she was. “I’m just used to it,” Maya would say, as if it was no big deal.
    As Rebecca’s fifth patient was brought to her, she already felt her frustration rising. The screaming five-year-old boy had broken at least a dozen bones in a fall from a tree onto the roof of a car. He should have been airlifted directly to a hospital, not stuffed into a helicopter with dozens of other people. Yet she knew there’d been no time to triage the evacuees as they were scooped up by the choppers. It was up to them to separate the sickest, the most gravely injured, from the others who could be treated here in the terminal. Those in the worst shape, like this little boy, would be airlifted inland. Yet as he screamed during Rebecca’s examination, she couldn’t help but wonder if Maya would be handling him differently. In her head, she heard one of her sister’s favorite refrains: Children are not simply miniature adults when it comes to medicine.
    She saw Adam from time to time during the day when he’dtransport one of his emergency patients to her tent. They weren’t able to exchange more than a few rushed words with each other, always about a patient’s condition and treatment, yet she felt connected to him. She was so glad he was there. She hoped the work hooked him and that he’d want to do his two weeks next year as well.
    Around dusk, she finally took a break. She jogged down the long hallway to the concourse, dodging evacuees, relieved to be out of the tent and moving her muscles. In the concourse, she headed for the water station and spotted Adam standing near the windows. Grabbing a bottle of water from one of the pallets, she went to stand next to him. He glanced at her without speaking, and in his face, she saw the toll the day was taking on him. She’d never before noticed the fine lines around his eyes or seen the tight, unsmiling set of his lips.
    “Are you okay?” she asked.
    “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. His gaze was fixed on the never-ending line of helicopters as they landed, dumped their passengers and took off again. “It’s different than I expected, though,” he said. “Rougher and—I don’t care what Dorothea says—disorganized as hell.”
    “You get used to it.” She didn’t want him to lose heart.
    He took a swallow from his water bottle. “I decided after the first few crazy hours to stop fighting it,” he said. “To see it as a challenge.” He glanced at her again. “I was thinking of you,” he said. “I figured, if Bec can do this year-round, I can handle it for two measly weeks.”
    “No doubt about it,” she said.
    “I admire you, kiddo.” He put his arm around her shoulders.
    “Don’t make me blush,” she jested, but his words meant something to her.
    “Look at that.” He pointed to one of the choppers, and theywatched as the doors opened and a river of people—mostly children—literally poured from the cabin onto the tarmac. Adam quickly lowered his arm from her shoulders, pressing his hand to the glass as though he could stop them from falling. They watched as the kids landed on top of one another. Rebecca had seen worse. Much worse. She rested her hand on Adam’s back, and he shook his head. “This is a horror show,” he said.
    They watched volunteers on the tarmac help the kids get to their feet, trying to create order out of chaos. One of the volunteers, a woman, waved