Chapter 3
Remedy
Most people imagined healing as something dramatic.
They pictured operating rooms filled with harsh lights and racing heart monitors, ambulances screaming through traffic, desperate surgeries where lives balanced on the edge until someone with enough training and steady enough hands managed to pull another person back.
Those moments certainly existed, but they were surprisingly rare.
Most mornings looked nothing like television dramas.
They looked like this one, where healing arrived one quiet conversation, one medication refill, and one ordinary act of kindness at a time.
I stepped out of Mr. Dawson's room just as Melissa caught me in the hallway, a clipboard balanced against one hip while she tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear.
She looked tired, though that wasn't unusual.
Harbor House had a way of attracting people who willingly traded sleep for someone else's peace of mind.
"The pharmacy dropped off the antibiotics for Room Nine," she said. "Mrs. Calloway finally ate half a bowl of oatmeal."
I smiled.
"Progress."
Melissa returned the smile.
"She said it was because Charlie told her pancakes don't taste as good on an empty stomach."
That sounded exactly like my daughter.
"I'll have to compliment her medical advice."
Melissa laughed softly before glancing down at the clipboard.
"The little boy in the children's wing is still running a low fever. Nothing alarming, but Evelyn wanted you to take another look."
"I'll head there next."
"And Ethan asked if he could meet with Bishop later."
"Good."
Healing rarely happened all at once. More often it came one small step at a time, asking people only to move a little farther than they had managed the day before.
Some days that meant finishing half a bowl of oatmeal.
Other days it meant speaking a single word after weeks of silence. Every step mattered.
Melissa continued down the hallway while I ducked into the clinic to wash my hands and restock the supplies I'd already gone through before nine in the morning.
I replaced the fresh gauze, alcohol wipes, and suture kits before making sure the drawer of dinosaur bandages was fully stocked.
In my experience, ordinary bandages healed cuts just fine, but if you asked any child under the age of seven, dinosaurs worked considerably faster.
I wasn't about to argue with science that convincing.
The routine never changed.
Neither did the quiet satisfaction that came from putting everything back exactly where it belonged.
Chaos found Harbor House often enough that I couldn't stop it from arriving. The best I could do was make sure the people around me never carried more of it than they absolutely had to. If they remembered calm instead of panic after an emergency, then I'd done my job.
I had just finished labeling a new bottle of medication when another knock sounded against the open office door.
Evelyn peeked inside.
"Am I interrupting?"
"Never."
She smiled, relief softening the lines around her eyes.
"Nathan's asking for you."
"I'll come now."
The children's wing occupied the sunniest side of Harbor House, intentionally designed that way when Bishop and Daisy had worked with the contractors.
Wide windows overlooked the gardens, colorful murals covered nearly every wall, and the hall always smelled faintly of crayons, laundry detergent, and whatever cookies Lark or Daisy happened to be baking that week.
Children deserved places that didn't remind them of hospitals.
Or compounds.
Nathan sat exactly where Melissa had said he would, tucked beneath the reading nook window with a blanket draped across his lap and a picture book lying forgotten beside him. He couldn't have been older than five.
He also hadn't spoken more than a handful of words since arriving.
People often expected trauma to announce itself loudly, but some of the deepest wounds did exactly the opposite. They settled quietly into silence, teaching children to hide inside themselves until they no longer remembered how to trust their own voices.
He looked up when I entered.
He wasn't frightened anymore, at least not in the way he'd been when he first arrived. Instead, he watched me with the careful caution of a child still trying to decide whether the world really intended to keep its promises this time.
"Hey, buddy."
His fingers tightened around the stuffed fox resting in his lap.
I crouched until we were nearly eye level.
"Heard somebody wasn't feeling very good."
No answer.
That was alright.
Conversation wasn't required.
Trust couldn't be rushed any more than broken bones could be hurried into healing.
I reached into my pocket and produced the small flashlight I always carried.
"Mind if I borrow your eyes for a second?"
He considered the request carefully before giving the tiniest nod.
I smiled.
"Thank you."
Children who had grown up without choices deserved to hear permission asked for whenever possible.
Every yes reminded them their body belonged to them.
His temperature had already dropped since earlier that morning, and his breathing was clear.
Apart from a slightly irritated throat, nothing suggested anything more serious than one of the countless little viruses that always seemed to appear whenever children finally felt safe enough to play, laugh, and simply be children again.
"You'll be chasing Charlie around again in a day or two."
At the mention of Charlie's name, something flickered across his face.
The corners of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly before he seemed to catch himself, as though smiling still felt like something he wasn't entirely certain he was allowed to do.
"She says Mr. Pickles misses you."
His fingers brushed thoughtfully across the fox's ears.
Then, so quietly I almost missed it—
"...Really?"
The single word settled somewhere deep inside my chest.
"Really."
He looked down at his stuffed animal.
"I think..." His voice remained barely above a whisper. "...Fox misses him too."
I couldn't stop smiling.
"I'll let Charlie know."
When I stood to leave, Nathan surprised me again.
"Remedy?"
I turned.
"Yeah?"
He hesitated, searching for courage that no child should ever have needed to find.
"...Thank you."
The words were simple and barely louder than a whisper, yet they carried the weight of every conversation fear had stolen from him before he arrived at Harbor House. For Nathan, those two words represented far more than good manners. They were another small step toward trusting the world again.
"You're welcome, buddy."
Outside the room, Evelyn dabbed discreetly at one eye.
"He hasn't talked that much since he arrived."
"He'll get there."
"You always say that."
"Because it's true."
I had learned long ago that healing almost never happened according to anyone else's timetable.
Children especially had a remarkable way of deciding for themselves when they were ready to take the next step.
My job wasn't to hurry them forward. It was to make sure someone was waiting beside them when they finally chose to move.
She smiled sadly.
"I know."
As I continued down the hallway, I caught movement through one of the open doors overlooking the back gardens.
Sunshine knelt beside one of the younger girls, helping her carefully press marigold seedlings into freshly turned soil.
The little girl couldn't have been more than six.
She frowned with fierce concentration as Sunshine showed her how much dirt to cover over the tiny roots.
"There," Sunshine said softly.
"Now what happens?"
The little girl shrugged.
"It grows?"
"It does."
"But only if we keep taking care of it."
The child nodded solemnly before patting the soil one last time.
"I can do that."
"I know you can."
I should have kept walking. There were charts waiting on my desk, medication schedules to update, and more phone calls than I would probably finish before dinner.
Instead, I found myself lingering in the hallway, quietly watching the scene unfold as though my feet had decided they needed another minute before returning to work.
Sunshine had a way of making herself smaller around frightened people.
It wasn't something she did physically. It was emotional, almost instinctive. Sunshine somehow managed to make herself feel smaller than another person's pain, giving frightened people room to breathe instead of unintentionally crowding them with good intentions.
She never demanded attention.
Never tried to become the center of someone's healing.
She simply met people where they already were.
The little girl suddenly looked toward the garden gate.
"Do flowers get scared?"
Sunshine's hands paused.
"Sometimes."
"Really?"
"I think growing can feel scary."
The little girl frowned.
"Even flowers?"
Sunshine smiled.
"Especially flowers."
Sunshine's answer lingered with me long after the little girl nodded in understanding.
I'd spent years explaining healing through medicine, therapy, and recovery plans.
Somehow she'd managed to explain the same truth with a handful of marigold seedlings and a single gentle sentence.
It occurred to me that people probably remembered conversations like this far longer than they remembered anything I'd ever said about blood pressure or antibiotics.
The child thought about that before nodding as though it made perfect sense.
I wondered how many conversations like that happened every day without anyone noticing.
How many hearts Sunshine quietly stitched back together while I focused on bodies.
Bishop had been right.
We did heal different parts of the same wound.
I didn't realize I'd smiled until Sunshine glanced toward the building and caught me watching.
For one brief second, neither of us looked away.
She smiled first.