Healer of Carthage Read Online Free Page A

leaving a deep incision that rivaled the work of an accomplished surgeon.
    Lisbeth’s mouth went dry.
    Time had changed the size of the cave. Or had time changed her? The entire geological structure seemed smaller than sheremembered, not nearly the mammoth demon of her memory. Yet, something about returning to the place she’d hated for years felt like coming home.
    They taxied to a stop less than thirty yards short of her reckoning with Papa.
    She fiddled with the latch on her seat belt. Someone yanked open the passenger door. Heat engulfed the cabin.
    “Lisbeth.” Her father’s cook smiled up at her, his mouth a dental student’s dream of rotting or missing teeth. He held out two stringy arms.
    “Aisa!” Lisbeth bailed from the plane.
    “I told the professor that when the moon was right, you’d come.” Aisa’s Arabic had an Egyptian spice, mild with a surprising afterburn. His scraggly beard, a bit grayer than she remembered, had not been trimmed since she left for med school. Duct tape held together dark-framed glasses that sported thick lenses etched by the desert winds. The vision correction magnified his black eyes to twice their normal size.
    Lisbeth gave the camp a quick survey. Except for a muscled man toting a cooking drum to the shade of a tarp, the place appeared deserted. “Where is he?”
    “Hardly eats. Digs in the cave all hours of the day and night.”
    “I’ll fetch Papa, Aisa.”
    While Aisa and Nigel continued their ongoing battle over the missing supplies, sand in the soup, and who had the bigger grievance against whom, she set out for the cave.
    “Papa,” she called.
    “Beetle Bug!” Papa’s radio-perfect bass boomed from the cave entrance. “You came.” His unbuttoned, faded chambray shirt flapped behind his lean body as his long legs ate up the distance with the agility of a man half his age. “My beautiful girl.” He scooped her into his arms and twirled around.
    Lisbeth held on tight, burying her nose in the smell of pipe tobacco and dust. “I missed you, Papa.”
    “Your mother will be so glad you’ve come.”
    “Mother?”
    He set her on the ground, clasped her shoulders, and leaned back. They exchanged their first up-close looks at each other. He’d aged ten years in the six months since her med school graduation. Why had his physical health declined so rapidly? She didn’t know what she’d do if his mental capacity had followed suit.
    “ Doctor Hastings.” The prideful way her father said “doctor,” as if his dreams had materialized and she had miraculously become just like her mother.
    It seemed he was not so mentally gone that he’d lost his expectations. The truth of her failure would gut him like a double-edged sword. How could she disappoint the man who’d taught her everything he knew and sacrificed so much to send her to learn more? She couldn’t tell him, not until she knew for sure how much he could handle.
    Trying to forget that her father was carrying on as if a dead woman were busy in the camp kitchen, Lisbeth said, “Let me look at you , Papa.”
    Hazel eyes clear, focused, free of cataracts, and completely without a trace of the insanity she’d anticipated. Papa appeared more than lucid. In fact, this brilliant son of an Arkansas chicken farmer seemed sharper than ever. But she knew not to get ahead of herself. Accurately diagnosing dementia or Alzheimer’s required more than an initial evaluation. She needed a complete medical history, a mental status evaluation, a clinical examination, and a battery of lab tests. Even if Papa managed to jump through all of those hoops, she wouldn’t have a definitive diagnosis. Time was the truest test.
    Lisbeth pulled free of her father’s grasp. “When can I seeMama?” She couldn’t help quizzing him to see if he’d abandon this impossible notion.
    Papa’s eyes shot toward the cave, then darted back to her. “There’s time. Let’s get you settled, Beetle Bug.”
    Her father’s tent had been