Unsafe Haven

by Betsy Ashton

  “With so many extra people living at the hospital, is there any chance we’ll run out of supplies?” I asked. Neither Johnny nor I took medications beyond multiple vitamins and baby aspirin, but I was sure others weren’t in such good health.

  Dr. Duval assured everyone that the CDC was prepared to continue supplying everything the hospital required. “We will establish a system for restocking. Food, medicines, and everything else we need will be delivered to the loading dock in the back of the hospital. After the delivery team leaves, we’ll send someone out to carry everything inside. Please set up a meeting with Dr. Klein and let him know what medicines you take. Either we will have someone pick them up at your home, or we’ll supply them to you.”

  One of the men twitched at the back of the room. “Can we smoke out there? I need a cigarette.”

  “We have nicotine patches if anyone wants to try them,” Dr. Running Bear said. “We use them in our smoking cessation clinic and for any smoker about to undergo surgery. Please let me know if you want to try the patch.”

  The man looked skeptical. He shrugged and patted the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. “But if we want to smoke, can we?”

  Dr. Running Bear and Dr. Duval had a quick conference. The Haitian doctor beckoned the head of the Secret Service detail to join. After a couple of minutes, all three nodded. Dr. Duval told the group that smoking would be allowed on the loading dock when no deliveries were expected. “You can also ask your families to drop off anything you need there. The Secret Service will keep a log of who goes outside and what enters.”

  Relieved looks bounced around the room, as did murmurs of approval. Dr. Running Bear raised his hand. “Good. One question resolved. Now, on the bad news side, we admitted four more children with symptoms similar to those we’ve been seeing. They came in overnight. Two are on the critical list.

  “Drs. Gupta and White will take charge of analyzing blood samples. So far, healthy adults show no symptoms of disease, but without knowing the cause of the illness, we don’t know what the incubation period is. Until we can put a name to this, we remain in quarantine.”

  Several women grumbled about not being able to go home to their husbands and other children. They felt fine and didn’t understand why they couldn’t leave. Dr. Running Bear promised to explain the situation to their families.

  He stepped forward. “We’ll meet here daily at four in the afternoon for updates. I promise to keep no secrets. Now, please see Nurse Gilligan for sleeping assignments. Each of you will have a bed in a private room unless we need it for patients. Then some of you will have to share. Please, work with us. We’ll get you out of here as soon as it’s safe.”

  With that, Dr. Running Bear and the CDC team exited the cafeteria.

  “Why don’t you go back to Alex? I’ll talk with Nurse Gilligan to get us a berth on the SS Minnow.” Johnny stood and stretched.

  “As if she hasn’t heard the jokes most of her life,” I said with a mock-scowl.

  “I’ll be good. I promise.” Johnny chucked me lightly under the chin.

  “Yeah, right.” I tried not to show how worried I was. Johnny left to call his brother. He wouldn’t be returning to the ranch any time soon. I left to call Whip, the Great Dames, and the watchdogs.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “THAT’S WHAT I said, Raney. We’re quarantined.” I paced the corridor outside the ICU. I finished describing the power struggle between the Secret Service and the CDC.

  “If you’re quarantined, the CDC won, didn’t it?” Raney laughed. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  “Well, if you had, we’d have a lot of quality time together. You’d be stuck here with me.” I looked down at my paper gown. I could think of more flattering outerwear.

  “I can think of worse things.” We rang off.

  Johnny returned to Alex’s room half an hour later with news that he had secured one room for us. He even brought coffee.

  “It’s not like we’ll be sleeping together.” He waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “One of us will always be with Alex.”

  I wished the situation were different, but I had to agree. Alex hadn’t taken a major turn for the worse, but his breathing was labored even with the oxygen tube.

  “If he has more difficulty, he’ll be put on a ventilator with a tube inserted in his throat,” Nurse Leena warned. “We don’t want that to happen, because he won’t be able to use the nebulizer. I agree with Dr. Running Bear. It’s important for him to have regular breathing treatments right now.”

  Five other children were in similar straits. One little girl who looked to be about six was now the sickest. Like Alex, she was on oxygen and being fed intravenously, but she was too ill to use the nebulizer to force steroids into her lungs. Her mother never left her room, not even to shower. Most of us made quick use of the bathroom reserved for family members, but this woman was too frightened for her daughter to be absent even for a few minutes. One of the other parents brought meals from the cafeteria and sat with her in hopes of calming her.

  Johnny and I had given up our street clothes for scrubs since we had to “gown up” before entering the ICU anyway. Toby constantly whisked sheets and scrubs down to the laundry in the basement, where another orderly took charge of the soiled linens.

  Johnny sat with me for a few minutes while we finished our coffee.

  “I still can’t believe what’s happened since we came to New Mexico.” I worked a kink out of my neck.

  “By now, Alex should be taking care of his pony and riding all over the ranch with me. He shouldn’t be holed up in a hospital room.” Johnny’s eyes glazed over. I wondered whether he was seeing the vast expanse of his cattle ranch or just tired. Tears moistened my eyes. How often have I heard Alex or Emilie cry about life’s lack of fairness? They’re right. Life isn’t fair.

  Johnny left to walk around the hospital, too wired on caffeine to sit still. “I’ll be back later.”

  ###

  With eight children to monitor, Dr. Running Bear lived outside the ICU, on call around the clock. I wondered if he slept more than an hour or two at a stretch. Dr. Duval divided her time between the ICU and the surgical ward, where four more children, along with one adult showing similar symptoms, were being treated. Whenever I saw her, she had a phone to her ear.

  Every inch of Alex’s room, every piece of equipment was as familiar as my own Manhattan apartment. The nursing staff, the doctors on call, and the CDC personnel flowed around the periphery of my vision. A cap from a syringe lay on the blanket not far from Alex’s hand. I stood, removed it, and tossed it into the trash before returning to my chair. I picked up my book.

  I read the same paragraph a dozen times and had no idea what it said. Had anyone asked, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them the name of the book, let alone the author. With little else to do, I prayed to that god I wasn’t sure I believed in, the same way I did for Merry. “Can’t hurt, I guess.”

  “What can’t hurt?” Dr. Anderson entered and laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “Prayer. I guess praying wouldn’t hurt.” I raised my face. “Time for us to meet officially. I’m Maxine Davies—Mad Max to Alex, Max to everyone else.”

  “Sharon.” We shook hands. She pulled a chair into the room and joined my vigil. “How’s your son doing?”

  “My grandson. Everyone here makes the same mistake.”

  She nodded.

  “He’s not doing well at all. He was the first child showing symptoms, not long after he was admitted for surgery on his leg.” I repeated the short version of Alex’s fall, broken leg, and subsequent illness. I didn’t expect her to remember. After all, when I first told her, we thought she was only here on a courtesy visit, with photo opportunities and a few brief remarks for the press.

  “I don’t know what to do. I feel so out of control. He looks so lost in that bed.”

  Sharon watched Alex take several noisy breaths. She didn’t give me senseless palliatives, the old “He’ll be a
ll right, he’s a fighter,” or “You shouldn’t worry.” She didn’t know if he’d be all right. She didn’t know that this very sick boy was called Captain Chaos by his father and Johnny, and holy-crap boy-child by Emilie and by Charlie, his first crush. And she knew I had every damned right to worry, because without his typical animation—the impression of too much energy inside a skin designed to hold less—he looked diminished.

  She simply said, “I’m no expert in infectious diseases. I trained as an orthopedic surgeon, and I haven’t practiced medicine in a decade.” As the wife of the vice president, Sharon’s causes and public appearances prevented her from maintaining her medical practice. “I offered to help when I realized how ill-equipped San Felipe is to handle an outbreak like this.”

  “That was kind of you.”

  “It’s also a physician’s responsibility. I’m too much of a doer to sit idly by when I can be of some use,” she said. She smiled at Alex when he snuffled.

  “Me, too, although I seem to spend most of my time with Alex.”

  “It’s enough for now. You should have seen the Secret Service’s reaction when I gave up street clothes for scrubs. Keith, the leader of my detail, had the proverbial shit fit.”

  I raised an eyebrow. This mild-spoken woman never uttered a curse on camera.

  “We have to watch our language when we’re campaigning, but in the privacy of our home, both Milton and I swear up a storm,” she explained. Milton Anderson, the vice president of the United States, presented a mild, soft-spoken yet firm public demeanor.

  “When he ran his first campaign, I promised I’d tone down my dominant personality and my rather salty language. It’s time for me to resurrect both. I told Dr. Duval and Dr. Running Bear they could call on me the same way they do with the staff doctors.”

  A small bit of humor returned to me. “I guess they waived the state medical licensing issues for the wife of the vice president.”

  “Ask forgiveness, never permission. We’re staying silent about my legal status,” Sharon smiled.

  “Isn’t your husband worried about your being trapped?”

  “Of course he is, but he knows I do anything I want to. And he knows there’s nothing he can do here.” She leaned back in her chair, monitoring the screen behind Alex’s bed. “Besides, he can’t issue an order for me to be removed. He wouldn’t violate protocol with the CDC or any other government entity. It’s not his style.”

  “And he’d lose if he tried.”

  “Keith certainly lost. I can’t remember the last time that happened.” She cocked her head toward voices approaching from the nurses’ station. “I sent Keith to help wherever he and the team could.” Sharon winked. “He’s not at all happy.”

  “At least he’s not following you around like a Rottweiler ready to rip our throats out if we so much as glance at you.” Alex moaned and coughed. My attention shifted back to the monitors, where his vital signs remained unchanged. “Dr. Running Bear needs all the extra hands he can get. I’m almost glad Alex is too sick to realize I clean him with the wipes.”

  Johnny and I had taken over Alex’s personal hygiene, as had most of the other parents trapped with us.

  “I’ve seen you helping not only with your boy, but also with a little girl when her mother was overwhelmed,” Sharon said.

  “Like you, I can’t sit and do nothing. When Alex is asleep, I can always bathe or read to another sick child.”

  “Didn’t I hear you reading to the little boy in room four in Spanish?”

  “Yes, he doesn’t speak English. My family has lived with a large number of Latinos in the past couple of years, so we’ve become proficient,” I said.

  More voices approached. Sharon scooted to the edge of her chair to leave. “I’ll tell Keith you called him a Rottweiler. He’ll be as flattered as he can be and still be inhumanly stiff.”

  “Being happy doesn’t seem to be part of the Secret Service job description.” I launched a real smile for the first time in two days.

  Dr. Running Bear walked up. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Davies—”

  “Max.”

  “Max. I need Sharon. Can you monitor a baby?”

  Sharon rose, fluid as a dancer. “What do you need me to do?”

  The doctors moved off. News of two new patients drifted behind them like fumes from strong disinfectant. One baby, one old man. One case on Med-Surg was a man with an immune system compromised by emphysema from decades of heavy smoking. His primary symptoms, lung congestion and a deep cough, were similar to those Alex presented shortly after his operation.

  Nurse Leena came for her routine check. She’d overheard Sharon and Dr. Running Bear talking about the old man. “Dr. Gupta thinks his illness is most likely a long-term complication from his life choices, and therefore not indicative of a change in pathology. She’s fairly certain he doesn’t have what infected the children.”

  “Do the new cases indicate potential spread in new directions?” I asked.

  Nurse Leena shrugged, tapped her laptop, and moved on.

  Johnny slid into Sharon’s chair. “New cases, huh?”

  “You heard?”

  I rolled my shoulders again in a vain effort to relax my neck. Johnny turned me sideways and dug his thumbs into the muscles. I alternatively moaned in pleasure and grunted when he worked on a particularly stubborn knot.

  “Dr. Running Bear has a penetrating voice. He and Dr. Anderson were talking about a baby that she’s is going to watch.” He stopped massaging my neck, and I realized I hadn’t seen him in nearly an hour.

  “Hey, where have you been anyway? Were you resting?”

  “No. I’ve been down with Dr. Gupta. She stopped me after I met with Nurse Gilligan for our room assignment, because she wanted to go over my health form.”

  We’d all filled out detailed questionnaires that ran to several pages the day before.

  “Why? Anyone can see you’re healthy as a horse.” I leaned over to let Johnny put his arm across my shoulders.

  “I had dengue fever in Panama. I’m immune, but I wanted to be sure I couldn’t be a carrier.”

  “And?”

  “Can’t.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WITH RUMORS SWIRLING and medical personnel rushing around, our four o’clock briefing couldn’t come soon enough. Johnny and I trooped into the cafeteria and took our seats with the rest of the parents. We all hoped we’d hear that the CDC had found the answer, but the doctors looked glum. All they gave us was more bad news. Two new patients. The sickest children were still receiving treatment for their symptoms, but little else.

  “Why don’t you give them antibiotics?” the father of another child in the ICU stood and demanded. “You have them. Use them.”

  Before Dr. Running Bear could respond, Dr. Gupta’s soft voice floated over the assembled crowd of worried families and hospital staff. “That’s a very good question, sir. As we explained, antibiotics have no effect on viruses. We found traces of the hantavirus in some patients’ blood samples, but not in all samples.”

  The man remained on his feet. “So why not give these without hantavirus antibiotics?”

  “Because some other organism could be causing the illness. We’re keeping the children hydrated and waiting for their natural immune systems to take control.”

  “And what if they don’t?” a woman I hadn’t met asked. “Kids have died, and still you have no answers.”

  The man bore down. “Are we supposed to wait until our kids die, too?”

  Murmurs and nods circulated the cafeteria. The doctors needed help winning the crowd over.

  “I know where you’re coming from,” I said. “I’m as scared and frustrated as any of you. All we want is for this nightmare to end satisfactorily, but we need to stay calm and strong for our children’s sakes.”

  Johnny squeezed my hand under the table, and Dr. Gupta’s voice remained low in an attempt to mollify the parents. “We’re testing everyone and everything, but this pa
thogen is tricky and sneaky. It may try to hide, but we will find it.”

  “You’d better find it soon before we lose any more children.” The father took his seat and half-turned his back on the team leaders. His angry fear hovered like an ominous cloud.

  “What’s a pathogen?” a mother called out.

  “It’s what’s causing your children to be ill,” Dr. Duval said. “Pathogen is a generic term we’re using because the organism could be a virus, a bacterium, or even a fungus.”

  “The good thing here is, if it is indeed hantavirus, you can’t catch it from your children. It doesn’t pass from human to human. It’s only found in rodent droppings,” Dr. Klein said. “We’ve triple-checked the hospital for infestations, but haven’t found any signs of mice or rats. We don’t think the pathogen originated here.”

  My phone buzzed with a text message from Emilie. Partly true. It’s inside the hospital itself, but mice didn’t bring it in. Someone brought it inside on purpose.

  I tilted the phone so Johnny could see the message. He nodded ever so slightly, all the while looking confused as to how Emilie could know. Dr. Running Bear shot us both a glance.

  “And this is supposed to be good news?” the angry man demanded, back on his feet. “I don’t understand all the fancy words, but I understand this. If this whatever-it-is can’t be passed between human beings, why can’t I go home now?”

  Other family members rose. Dr. Running Bear held up his hand. No one made a move toward the door. “As we’ve said, many of the symptoms are part of the hantavirus syndrome. Some symptoms aren’t.”

  “It would help if we knew which symptoms aren’t part of the hantavirus syndrome,” Johnny said.

  “Good point, Mr. Medina. The rashes and swollen lymph nodes don’t belong to the normal block of hantavirus symptoms,” Dr. Running Bear said. “We haven’t positively identified the organism. In fact, it could be two different pathogens. Until we have a definitive answer, it’s not safe for you to leave.”