The Things That Keep Us Here

by Carla Buckley

  “Not really. It’s not until we start seeing major, simultaneous outbreaks that we should be concerned.”

  Libby grimaced. “You sound like Peter.” As soon as she said it, a horrified look crossed her face.

  INSIDE, THE PHONE WAS RINGING. “ANYONE GETTING THAT?” Ann called.

  “I will,” Maddie called back.

  Ann shut the door behind her and kicked off her shoes. Padding down the hall, she paged through the mail, stopping at the thick envelope with her attorney’s name printed in the corner. “Hi, Grandma,” she heard Maddie say.

  It was an unusual time for her mother to call. Maybe she had news. Ann hurried into the kitchen and found Maddie holding the cordless phone as she wandered around the kitchen while Kate sat at the table, textbook opened before her.

  “It was a real fire,” Maddie was saying. “Mom saved Heyjin’s life.” Pause. “Heyjin’s a new girl in my class. She’s from Korea.” She listened. “No, but one of the bulletin boards in the science room melted.”

  Ann held out her hand.

  Maddie said, “Mom’s here. Love you, Grandma. See you soon.”

  Ann took the phone. “Mom? Is Dad okay?”

  “Oh, he’s fine. Well, he had some trouble breathing yesterday, but the doctor said that was to be expected. He fit us in right away. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

  There her mother went, sounding like a ditz so as not to worry anyone.

  Maddie sat down at the kitchen table across from Kate and picked up her pencil.

  “Very nice,” Ann said. “So everything’s okay?”

  “Oh, yes. Sounds like you’re the one who had all the excitement today.”

  “Only for an hour. Then everything went back to normal.”

  “Maddie said something about you having to rescue one of the children?”

  “Yes.” Ann realized Maddie was listening intently, head tilted, pencil slack. She stepped outside, the pavers cold beneath her stockinged feet, and closed the sliding glass door behind her. The aluminum chairs still ringed the patio table. This year, putting them away would be her job. She dragged one out and sat, setting the bundle of mail on the table in front of her. She tucked her feet beneath her. “A little girl from Korea. She has a phobia about being outside. She’s afraid she’s going to get bird flu like her father.”

  “Bird flu! Here?”

  “No, no. Back in Korea.”

  “Oh, the poor little thing. It’s gotten worse over there, you know. Has Peter said anything about it?”

  “Not to me. We haven’t spoken in weeks.”

  “I thought he was supposed to take the girls every Saturday.”

  An informal arrangement. “The last few visits haven’t worked out.”

  “Why not? The girls need to be with their father.”

  “I know, Mom. Of course they do. But this is his busiest time of year. Plus, the girls have had things going on, too. Maddie was invited to a birthday party. Kate had a tennis tournament.”

  “Couldn’t he have gone to that?”

  “Kate didn’t want him to.” Ann glanced to the kitchen and saw her oldest daughter leaning back in her chair, fitting the earbuds of her iPod into her ears. “She’s going through such a tough time, Mom.”

  “I know. And Peter’s leaving hasn’t made things any better for her.” Her mother sighed. “She was always his little girl.”

  Ann stared out at the birch tree in the corner of the yard. “Tell me she’ll be okay.”

  “Of course she will. She’s a levelheaded girl. She’ll work things through. Besides, she has you.” Her mother gave a soft laugh. “She reminds me so much of you.”

  “Well, whatever you do, don’t tell her that.” Ann pulled the pile of mail toward her and tugged out the lawyer’s letter. She slid her finger beneath the flap and removed the thick sheaf of papers. Heavy paper stock, lots of tiny type.

  “This has got to be so hard on Peter, too. Do you think maybe …?”

  Ann stared down at the pages. “No, I don’t think he’s changed his mind.”

  “I just can’t understand that. I know he loves you and the girls.”

  He’d promised to love her forever, but it had turned out to be much shorter than that. “He loves the girls, but … there’s nothing between us anymore.”

  There was another silence, longer this time. “Maybe if you—”

  Not another suggestion to go for counseling. “I’d better go, Mom. I have to get dinner started. Give my love to Dad.”

  “All right, honey. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “All right. Love you.”

  Ann set down the phone and paged through the papers. Post-it notes poked out from the margins like little pink flags. SIGN HERE. INITIAI HERE. Proof that Peter was gone.

  But she was still stuck in that hot, bright hospital room ten years ago with the social worker, trying to answer her questions. Someone had given Ann a pill, and the woman kept swimming in and out of focus. She wore brown shoes and a blue suit. Her blouse gaped in the middle. Little Kate sat in Peter’s lap, hiccuping in her sleep, her small face blotchy from crying. The social worker’s voice was unceasing, a syrupy flow of southern accent. The way she kept saying “baby,” wrapping up the hard vowels in soft fluff. Bay-bee, bay-bee. Then she’d stood and reached for Kate. Ann had come hastily to her feet. She couldn’t possibly let this person, this stranger who couldn’t even button her clothes properly, carry off her child.

  But Peter had handed Kate over. “We don’t have a choice, Ann.” Even then, he’d taken that first step away.

  Pulling a pen from her pocket, she flattened each page on the hard glass of the table, and pressing the nib down hard enough to leave an imprint on the next page, she signed her name beside every bubblegum-colored sticky arrow. Every last one.

  Peter had moved on.

  She knew she never would.

  “… following confirmation that several people hospitalized do indeed have the H5N1 influenza virus, airlines have canceled all incoming and outgoing flights from Heathrow and Gatwick, stranding thousands of travelers. Lodging’s filling up. Some hotels are turning away international guests. A manager at a large city hotel confided that he’s directed his staff to refuse anyone with a passport from the affected countries.”

  NBC Breaking News Report

  FIVE

  PETER SAT UP, WINCING AT THE SUDDEN SPASM OF pain across his shoulders. He glanced at his bedside clock. Five a.m. He’d slept right through the alarm.

  Later, as he drove along the quiet, blue-washed streets, he rubbed the back of his neck. He’d have to remember to call Ann and arrange to see the girls over the weekend, before they headed east to visit Ann’s family. He’d be alone for Thanksgiving. He’d treat it like any other workday. Probably get more done. No phones ringing, no people stopping by.

  He unlocked the door to his lab and went around turning on lights. Long fluorescent tubes flickered, then sprang to life. He sat down at the laptop and opened to the gray grid covered with tiny printing. It was always a relief to find results waiting for him. He was old enough to remember the days when nothing got done unless you were there doing it.

  Rows of colored graphs popped up across the computer screen as he clicked through each square. He studied them, one by one, and frowned. Something must have gone wrong. Maybe the test had failed or the samples been somehow contaminated. He returned to the first graph and checked it again. The curving blue line verified that the PCR had worked. He scanned the temperature spike of the green band. Okay, so the first sample was positive. He moved to the second reading, then the third. One by one, he proceeded through each square.

  He sat back, stunned. Out of thirty-two samples, twenty-nine were positive. That meant that ninety percent of the dead teal had the virus in their systems. Ninety percent. An unbelievable rate.

  Viruses jumped quickly from migratory birds to poultry. It was only a matter of time, maybe even just a few short hours, before every farm within miles of Sparrow
Lake was at risk. Millions of dollars were at stake, an entire industry.

  He checked the time and picked up the phone. But Dan didn’t answer. Peter tapped his fingers on the counter and waited for the beep. “It’s Peter. Call me.”

  The door behind him opened with a pneumatic sigh.

  “Morning,” Shazia said.

  Peter swiveled in his chair to look at her. “You were careful yesterday, weren’t you? No spills, nothing like that?”

  “Why?” She came over to stand behind him and bent to stare at the screen. Her hair brushed his cheek. He scrolled through the graphs so she could see for herself. She sucked in her breath. “Influenza?”

  He stood. “I’ll get the aliquots.” Shazia had assumed the risk yesterday. “You prepare the red blood cells.”

  She stepped back, watching worriedly. He couldn’t blame her. Those teal had suffered. This didn’t look like a virus either of them would want to battle.

  He pulled on gloves and his lab coat. Opening the freezer, he selected some of the samples and carried them over to the hood. Thirty minutes at room temperature should be ample time to defrost them. Now he brought over fresh pipettes and plates and set them alongside the aliquots.

  “Which antisera are you going to run?” Shazia asked.

  “Let’s do H1, H2, H5, and H7.” They’d test for the most common subtypes first, move on to the others if those didn’t show up. He pulled down the small glass bottles and settled himself on the stool. They were going to be working fast. They wouldn’t have time to neutralize the virus’s infectivity. He’d just have to be careful.

  Reaching beneath the clear plastic faceplate of the hood, he drew out four thin, flexible plates filled with cylindrical depressions. Labeling them, he lined them up before him. He pipetted one hundred milliliters of raw sample into each of thirty-two wells on the first tray and repeated this for the remaining three trays. He changed pipette tips as he went, covering each tray as he finished it and moving it aside.

  No need, really, for him to be holding his breath. After all, the hood was working. He was gloved, and his hands had been steady. He hadn’t knocked a tube or spilled anything. Nevertheless, he felt a rush of relief when he finished with this step.

  Now he dripped one hundred milliliters of H1 antiserum into every well across the first tray. He covered the tray and reached for the second. This one would test for H2. When he finally completed the fourth and final tray, he sat back. It would take an hour for the antibodies to recognize the antigens. He had to be patient. Whatever was going on inside those tiny depressions filled with fluid was invisible to the human eye, but it was critical. Exactly which strain of avian influenza were they talking about?

  He rolled his head. How long had he been sitting hunched over like this? He glanced at the clock on the wall. He was shocked to see it was going on noon.

  The phone rang and Shazia answered it. She extended the receiver to Peter. “It’s Dan.”

  Peter cradled the receiver between shoulder and ear as he washed his hands in the industrial sink. “We’ve got avian influenza. The way it ran through those teal makes me think it’s high-path.” Maybe he’d try that experimental RT-PCR technique he’d heard about. “I’m subtyping it now.” Silence. “Dan?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Feel like taking a drive?” Dan said.

  Uh, no. “You kidding?” But Dan didn’t make casual requests.

  “Why?”

  “I just got a report of another die-off.”

  That couldn’t be. Peter had never heard of two die-offs occurring back-to-back. “Where?”

  “Thirty miles north of Sparrow. A lodge owner just called it in.”

  Forget his afternoon class. Shazia could finish the lab work. “I’ll be there by one. Give me the address and I’ll MapQuest it.”

  “Great. And Peter? Better bring your gear.”

  PETER BUMPED HIS PICKUP DOWN THE GRAVEL ROAD. RADIO static assailed him.

  “… current … passages … its inability …”

  The few words breaking through the clutter were spoken with a kind of urgency. What was the announcer worked up about, another congressional bill up for debate? Maybe interest rates were taking a hike.

  He reached over and pressed buttons, skipped past bleats of music and talk, settling at last on an old Eagles song.

  Yellow fields opened up on both sides. Pine trees fringed the horizon. The aroma of grass and manure seeped through his opened window. When he rounded the curve, he saw big heavy Angus dotting the farmland on his right. A cow ambled to the fence to watch him pass by, her udders swaying with her deliberate steps.

  Here was the turnoff, a dirt road cut into the tall grass. He slowed and came to the next opening. No sign to mark the narrow entry. His rear tires spun and spat out pebbles before catching.

  A muffled chirp made him glance at the seat beside him. It came from his leather jacket. Patting around, he located his cell phone and flipped it open. Shazia.

  “What’s up?”

  “—ter? … finished with …”

  “Hold on. I didn’t get that.”

  He swooped around a curve, and now her voice came through clearly, her excitement plain. “It’s H5.”

  Okay. So now they know which hemagglutinin they were talking about. But they were only halfway there. “Start the neuraminidase subtyping.”

  “Should I get things ready to send off to NVSL?”

  Was it premature at this point to involve the national lab? The minute they did that, all sorts of official wheels would be set in motion. Peter didn’t say so, but he intended to run some additional tests of his own. He flashed back to the lake filled with bobbing teal. And now he was on his way to another kill. “Go ahead,” he told Shazia. “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

  Peter bumped up onto the shoulder and pulled in behind two FSW vehicles and an unmarked truck. Two men in khaki stood there, talking. The shorter one turned as Peter approached.

  “Hey, Brooks.” He extended his hand. “Glad you could make it.”

  Peter shook his hand. “You bring in reinforcements?”

  “You’ll see why.” Dan indicated the man beside him. “This is Special Agent Monroe. Mike, this is Peter Brooks, one of our veterinary medicine experts. We go way back.”

  The other man leaned forward to shake Peter’s hand. “I hear you came across another die-off yesterday.”

  “We just learned it’s H5,” Peter said. “You think that’s what we’ve got here?”

  “Rapid screening shows it’s flu. We don’t want to jump to conclusions, but Jesus.” Dan rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “What else could take down ducks like this? Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The path cut into the woods. The smell of pine was heavy, the trees tall and lacy with sunlight. “Beautiful,” Peter said.

  “Yeah. This is one of our most popular fishing areas.” Dan stopped. “We’d better put on our stuff.”

  Peter set down his toolbox. Another pair of gloves from the box, a fresh mask, and his old plastic goggles, bleary from years of use.

  “I’ve called around.” Dan fit goggles onto his face. “No one else is reporting anything unusual.”

  Good news. “What about the poultry farmers?”

  “I’ve notified everyone within thirty miles, just to be on the safe side.” Dan snapped on a pair of gloves.

  Peter couldn’t imagine the financial stakes involved. Had to be millions, easy. He’d been as surprised as anyone to learn America was the world’s largest poultry producer.

  “Any of the farmers mention seeing signs of disease?” They shuffled out from the woods onto sandy soil, the world now reduced to muffled sight and smell, their shoes digging into the soft, slippery surface. “They know what …”

  His words fell away. He stopped and stared at the scene spread out before him.

  Thousands upon thousands of birds lay heaped along the shore. He’d never seen so many birds packed so close together before, and so utterly si
lent. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be, but it was. The horror of Qinghai replicated right here in central Ohio.

  The only sound was the irregular rasp of his breathing.

  He began walking blindly toward the water. Dan was saying something, but Peter wasn’t listening. He stopped and looked down. Matted clumped feathers, opened bills, little feet moving in the motion of the water.

  There were green and blue teal, mallard, northern shoveler, pintail, all of them piled together regardless of species. A red-breasted merganser lay half in, half out of the water. The spirited spray of feathers at the back of its head, the long, pointy beak in comical contrast to the large webbed feet. Peter crouched. Mergansers were the first ducks he’d been able to identify as a boy.

  “You call this in?” he asked Dan. He heard the wobble in his voice and cleared his throat.

  “All the way up the chain of command.”

  He stood. “I’m surprised the media’s not here.”

  “They will be,” Dan said grimly.

  Off to one side, two men suited up in white protective clothing knelt in the sand. They worked in a determined sort of rhythm. Pick up a bird, reach for a swab, set down a test tube. “How many are you doing?”

  “A minimum of three per species. Nasal and cloacal.”

  “I’ll start running them through as soon as I get back.” He’d pull his students from their other projects. Hell, he’d contact all his colleagues and have them pitch in.

  A shout sounded from behind them. “Dan!”

  They looked over. A figure was running from the woods behind them. It was Mike Monroe, stumbling in his haste to get to them.

  SIX

  ANN GLANCED AT HER WATCH AND HURRIED DOWN THE corridor. She had barely thirty minutes before she was due back, enough time if the lines weren’t too long. Rounding the corner, she saw Rachel standing in the front office, bent over the sign-out book.