“We don’t know enough about how the virus works to predict its course in different circumstances. The two who died were women. Maybe it moves more slowly in men.”
“But you said the husband showed signs of it too. He must have got it from his wife—later than the rest of us, but I’m still fine.”
“Our belief that the husband was affected was based on microscopic study of his vessels,” Michael said. “Most likely he hadn’t reached the stage where he had any overt symptoms.”
“Doesn’t one of the drugs I’m taking kill viruses?”
“But only certain kinds,” Ash said. “It’s not broad-spectrum. And there’s no evidence it’s effective against retroviruses, which is what we’re talking about.”
“But this virus was mutated, right?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s not like any retrovirus previously known.”
“That’s correct,” Ash said. “But you’re making a big assumption to think it’s susceptible to the drug you’re taking.”
“I don’t want to go back to the hospital.”
“You could die,” Michael said.
“I think I’ll just risk it.”
“Damn it, Wayne,” Michael said. “We’ve got a lot invested in you. You owe it to us to help keep you alive.”
“I don’t think I’m going to die—at least not from that virus. I don’t know why, but I just don’t believe I will.”
“That’s reckless,” Michael said.
“I’m a reckless kind of guy.”
“Chris, talk to him.”
“You should come with us.”
“I’m going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that. It’s nothing but a guess and a hope.”
“No, it’s more. God, or whatever, has given me another chance, and I’m sure it’s not going to be taken away from me. I’ve been spared to make up for the life I’ve lived, and so far, I haven’t fulfilled my part of the bargain. I’ve still got work to do.” His brow furrowed, and his eyes became those of a hurt child. “But those people who died . . . Now I’ve got to carry that burden too.”
“You need to be where we can help you,” Chris said. “Will you . . . do it for me?” That wasn’t a card she wanted to play, but she didn’t know what else to say.
Wayne looked into her eyes, and the flow of time slowed to a trickle . . . then dried up as they waited for his answer.
“Two days,” he said finally. “No more.”
Wayne packed a few things in an overnight bag, and they all left for the hospital by way of Walmart, where Wayne picked up a couple of paperbacks.
When Wayne was once more installed in his old room at Monteagle, a biopsy sample was taken from his scalp and sent to the pathology lab for frozen sections. Blood was sent to hematology with orders that it be tested for inflammation-related substances. Michael and Chris stayed with him while they waited for the results. Because there was no evidence he was infectious, and they’d already had a lot of contact with him, they wore no protective clothing.
Forty minutes after the biopsy was taken, the phone rang.
Michael answered. He listened to a brief message, said, “Okay, thanks,” and pressed the disconnect button with his finger. “The biopsy was negative,” he said. “No inflammation or cell death in the hair matrix. So maybe there’s none in any of his vessels either. I’m going to check on those blood tests.”
He called hematology and explained what he wanted. After a brief wait, he once again expressed his thanks and hung up. “No evidence of inflammation there either.”
“See, I told you,” Wayne said. “Now can I go back to my apartment?”
“You gave us two days. I’m going to hold you to it.”
“Nothing’s going to happen. It’s just a waste of my time and your resources.”
“I really hope that’s true.”
Michael was concerned that the circumstances might make it difficult to find members of the nursing staff who would be willing to care for Wayne. And he was right. But medicine is, after all, a noble profession, and someone on each shift agreed to do it. He was also satisfied that should a cardiac crash team be needed, they would respond.
By the time all this had been accomplished, it was nearly four o’clock. While Michael and Chris were waiting for the elevator in the hall outside the isolation ward, Michael said, “What do you think? Is he in the clear?”
“The biopsy was good news, but I find it hard to believe the ganciclovir he’s taking to ward off CMV would be effective against this virus. There are even CMV strains it doesn’t work against. So why should we be so lucky that it would knock out this new bug?”
“By God, I think we deserve a break.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“I’m feeling really crappy over all this. And there’s no one who could understand that better than you. Could we get together tonight for dinner?”
Mary Beth Cummings and the Barrosos also sat heavily on Chris’s mind, and she now saw how her culpability in those deaths extended far beyond her carelessness with the backup respirator. If she hadn’t sent her father to Michael, none of this would have happened. Knowing that when her work was done for the day, the three deaths would loom over her like great black birds, her resolve to keep Michael in check seemed unimportant by comparison. It would not be a good night to be alone.
The elevator arrived, and the doors opened. As she got on, Chris looked back at Michael. “What time would you like to go?”
“How about seven o’clock?”
“Let’s do that.”
“Before I leave here tonight, guess I need to e-mail everybody on the team and bring them up to date.”
“You better include Scott.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knows.”
The trip to the ME’s office had materialized before Chris had finished her rounds for the day. So when she got back to her hospital, she knew she’d have to move fast to see all her patients and still get home in time to change for dinner. Sensing her stress level getting out of hand, she spent a few minutes in her office centering her emotions before hitting the wards.
She walked out of her last patient’s room a little before six and returned to her office to check her e-mail. Finding nothing urgent there, she shut off her computer and sat staring at the dark screen.
With her professional day at an end, remorse for Mary Beth Cummings and the Barrosos once more engulfed her, so that even though she had no time to waste, she lacked the energy to get moving. As she sat reflecting on the ugly turn the transplant program had taken, her quiet surroundings allowed her to confront a concern that had been courting her all afternoon.
From the moment she’d left Monteagle, she’d been carrying around the uneasy feeling that the three deaths the virus had caused were merely a prelude to something more. And she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the possibility that her father wouldn’t remain healthy, and he too would succumb to the virus. But she didn’t think that was it. But what more was there? All the evidence showed the infection had been contained—limited to just four people. So what else could happen?
She looked past the computer monitor at the wall where she’d hung the certificate she’d received from the CDC upon completion of her stint there as an EIS officer.
The border of the document was a series of shoeprints indicating all the footwork involved in figuring out the cause of an epidemic. In one corner, a cartoon showed an EIS officer in a rowboat about to be swamped by a towering ocean wave much larger than the one he’d just survived. The point being that about the time you think you’ve got an epidemic under control and you start to relax, it breaks out again, and this time it’s worse.
That was probably the source of her discomfort, she thought—that picture. Re
alizing it was just a cartoon that had caused her to be so uncomfortable, she felt the worry fade.
It was getting late, and she needed to get home. She rose and hung up her white coat. But as she flicked off the lights and shut her office door, she saw that the cartoon wasn’t the source of her concern, it was the message, forged from the mistakes and experience of generations of bug fighters, many of whom had died by underestimating the enemy. That thought accompanied her all the way to the car.
Chapter 13
TR PULLED UP to the old farmhouse on the hill and sat for a moment admiring it. He’d bought it at a foreclosure auction for twenty thousand under its appraised value, figuring he’d rent it out and let someone else pay off the note. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea; a step, albeit a small one, toward the financial status he longed for. But the venture had been nothing but trouble.
He’d specified no pets in the lease, but a few weeks after the first couple had moved in, they bought a prehistoric mutt that had chewed up half the doors and the corner of a kitchen cabinet before he’d seen what was happening and evicted them. The deposit he’d required only covered half the cost of the repairs.
The second family’s kid had set his room on fire. The insurance had paid for that, but the place still smelled faintly smoky, making it hard to find anyone else to live in it.
Eventually, he’d rented it to a schoolteacher and his wife, with no kids and no pets—landlord Nirvana. But this month’s rent was now two weeks overdue. He’d been unable to contact them, so he’d come out here to see what was up. It appeared, though, that they weren’t home. Maybe their car was in the barn.
He shut off the engine, got out, and walked across the scrubby lawn to the front steps. Fearing that he’d driven all the way out here for nothing, he went onto the porch and rang the bell. While waiting for a response, he noticed that the porch needed painting. It was always something with this place.
He rang again.
The windows, too, needed paint. Afraid of what else he might see that needed work, he averted his eyes to the fields across the country road in front of the house. It was a fine, peaceful location, though.
Still, no one answered his ring.
He went to a window, shaded his eyes, and looked under the partially raised blinds.
Son of a bitch. The place is empty. They’ve moved out.
He fished his keys from his pocket, unlocked the front door, and went in.
Christ, what a mess. The floor was littered with newspapers and mud. And there were big scratches in the hardwood. He went into the kitchen, where there was more mud, and food of some sort splattered on the wall, spaghetti sauce maybe. And grease all over the cook top. He didn’t want to imagine what he’d find in the bathroom, but he had to look.
He went down the hall and pushed the door of the first-floor bathroom open. Jesus. The toilet was nearly overflowing.
That’s it, he thought. He was through renting the place. People were animals. He’d let it sit empty.
He hadn’t brought his plumbing kit, so he had no way to fix the toilet. Damn it. Now he’d have to make another trip.
He shut the bathroom door and started through the house looking for a coat hanger.
Animals. Nothing but filthy animals.
God, how he hated people.
He didn’t have time for this.
All the downstairs closets were bare. At the staircase, he saw that one of the balusters was broken. What did these people do in here? At the top of the stairs, he found a large stain on the carpet.
The first two closets he checked upstairs were also empty. But in the third, on a shelf that ran down the side wall where it couldn’t be seen from the doorway without leaning in, was a shoebox. He took the box from the shelf and removed the lid. Inside was a pair of women’s high-heeled shoes that looked new. He lifted the box to his nose and inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the aroma inside.
Immediately he was calmed.
He took the box to a spot near the door to the room and sat on the floor. Back against the wall, he put the box to his face and breathed the comforting mixture of glue and leather and solvents. Even when shoes had been long removed from their box, he could detect the minuscule amounts of manufacturing chemicals that had seeped into the cardboard. In this, he was a true savant. For many years he had not understood why he could do this or why it pleased him so. Then one day his mother had given him the explanation.
“IF YOU COULD push a little harder, this’d all be over a lot sooner,” Arnetta Selvie said as the sweating woman on the bed screamed again. Laura was good at screaming, but poor at bearing down, Arnetta thought. So the baby inside her wasn’t likely to make an appearance any time soon.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Laura screeched, her voice like fingernails on a blackboard. “It hurts too much.”
Arnetta slid her hand inside Laura and checked the baby’s position. “Well, it’s not moving.”
“Can’t you give her something for the pain?” Laura’s husband, Ben, asked.
“I’d rather not. It’d be better if she’d just do her job and join all the other women in the world who’ve shown a little character when it was needed.” Arnetta spoke a little louder than usual to make sure Laura would hear.
The old midwife’s rough manner irritated Ben, making him wish he could have called someone else. But she was three dollars cheaper than the other practitioners in the area. “We’re getting nowhere this way,” he said. “She’s not a strong woman, never has been. You’ve got to help her. I know you can.”
“It’ll cost extra.”
“How much— Never mind, I don’t care,” he said, letting his concern for his wife overrule the knowledge that there was no extra money.
Resigned to the fact that it had to be done, Arnetta dug into her embroidered bag for the ether. She uncorked the bottle, put a little on the clean cloth she carried for this purpose, and put it lightly over Laura’s nose and mouth. “Just breathe it in, honey, and you’ll feel like you can fly. Breathe it in, nice and regular”
Arnetta had to be very careful now. If she left the cloth on too long, Laura would pass out, and then they’d be in real trouble.
After a minute or two, she removed the cloth. “Now, let’s give a big push.”
And for the first time that night, Laura generated a decent effort.
Over the next hour, with the intermittent application of ether, Laura made good progress, so that Arnetta could now see the crown of the baby’s head at the vaginal opening.
“Okay, girl, now give me another big push.”
This time, Laura neither screamed nor pushed.
“Come on. One more.”
“Something’s wrong,” Ben said from the end of the bed where he was making sure he couldn’t see the part of his wife he usually found uncommonly interesting. “She’s not moving.”
Oh Lordy, Arnetta thought, wiping her hands on a towel. She pulled her stethoscope out of the pocket of her smock and went to see what was wrong. “Laura, can you hear me?” she asked, leaning down into her patient’s face. “Open your eyes for me, honey.”
Arnetta put her stethoscope over the woman’s heart and listened hard. “She’s fine,” she said a moment later. “Just got a little too much ether. I warned you about that.”
“What about the baby?”
“It’s far enough along that I don’t need her help now. Where’s the nearest electric plug?”
“Over there by that chair, but it doesn’t work.”
“Then why did you tell me about it?”
Ben floundered for an answer “It’s the nearest. There’s one over here that works.”
Arnetta went to her second bag and fished out a long rubber hose with a suction cup on the end. She put this on the bed and went back to the bag for a s
mall pump with a long extension cord. She threw the plug to Ben. “When I say so, plug it in.”
Arnetta put the small end of the hose on a fitting that extended from the pump. Then she applied the suction cup to the baby’s head. “Give me some power.”
The pump began wheezing and grunting. In a few minutes the vacuum it had created sealed the cup to the baby’s head with sufficient suction that Arnetta felt it would hold. She began to pull steadily on the suction cup, and the baby slowly began to move. Its head emerged from the vagina like a turtle coming out of its shell. Accompanied by a soft sloshing sound, the body quickly followed, sliding onto the towels between Laura’s legs in a gush of blood and amniotic fluid.
Arnetta was about to crow, “I’ve got it,” when she realized the baby’s color wasn’t right and he looked limp.
“Pull the plug.”
Ben did as she said, and the cup fell free. Arnetta turned the baby over. Too concerned about its condition to even announce it was a boy, she clamped and cut the cord and carried the baby to a shallow bureau drawer lined with towels and warmed by a three-bulb floor lamp Laura’s mother had given her as a wedding gift.
Arnetta laid the baby in the drawer on its back and suctioned out its nose and mouth with a bulb syringe. She then lifted the baby’s feet and slapped them on the soles to stimulate him to breathe.
He didn’t.
She slapped him again.
No response.
“Come on, little man, help me,” Arnetta urged. She massaged his sternum for a few seconds, then slapped his feet again.
And still he wouldn’t breathe.
Her mouth suddenly as dry and dusty as the road she’d taken to get there, Arnetta took the umbilical cord between her fingers and felt for a pulse.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked, crowding her “Why isn’t he crying? Aren’t they supposed to cry?”
Arnetta could feel no pulse.
She put her stethoscope over the baby’s heart, but her own heart was clanging so hard and fast that was all she could hear. She bent down and covered the baby’s nose and mouth with her own mouth and blew a little air into him. With two fingers under his sternum, she pumped his little chest gently five times, then gave him another breath. Behind them, the uterine contractions that continued even with Laura unconscious delivered the placenta, spilling more blood into the towels between her legs.
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