The Things That Keep Us Here (11 page)

“Well, prices will skyrocket in the short term, but then they’ll settle back down. There are all sorts of plans in place to handle this sort of situation. The President can always draw on our emergency fuel supply.” He yawned. “How much gas do you have?”

“A full tank. I filled up on the way home from school.” Eight days ago. It seemed like eight years.

The minivan got only nineteen miles to the gallon. A full tank took her three hundred miles. Three hundred miles was nothing; it was partway to nowhere. “Maybe they’ll get a new crew out there soon.”

Peter didn’t say anything. He was no longer listening, intent on the words creeping across the bottom of the television screen. She squinted to make out the tiny type. Both Minnesota patients were dead. Chicago was reporting additional cases. So was New Orleans. Detroit had one suspected.

“Minnesota,” he said. “Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan. They’re all on the Mississippi flyway.”

So was Ohio. While they’d been sleeping, the virus had been busy, spiraling ever closer to where they lived. She thought of her dream again and shuddered. “You think that means anything?”

“It’s interesting.”

The kettle whistled from the stove. She got up before it started shrieking. “Decaf?”

“Thanks.” He followed her into the kitchen.

The kettle was shaking on the burner. She poured steaming water into two mugs, dunked in the tea bags. “When are you going in?”

He took the mug she offered him. “A couple of hours. When I get those samples ready, I can start working with the people in Tennessee. We’ll isolate various bits of RNA and try to see whether it’s grown more virulent. With both of us working, we’ll cover twice as much ground.”

“But it’s avian. Why take the risk of exposing yourself for that?”

“Everyone’s working on human cases. No one’s paying any attention to the avian form. But the human outbreaks seem to be following the avian, at least here in America. My thinking is, they’ve got to be related somehow. So anything I learn about the avian form might shed light on the human.”

Still, she didn’t like the idea of him venturing downtown. Who knew how bad things had grown? Who knew how desperate people had become? Peter was so trusting. He’d pull over in an instant if he thought someone needed his help. He wouldn’t give the least bit of thought to his own safety. There had to be another solution. She remembered the guy on the federal side who’d worked with Peter in the past. “What about Dan? Wouldn’t this be his job?”

“Yes, but he can’t get anywhere near his lab. All nonessential state workers are strictly off-duty now. If they caught him, he’d be fired.”

She tried one last gambit. “The university’s closed. You could get fired, too.”

“I’ll be careful.”

The same way he’d always pushed her away.
It’ll be all right. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful
. As if saying those things actually reassured her, as if they reduced her fears to mist. They never did. They only made her feel more alone. “Is Shazia going with you?” she heard herself ask.

“No. It’s a one-person job. I’ve asked her to stay and sort through Liederman’s notes for me. You know that book I’ve always wanted to write?”

“I remember.” She set down the spoon and looked at him. His face was dappled with red light. The kitchen was filled with it. She turned her head to see the source. They both leaned over the kitchen sink.

An ambulance, red and white lights flashing, was pulling into a driveway down the street. They weren’t running the sirens. Maybe they didn’t use sirens in the middle of the night.

“You think it’s Al?” Peter said.

“Probably. He had that bypass last year. But he looked okay this afternoon.” He’d stood there and clasped Sue to him. Ann had watched with a kind of longing, remembering how she and Peter had once been so easy together.

“He might have been having symptoms we don’t know about.”

The driver’s door opened. A man appeared and walked around to the back of the vehicle. He swung open the door and pulled out a stretcher. Another man was there now. He hoisted a big bag onto the stretcher, and together the two men wheeled the stretcher along the path. They paused by the front door. It yawned open, and they entered.

“Shouldn’t they be moving faster?” She felt Peter shrug.

One of the EMTs backed through the doorway. He lifted the stretcher down the front steps. A second man appeared.

Ann strained to see beyond him but spotted no one standing in the doorway. Sue must be inside, getting ready to go. Her parents had already gone back home. They had a cat they were worried about, Ann knew. She’d seen their car earlier, accelerating down the street. She should run across the street and offer to take Jodi. She actually put down her mug before she caught herself. Of course she couldn’t. She could only stand here and watch helplessly.

At the bottom of the steps, the two men released the wheels and guided the stretcher down the path. They were moving so slowly. They both had their faces covered with masks and dark goggles, making them look strangely insectile. “Do you see that?” She hoped Jodi was still asleep. She didn’t want to think of a child witnessing this.

“I guess it’s standard practice now.”

She saw his worried frown. She supposed that what he said made sense.

They came down the path, the stretcher between them. She couldn’t make things out. One of the men was blocking her view. He walked backward onto the driveway and swept the stretcher into position to face the back of the ambulance. Now Ann could see the stretcher bed. Its surface was completely white, the sheet draped all the way around. It appeared empty. Had this simply been a false alarm? “Why are they leaving?”

“Ann,” Peter said, “it’s not Al.”

She looked again and saw that there was a small lump beneath the sheet. She gripped the rim of the sink.
Oh my God. Jodi
. Her heart thudded. It wasn’t possible. She was just a little girl. “But she was fine. She looked fine.” She’d come running across the lawn just that afternoon. She’d thrown herself, laughing, into her mother’s arms.

“Hmm.”

“Could it happen that fast?” He nodded.

Ann started to tremble. “Couldn’t it be something else?”

“It could.”

“But you know it’s not.”

Jodi
. And she’d found her so annoying. She’d scolded her just the day before. She’d told her to go home. She blinked away tears.

The stretcher collapsed and the men worked it into the back of the ambulance. An EMT climbed into the driver’s seat. Taillights flared.

Her throat felt tight with fear. The steel of the sink bit into her palms.

“Peter,” she whispered. “She was here. She was on the trampoline with the girls.”

FIFTEEN

P
ETER BANGED ON THE DOOR. “HELLO?” HE CUPPED HIS
hands to the glass and yelled. “Anyone there?”

Fifteen minutes and still no sign of the security guard. Peter could see the circular desk just on the other side of the glass, the top of the computer monitor, but no one sat there. Hank or Arnold must be doing rounds.
Come on
. How long did it take to walk four floors? Could be he was in the bathroom. In which case, Peter might be here a while longer.

He stamped his feet to keep warm and pounded the door again.

Movement on the other side of the glass.
Aha
. Someone was walking toward him. Peter squinted. Not Hank’s broad stride, slighter than Arnold. As the man approached, he pulled a mask up over his lower face. He twisted the dead bolt and held the door open. “Thought I heard something.”

“Lewis?” What was he doing here? His lab animals. Right, someone had to feed them. “Where’s Hank?”

Lewis shrugged. “Who knows? When I got in this morning, no one was here. Good thing I have a key.”

“Anyone else around?” They began walking down the corridor.

“A few, in and out. It’s busier over at the medical school.”

They came to a stop by the elevator.

“You hear the latest?” Lewis said. “Christ, it’s right here in Columbus.”

Jodi’s body had been so small it had barely lifted the sheet draped around her. When he left the house that morning, Ann was staring out the kitchen window, her face pale, cup held motionless to her lips. He knew she hadn’t slept.

“See ya.” Lewis turned and headed for the door to the basement.

Peter unlocked his lab door and stepped into the pungency of solvents, a sweetish aroma that was familiar and comforting. He gloved up, slid his arms through the sleeves of his lab coat, and opened the freezer.

The sampling tubes sat there, the swabs stiff inside the clear plastic. He started to shut the freezer door, then paused. He counted to be sure. One of the Sparrow Lake samples was missing. He’d ask Shazia about it later. Maybe she’d neglected to extract the right number.

Setting the tubes on the counter to warm up, he carried the centrifuge to the hood and plugged it in. Selecting the boxed test kits from the shelf, he brought those over, along with the bag of Eppendorf microtubes.

It was strange, working in this utter silence. Peter was used to some background noise. The ringing of a phone, a door squeaking open then shut, someone coming up and asking a question. Shazia had wanted to join him, but he’d persuaded her to stay put. “Stay online. Let me know if anything changes.” No sense in both of them taking the risk.

He stopped the centrifuge and carefully removed each swab, pipetted the remaining material into fresh tubes. Measuring out the chemicals from the test kits, he dripped each mixture into the raw material to melt away lipids, bacteria, proteins. He held up a tube. Now it was pure RNA, harmless as water. The little savages were gone. Standing and stretching, he walked over to his laptop and sat down at the counter to email the lab in Tennessee. Maybe he’d check in with Shazia and ask her about that missing sample.

Ann answered. “Peter?”

He heard the girls calling to her in the background. There was some urgency in their voices. He thought of what Ann had said. Kate and Maddie had been around Jodi. The incubation period was about right. “Are the girls okay?”

“No, no. They’re fine. Did you just get in?”

“A little while ago. I wanted to get this batch in.”

“How much longer are you going to be?”

“I’ll be home by dinnertime.” He hoped. Once he got the PCR running, it would be another four hours before he knew whether or not it was avian influenza.

“Hold on, Kate,” he heard Ann say. “I’m talking to your father.”

“I’ve looked everywhere.” Kate’s voice. “I can’t find them.”

“Look in the blanket chest.” A pause, then Ann came back on the line. “Sorry about that. Kate can’t find her snow pants.”

It wasn’t that cold outside. “Why does she need her snow pants?”

“Peter. Don’t you know? It’s snowing.”

He walked to the window and looked out. Tiny white flakes spiraled downward against the tan and brown buildings. There were a dozen or so people walking along the sidewalks below, no one side by side. Snow already covered the grass below. The streets looked slushy with it. The sky stretched above, a solid gray wall desolate of birds. Odd. Ducks headed inland when the weather turned miserable. Unless they were dead. All of them? That would be millions. That wasn’t possible.

“Peter?”

“Sorry. Yeah, I see it’s really coming down out there. Let me get back to this before it gets too deep.”

MADDIE LOOKED UP AS PETER STEPPED THROUGH THE SLIDING
glass door and onto the patio thick with snow. She was jabbing a stick into a snowman. It hung there, lopsided. “Daddy!”

“Hey, Maddie girl.” Through the slanting curtains of snow, he glimpsed other families playing in their yards. He heard the scrapes of shovels, hoots of laughter.

Kate knelt by a ball of snow. “Help.”

“Please don’t tell me that’s the daddy snowman.” He waded across the yard through the snow to her. It was so cold and crisp out here. They hadn’t had a snow like this in years. Most storms disdained them, sweeping farther north or south, leaving Columbus with dreary skies and cold temperatures. “Come on. This guy’s nowhere near tall and broad-shouldered enough. Nothing like your real dad.”

Kate rolled her eyes, but she put her hands alongside his.

“Lean into it,” Peter said, and they pushed the ball of snow in long, uneven tracks through their yard back to where Maddie was working.

Maddie had her knitted hat perched on top of her snowman and one of his old scarves wound around its neck. “What can we use for noses?”

“Carrots,” he said.

“Mommy said no.”

Right. He’d forgotten. “Well, I’m sure we can find something.”

The sliding glass door opened. Ann stepped over the threshold, rotund in a big quilted coat, hat, scarf, mittens.

He grinned at her. She always pulled on every warm thing she had when it snowed, as though she’d freeze into a human Popsicle otherwise. “They teach you to dress like that in DC?”

She ponderously made her way over to where he stood. “The three times we had snow.” She hiked an eyebrow at Peter’s bare head and his feet clad in loafers. “I found these,” she said, shaking a Baggie. “They could be noses.”

Maddie took it. “Buckeyes. Thanks, Mommy.”

Ann pulled bright yellow daisies from her pocket. They sprang into her hand, unchastened by having been cramped into tight quarters. “I got these out of my craft box. Maybe they could be buttons or something.”

Kate snorted. “Hippie snow bears. Perfect.” But she took the silk flowers and plunged them down the front of one fat snowman.

“There’s Shazia.” Maddie straightened and waved. “Shazia! Come play.”

Shazia wore an old down coat of Peter’s and a pair of his snow pants, cuffs folded. Her cheeks were flushed. “I’ve never seen so much snow.”

“My parents say it’s coming down hard in DC, too,” Ann said. “They say it’s beautiful.”

Her voice sounded wistful.

Shazia said, “I’ve finished sorting your notes, Peter.”

“That was fast.”

“She worked straight through lunch,” Ann said. “Shazia, I left a plate out for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Help us make a snow fort, Shazia,” Maddie said.

Shazia looked around. “I’ve never made a snow fort.”

“What about snow angels?”

Shazia shook her head, her dark hair sliding this way and that over her shoulders.

Kate looked at her, hands on her hips. “Have you ever gone sledding?”

It was clear from the expression on Shazia’s face that she had never done that, either.

“Well,” Peter said, “we’ll just have to take you to the park so Kate can teach you all her special tricks, like plowing into trees and skidding down the hill on her rear end.”

“Funny, Dad,” Kate said.

“I don’t know,” Ann said. “There might be a lot of people there.”

She had a point. Jodi had contracted H5N1 from someone. It might have been Sue or Al returning from their cross-country trip, or it might have been someone from the neighborhood. In either case, they now knew that H5N1 was here. “We’ll be safe as long as we stay three feet away from other people,” Peter said.

Ann chewed her lower lip.

Kate groaned. “Mom. Come
on
. It’s like we’re prisoners or something.”

Ann looked at Kate and her expression softened. “Just promise me you’ll stick with your dad and that you won’t go running around.”

“We promise, Mommy,” Maddie said. Ann kept her gaze on Kate. “Even if Michele’s there.”

“My God.” Kate threw her hands up in the air. “If I see Michele, I’ll run screaming all the way home.”

“What about Scooter?” Maddie said. “I bet you won’t run screaming home
then.”

She ducked, giggling, as Kate threw a snowball at her.

Libby came out onto her patio, Jacob in her arms. She twirled around, lifting her baby to the falling flakes. “It’s his first snow,” she called over, laughing. “He loves it.”

Peter remembered Kate’s first snow. They’d been living in Greensboro and he’d bundled her up and brought her outside and set her little booted feet onto the ground. She’d taken one look around and howled, lifting her arms to be picked up again. Peter had been bent over with laughter, but Ann had rushed outside barefoot to scoop up the baby. “There, there, darling,” she’d crooned. “It’s just snow. Look.” She’d held out her palm to show the flakes harmlessly alighting and melting.

Maddie had been a different story altogether. They’d been visiting his parents in Michigan and a few inches had fallen overnight. She’d demanded to be let out, standing unsteadily by the window, holding on to the sill, flexing up and down on her toes. When Peter had finally taken her out, her little hand firmly in his, she’d lifted her foot and stamped it, chortling at the resulting squish. She spent the entire afternoon stomping around in the snow, tipping over and righting herself. She’d cried when Peter had at last carried her back inside to dry off.

“How about a snow tiger?” Maddie asked. “There’s enough snow for that.”

“There’s enough for an entire snow zoo.” Ann plucked Maddie’s hat from the snowman and shook it. “Put this back on, honey.” Maddie brushed her hand away. “I don’t need it. I’m fine.” A sudden wailing filled the air. Shazia stopped and looked around. “It’s the tornado sirens,” Kate said. But tornado season was over.

“They’ll stop in a minute.” Ann fitted the hat back onto Maddie’s head. “I’ll get your snowman another one.”

The whooping noise ceased and the loudspeaker started. Peter lifted his head. It wasn’t the usual broadcast. Ann had heard it, too. She’d stopped and raised her head to listen.

“Please tune in to your local news program for an update.”

He slogged through the drifts of snow, sliding open the back door and coming inside, snow falling from his shoes to the floor. Ann reached the remote first, pressing the buttons and stopping at the sight of the governor speaking into the camera, his face grave. They stood together, listening.

The girls arrived, breathless, Shazia beside them.

Peter stared at the screen.

“… following reports of multiple outbreaks in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Dayton …”

All those cities?

He felt a tug on his coat sleeve and glanced down to see Maddie looking up at him, her blue eyes wide and her cheeks rosy. “What’s he saying, Daddy?”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Hold on, honey.”

“… closing our state borders to all incoming and outgoing traffic, excepting deliveries of essential food, medicine, and fuel.”

Quarantine.

The cities that locked themselves up during the 1918 flu pandemic had suffered fewer casualties. Philadelphia had been the slowest to react. The city had been decimated.

LIFTING HIS HEAD FROM THE PILLOW, PETER YAWNED AND
looked around. The room was full dark, the snow packed tight against the small windows set high along the basement ceiling. He had the vague sense that a lot of time had passed. Groggily, he got to his feet, found his slippers, and made his way upstairs.

Brilliant sunlight assailed him as he stepped onto the first floor. He blinked.

All the softness of last night’s slanting flakes was gone. Harsh brightness poured in through the windows, the result of sun glinting off mounds of snow, the sky beyond white with the promise of more. The sun was high. It had been up for hours. The snow had blanketed the house and coerced his sleeping mind to stay huddled beneath the covers for as long as possible. He’d make some coffee and head straight in to the lab.

The house was quiet. Everyone else was sleeping in, too. Then he heard the strangeness, the absolute stillness that saturated the room and pressed against him, and realized this was no ordinary silence. No refrigerator humming, no furnace clicking off and on, no television playing. Now he felt the chill. How long had the power been off?

Ann came down the stairs, a befuddled expression on her face. Her gaze found his. She was hearing it, too.

“We’ve lost power,” he told her. “I’ve got to go in.”

She pulled her robe more tightly around her. “Are the roads clear?”

He went to the sliding glass door and looked out.

Everything was white. It covered the patio and the bushes. It swelled up to the bottom of the trampoline. He couldn’t see where the sidewalk ended and the road began.

Ann came up behind him. “Oh, no.”

He wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. The lab was over ten miles away. Even if he walked the entire distance, forging through the snow that would reach his knees, he’d never make it in time.

He looked out at the stillness and felt despair. His lab wasn’t on a generator. With every minute that passed, the temperature inside the freezer was rising. The viruses he’d prepared were thawing. Some of them might already be dead. Before too long, they’d all be dead. Whatever answers they’d held would be lost forever.