The Things That Keep Us Here (4 page)

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.

FIVE

P
ETER 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 silent. 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

A
NN 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.

Ann pushed open the glass door. “Hey, stranger.”

Rachel straightened. Tall, her blond hair clipped into a perfect pageboy, she had a confident way of holding herself that made her stand out in a crowd. Ann had noticed that Hannah had inherited the same trait.

“Well, if it isn’t the school hero.” Rachel cocked a sculpted eyebrow. “Hannah told me you ran into a burning building and rescued one of her classmates.”

“Some hero. The only things burning were my ears after the fire chief chewed me out.”

“And what would he have done if you’d just left her there?” Rachel waved at the secretary, who had the telephone pressed to her ear and was listening to whoever was speaking on the other end. She didn’t respond. Rachel shrugged. She turned to Ann. “You coming in or going out?”

“Out. I’m squeezing in a quick trip to the post office before I sic the fifth-graders on Georgia O’Keeffe. You?”

“I’m on my way home. I’m done volunteering for the day.”

They used to volunteer together, coordinating their schedules so they could squeeze in a quick lunch afterward or a trip to the mall before they had to race back to pick up their kids. But that had all changed this year. Now Ann was the one phoning around for parent volunteers and Rachel was the one answering. Or not.

The secretary stood. She knocked on the principal’s door and went in without waiting for a response.

“I’m glad I ran into you.” Out in the hall, Ann leaned on the front door and held it open for Rachel. They stepped into a swirl of leaves and cold air. “I called you last night.”

Rachel nodded, fastening the buttons on her black coat. “I got your message. Sorry I didn’t call back. It’s been crazy with Rich out of town. You know, just me and the kids.” Rachel made a face. “I guess you’d know how that is.”

Ann supposed she did. She didn’t like to think of herself as a single parent, but of course she was. Peter was there in a big-picture way, but it was up to Ann to shepherd their daughters through the day and oversee all the small events that made up their lives. “I hear Hannah started piano yesterday.”

“Yes. A space opened up and I nabbed it.” Rachel tugged on her gloves. “I know we talked about the girls taking lessons together, but that was before you went back to work.”

“I know. My schedule’s been awful. Maybe Hannah could play after school.”

“Today? I’m sorry, but she’s already got plans.”

Right. Maddie had said Hannah had karate this afternoon. “What does your weekend look like?”

“Pretty packed, I’m afraid. Cheerleading practice, haircuts. And Rich is still stuck in Belgium. His plane’s delayed for some reason, so he’s no help. I’ll let you know.”

Rachel had said pretty much the same thing last week, a vague response about checking her calendar and promising to get back to her. And she never had. “How about after we come back from Thanksgiving break? Aren’t Mondays your yoga night? Hannah can come home with us after school.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work.”

Ann stopped on the sidewalk. “Rachel, is everything okay? We used to have Hannah over all the time, and now—”

“Oh, it’s no big deal. I just think the girls need to make some other friends.”

Rachel said it so lightly. What had happened to make her feel this way? The two girls got along so well. They’d been inseparable since preschool. Ann looked at Rachel, but Rachel wouldn’t meet her eyes. She knew Maddie didn’t have any other friends. She knew that Maddie was the kind of person who made one true friend, and that friend was Hannah. Maddie wasn’t like Kate, who had lots of friends, the better to hide among.

“I see,” Ann said, although she didn’t.

Rachel slid her hands into the pockets of her coat. “It’s just that Hannah doesn’t understand why Maddie can’t come over to play. She thinks it’s something she did.”

Ann frowned. “Of course it isn’t. She must know that.”

“Hannah’s only eight. It doesn’t matter how much we reassure her. All she knows is that her best friend can’t come and play at her house anymore.”

“Maddie misses playing at your house, too.” It was such a small thing, couldn’t they move past it?

“You know she’s welcome anytime.”

Ann couldn’t believe it. Rachel knew as well as anyone that Maddie could never come over, not as long as Hannah still had her kitten.

Rachel had phoned her in the middle of the night, waking her from a deep sleep. “Is Maddie allergic to anything?” she’d demanded without preamble.

“No,” Ann had replied, already pulling on her clothes, instantly frantic at the urgency in Rachel’s voice. “At least not that I know of.”

“Her lung collapsed,” Ann reminded Rachel now. “She spent two nights in the hospital.”

“I know,” Rachel said. “It was awful. But you told me the doctor said medication would help.”

“He said it
might
help.”

“You won’t know unless you try.”

Rachel couldn’t possibly be serious. She’d been there. She’d raced Maddie to the emergency room that night, begging her to hold on. “You know I can’t do that.”

The wind lifted Rachel’s hair from her face and pressed the collar of her coat against her throat. “Ann, don’t you think you’re being a little overprotective?”

Was she? Maybe. But the memory of her child, eyes swollen shut, panting for breath, was enough to make Ann feel her own throat close up.

Rachel sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I guess I’d feel the same way if I were you.”

If I were you
. Something about the questioning way Rachel said that warned Ann they were on the precipice of something new. “What do you mean?”

The words were out before Ann could stop herself. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to go there.

Rachel looked away. “You never said anything. I kept waiting for you to tell me.”

Ann had the dizzying sensation of standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down at the jagged rocks. She needed to step back. She needed them both to move to safer ground. “Rachel—” she began, but Rachel pushed on.

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t say anything. But if we were really friends, you would have told me. You would have at least mentioned it to me.”

Her tone was accusing. Suddenly they weren’t talking about Hannah and Maddie anymore. How had this happened? How did Rachel
know?

Rachel crossed her arms. “The last time Maddie was over, she told Hannah. When Hannah told me later, I thought at first Maddie had been making it up. Because if it were true, you would have told me. When I had that miscarriage five years ago, you would have told me then.”

“It wasn’t the same thing,” Ann whispered.

“Are you sure?” Rachel shot back.

They stood there on the sidewalk, the brick school building beside them, the flag whipping above them on its metal pole. Cars drove past, a thumping burst of music. Children called to one another on the nearby playground.

“What did Maddie tell Hannah?”

Rachel slid her hands into her coat pockets. “She said there was a baby brother who never woke up from his nap.” So simple.

“Is it true?” Rachel said.

Maddie, her sweet, uncomplicated child, painting rainbows. Maddie, whom Ann had thought was safe, whom Ann had wanted so much to believe was untouched by all the sadness around her that she’d refused to see the truth for what it was. Something inside her daughter had at last spoken up, some tiny little questioning voice yearning to be heard, yearning to be answered.
How do you help a child when you can’t even help yourself?

THE POST OFFICE WAS CLOSED WHEN SHE ARRIVED. ANN
shifted the bulky envelope under one arm and tried both doors, but they were securely locked. The times posted on the window said it should be open for another four hours. She rapped on the glass. Wasn’t that someone moving around inside? She rattled the door handle and waved, but no one came. She glanced at her watch.
Drat
. No time to try another branch. She’d have to wait until after school let out. A few more hours wouldn’t make any difference.

The front office was empty when she entered the building. Ann walked down the hall, her footsteps ringing in the quiet. No one was in the nurse’s office. The cafeteria was empty. So was the library. Where was everyone? A voice echoed down the hall, a man speaking into a microphone. She pushed open the gymnasium door and saw the room filled with children sitting cross-legged on the floor. The faculty and staff lined the walls. Maddie was toward the front, hunched beside Hannah, the two of them sitting closely together, one blond head and one brown, engrossed in some covert clapping game, completely unaware that the clock had already started ticking on their friendship.

The principal stood at the podium in the front of the room.

“… by the Ohio Department of Health that school will be closing.” He lifted his hand to hush the cheer that went up from the children.

School was closing? Some horrible infection must have gotten loose, like hepatitis or bacterial meningitis. But no one was coughing. No one looked sick. Maybe it was an environmental contaminant, like lead in the water or asbestos coming loose from around the pipes. With a pinch of fear, Ann wondered how many times Maddie drank from the water fountain.

“Your teachers will be handing out a note for you to take home to your parents. When you go back to your classrooms, you’ll need to empty your desks and cubbies. If you need a plastic bag to carry items, let your teacher know. The announcement’s being made on the radio and television, so car riders, your parents should start arriving soon. They’ll have to sign you out first. Listen for your name over the loudspeaker. Bus riders will wait in their classrooms until their buses arrive. For those whose parents are delayed, we’ll be setting up tables in the cafeteria. Now, I want everyone to stand up and, in a quiet, orderly fashion, return to your classrooms. We’ll start with kindergarten first.”

The noise level soared as everyone stirred into motion. Ann looked for Maddie and spotted her in the stream of chattering, laughing children flowing toward the doors. Ann waved.

Maddie pushed closer. She looked excited. “Did you hear, Mom? We don’t have to go to school anymore.”

“I heard.” Ann kept her voice light. What on earth had happened that would prompt the Department of Health to shut down the school?

Hannah pushed Maddie along. “Go.”

Maddie turned and called back to Ann. “You’re coming to get me, right, Mom?”

“I’ll be right there, honey.”

Maddie’s teacher brought up the rear of the line, her face grim. She had Heyjin by one hand and held a sheaf of blue papers in the other. “If you’re not doing anything, Mrs. Brooks, I could use your help getting the children ready.”

“Of course.” It wouldn’t take long to seal up the art room. Ann had already begun putting things away in preparation for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. “What’s going on? Why are they closing the school?”

“Not just this one. All of the schools.”

“What?”

The woman peeled off the top page from the stack she held.

“Here.”

Ann read the sheet and slowed. Sudden coldness flooded her body. Kids swarmed around her, but she didn’t feel them bumping into her. The words on the page swam before her. She saw them clearly printed there, but she had to read them twice before the meaning sank in. “We’re in Phase Five now?”

“That’s right.”

Ann stared at her. So the clusters of flu cases had multiplied to the extent that they were threatening to sweep across entire communities. That meant H5N1 had mutated again, cleverly adapting itself to jump more easily from human to human. She had the sensation of standing on a cliff again, looking down into an eternal unknown. “When did this happen?”

“An hour ago.” She clasped Heyjin’s hand again, looked down at her, and shook her head. “Ironic, isn’t it? She traveled all that way to get here, but in the end, it didn’t matter a damn.”

Heyjin glanced up at her teacher and then looked to Ann. The triumph in the child’s eyes was unmistakable.