“Show me a mirror, Harry,” she whispered. He didn’t answer, just turned and looked at her, a dull glaze in his eyes. With enormous effort she heaved herself to her feet and dragged herself over to the far wall, where Harry had hung a small mirror in the shape of a beaming sun. The gold of its rays complemented the slats of the crib and the spiky, branching arms of the pendant above her head and a hammered metal frieze of decorative butterflies Hannah had placed on the wall opposite the crib. Everything in here was peaceful and beautiful, so beautiful the sight of it dislodged another ache. Her baby, her baby . . .

She looked in the mirror. It framed the circle of her face, the corona of the sun hiding her hair and granting her a kind of leonine elegance. As soon as she allowed herself to focus on the details contained within the mirror, though, she knew why Harry had reacted as he had. Her eyes, bloodshot and sunken, and her skin, too pale, were bad enough. But her lips! Cracked and tinged with purple, they belonged on a corpse.

She tottered back to the bed, the aching continuing to intensify. Her skin froze and burned as the air from the vent overhead blew against it. The littlest whisper of touch from the sheets hurt. Allowing her body weight to settle onto her back and buttocks hurt. Air whistling down her scorched windpipe hurt. But nothing hurt as much as her heart, her soul, at the thought of what oxygen deprivation or the virus could do to her unborn baby.

“Hannah,” said Harry, sounding frantic. “What do we do? You can’t go to one of those tents.”

“No,” she murmured. “You’re supposed to stay home if you can.”

“But what if you can’t? Can you go to the regular hospital?” He touched her forehead and recoiled. “You’re burning, Hannah.”

“I’m cold.”

“What will we do?”

“Listen,” she said. She had to stay calm and comfort Harry, and she had to think this through, but trying to focus sent a spear of pain through her head. “Call Natalie.” Once Hannah’s pregnancy was well established, Nia had transferred care back to Natalie Cheema, another of her partners.

Dimly, she heard Harry on the phone, his voice shredded into an urgent splinter-edged bark. She’d been on the receiving end of this call several times before; they had a checklist of questions for the patient or her family to answer, and, based on those answers, they either sent the pregnant patient to the hospital, to a negative-pressure maternity room, or they performed a video evaluation and directed a supply kit to her home. Even with cyanosis, most expectant mothers did well on home oxygen and electrolyte-containing fluids and video evaluations. This method of treatment limited the exposure of the L&D staff and kept enough beds open for the sickest of the sick or for women with complicated pregnancies. Most—but not all—pregnant patients survived.