I sat, unmoving, after the call ended. Every few minutes the headlights of a passing car sent a strobe of white light juddering across the wall; from somewhere outside came the sound of a dog barking in short, agitated bursts. Otherwise darkness and stillness pervaded the room. A heaviness fell over me, binding me to this chair. I couldn’t imagine moving.

The phone buzzed again, this time with a text sent from Georgia to all of us: Kira, Compton, Vani, Zadie, and Emma. All of us except Hannah.

From Harry: H on vent

A short period of nothing, everyone frozen in the act of digesting this news. Zadie followed with a question.

What about the baby?

For an unbearable length of time: nothing. Then, finally, three blinking dots indicated Georgia was typing something. Given how much time elapsed, I expected a lengthy message, but when the reply came through, only three words appeared on the screen:

Waiting to see

—

GEORGIA CONVEYED THE rest of the details, at least as much as Harry could convey them to her: Hannah had been treating herself at home and improving on oxygen when she had hemorrhaged and lost consciousness. The medical team taking care of her had transfused her and placed her on the ventilator. Her pulmonary function wasn’t good enough to allow them to try to wean her off it, so for now she remained sedated.

So. Was this it? Was this how Hannah’s lifelong dream of motherhood would end? Was this how her own life would end? A boiling anger, sudden and startling, suffused me. Had there ever been a crueler case of infertility than of a woman who spent her days and nights surrounded by pregnant women?

I didn’t have to try to imagine Hannah’s reaction when she’d learned she was carrying a child; she had called us all the first chance she’d had. She hadn’t sobbed or shrieked or even smiled. Her voice had been low and reverent, so suffused with joy she could hardly speak. Even Emma, the most stoic of us, had teared up on that call.

What I could not imagine was Hannah’s reaction if she were to awaken and discover she’d lost her baby. Or worse: Harry’s reaction if she were to die.

—

A DAY LATER, the Atlanta tent hospital was full.

I sat in my nook, working from home today. I’d just closed another email update on Hannah—no significant change—in preparation to sign in to yet another virtual task force meeting. This one held more promise than most; we’d be getting updates on various clinical trials: the convalescent serum trials, the Artenivir trials, the monoclonal antibody trials, and most important, the excellent data from the near-complete vaccine trials. President Corbett had announced a plan to transform the tent hospitals—where possible—to vaccine administration centers to implement a quick rollout. In addition, I was hoping to hear whether human trials were underway at the European university that had taken over Declan’s nanobody. I’d authenticated myself and was waiting for the meeting leader to sign in when I sensed a presence behind me.