Zhou spoke for the next ten minutes, running though the latest lab and imaging results, the children’s response to treatment thus far, and the remaining tools in the medical arsenal. In regard to possible treatments, the country had advanced from the beginning of the pandemic, most of the details of which I could recite in my sleep. Did recite in my sleep, in fact; more than once, I’d woken up muttering about protocols or numbers.

“The bottom line,” said Zhou, “with Rorie, we have concern that her inflammatory markers are rising, and her pulmonary function showed some decline throughout the day as her oxygen requirements increased. We’ll get another film in a couple hours and see where we are, okay? I am concerned about a secondary bacterial pneumonia. But I think you need to brace yourself for the possibility of a breathing tube.”

I jerked my chin in acknowledgment, my mouth too dry to speak.

“And Beau. Dear sweet boy, he is fighting so hard. We’re seeing some vent resistance despite the new settings. The serum, we think has not been a success thus far, but it’s early. This you know. So now what?” He rubbed his hands together. “We are going to try everything, Kira. No stone unturned for your boy. Conventional therapies first, okay, and we’ll try the off-label medications I discussed with you. Today, I think, will be critical. But I am here all day. I will not leave you.”

“Thank you,” I managed. Tears flooded my throat; some great primitive wash of terror rose from my gut, strangling any other words.

Zhou might not have children of his own, but he was no stranger to the sight of a parent dissolving in grief. He retrieved a thin, cheap tissue from its box on the nightstand and swiped it, gently, beneath my eyes. “Here, now,” he said. “The tears, they make you tired. Kira, you cannot sleep in here, there is no room. You should go home, just for a little while, and gather your strength for the children.”

“No,” I said. The thought of Rorie waking alone to the sight of her brother tethered to life only by the grace of a breathing machine; no. No, I’d stay right here.

Zhou sighed. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. I will have them send in some extra blankets. Perhaps you can make a nest on the floor.”

20

The Wilds of Connecticut

COMPTON

NEW YORK CITY

237 Days After Patient Zero

In contrast to the height of the pandemic, New York hummed with activity on this, an ordinary Saturday afternoon. Life here had settled; despite a last-ditch effort by the virus to conquer Atlanta and a few other scattered places, in most areas of the United States the infection seemed to have diminished, if not outright burned itself out. Here in the hospital, the halls thronged with all the usual denizens of a medical center, hustling by with seeming normality on their way to the cafeteria or to visit their sick grandmother or to extract someone’s problematic gallbladder. Seeming normality, of course, being a relative term, because if you looked closely, quite a bit had changed.