Like a welcome mirage, Harry reappeared, wearing latex gloves and a new mask. A large basket with a wicker handle looped over one of his arms; in the other, he carried a water bottle. From the basket he pulled Hannah’s plushest throw blanket, her foam pillow from their bed, a book from her nightstand, her phone, and an array of smaller items from the bathroom. Kneeling, he placed a straw in her water bottle and held it for her. When she finished drinking, he twisted the top from a little tube of Vaseline and rubbed it gently across her lips. He tucked the blanket around her and eased the pillow under her head and carefully, delicately, brushed her hair off her face. He set up a stool as a nightstand and arranged on it all the toiletry and comfort items, lining them up in a regimented circle along the perimeter: Harry’s little army of bedside sentries.

She waited as he performed these ministrations. When he’d run out of items to distribute, he slumped back on his heels. “I spoke with Dr. Cheema.”

“What did she say?”

“She’s coming herself—”

“No!”

“No, honey, it’s okay,” he said. “She’s only a minute away, closer than an ambulance. She’s bringing a pulse ox and electrolytes and an oxygen tank and medicine and a—one of those belts or wands that monitors the baby’s heartbeat, or contractions, or whatever. She said you’d know what to do with it. She’s going to leave the stuff on the porch. If your oxygen level is low after the face mask or the baby looks bad or you get worse, then we call 911 and they’ll take you to the hospital—not the tent; she said because you’re pregnant, they can’t take you there—and she’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you or the baby.”

Hannah digested this. It was unlikely Natalie had assured her husband nothing bad would happen; even now, both doctors and the general public remained overly reliant on anecdotal tales to try to gauge the outcome of a pregnancy when the mother suffered a severe infection. She reminded herself that Joanie Ruth had so far proven to be healthy. But studies were starting to trickle out about miscarriages—spontaneous abortions—and late pregnancy loss, even if little was yet understood about long-term effects on the fetuses who survived a mother’s severe infection. Complicating matters, the fetal side effects of the antiviral drugs in play could not be studied for ethical reasons. They might help an unborn child or they might harm it. No one knew.