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Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. TITLES BY KIMMERY MARTIN
  3. NOTE TO THE READER:
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. CHARACTER SPECIALTIES
  7. PART ONE
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. PART TWO
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. PART THREE
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. PART FOUR
  32. 22
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. Epilogue
  36. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  37. BIBLIOGRAPHY
  38. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  39. Readers Guide
  40. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  41. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  42. What’s next onyour reading list?

I think maybe Compton is trying to stifle a smile, but she guides Hannah back to the bench and rustles a small mirror out of her handbag. “How are your little ones?” she asks.

Hannah blows her nose again. “Ah,” she says, and as if a switch has flicked, her tearfulness is replaced by the delighted sappiness she displays whenever anyone mentions the girls. The mooniness of her expression is so endearing and so characteristic, it’s the face I see whenever Hannah comes to mind. “They’re indescribable,” she says. “I feel guilty for leaving them.”

“Hannah, don’t,” says Vani. “Because I feel fabulous leaving mine, but then I feel guilty for not feeling guilty if you feel guilty.”

“I gotta admit,” says Hannah, “it’s heaven to sleep through the night in a bed by myself.” She smiles, her arms wrapped around her torso, hugging herself. “But yeah: I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I don’t think about them. They’re always there in the margins of my mind somewhere, hovering like angels. Or cherubs, really, with their big eyes and their smooth little faces and fat little bodies.” She laughs, partly I think in self-conscious embarrassment at the indulgence of her description and partly with genuine pleasure at the thought of the babies. It’s an indescribable relief to see the bliss on her face when she talks about the children—it’s bliss to see her face at all when for so long we thought we might not ever see her again. Days on a ventilator, a week in intensive care, a month in the hospital—she might never have recovered. But recover she did, and she gave birth to Gianna, who by all accounts seems to be a sweet-natured, cognitively normal, physically robust little girl. She’s the spitting image of Hannah, just as Joanie Ruth is a tiny personification of Georgia.

A low-level buzzing fills my head, intensifying until everything else recedes into the background. I sit back and allow it to amplify, thoughts and words swirling until at last they coalesce into one coherent thought. “Hannah,” I say, interrupting them. “I know what I’m going to say in my talk.”

She looks up from the mirror, her cheeks pink from her efforts at wiping away the streaky mascara. “Oh, that’s great, Kiki. What?”

“I’m going to tell them what happened to Georgia,” I say. “If it’s okay with you, I mean.”

23

The Magic Bullet

KIRA

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Eighteen Months After Patient Zero