“I understand. You’re right. If he gets you sick…”
Chase didn’t need to finish. Her eyes echoed the same fear she’d expressed to Norah earlier.
“I’m not going to get sick,” Norah said, mustering as much confidence as she could.
Chase shook her head and chortled quietly. “You’ve always been the strong one of the two of us.”
Norah stopped just in front of the driver’s side door. “Is that really what you think?”
“Not a doubt in my mind,” Chase said.
Norah tipped her head back, exasperated. “You were my rock, Chase. Do you have any idea how many days I thought I just couldn’t do it anymore? That I couldn’t take one more exam, or get yelled at by one more attending, or miss one more hour of sleep? But I got through it, every single time.”
“Because you’re resilient.”
“No.” Norah turned the key in the lock and opened the door, climbing into the seat. She sat silently for a beat, staring out the window, allowing the heat that had accumulated in the interior of the vehicle to slowly wrap around her like thick ivy. Nearly every time she and Chase spoke lately, Norah found herself saying things she shouldn’t, delving deeply into the past when she swore she wouldn’t. Chase had always been able to do that to Norah, and it frustrated the hell out of her.
“I got through it every single time,” Norah said again, her words deliberate and slow, “because I got to come home to you every night, you asshole. You think I was the strong one, but clearly your memory has badly betrayed you. Everything I did, everything I accomplished up until the day you walked out on me, I did because of you.”
Norah didn’t mean for her tone to bite so hard, and Chase’s face did little to betray the guilt and hurt that reemerged every time Norah reminded her how she’d left.
“I’m sorry.” Chase had said the words a thousand times since their reunion. Each time, they seemed to heal another tiny part of the damage she’d caused Norah, but it was like replanting a single tree where a forest fire had been. The carnage was vast. And words alone were not going to fix it.
“I know you are.” Norah started the jeep, finally rolling down the windows looking for a breath of cool air that was nowhere to be found. “Let’s get out of here.”
It was dark by the time they returned to camp, and Norah headed directly to her tent without speaking to anyone. The ride home had been equally quiet, and Chase didn’t seem any more eager to talk than she did, which was unusual. Norah couldn’t stop thinking about Stevens. Every time she closed her eyes, even to blink, she saw him, pale and weak, connected to monitors and tubing. The flashing neon numbers reading 89% seemed to be permanently etched into her eyelids too, and she realized just how long she must have spent staring at Stevens’s oxygen levels while they were visiting. Norah was angry. She felt personally responsible for him, and everyone else who had been or would become sick. This was her job, and she was failing. People were dying. Stevens might die.
After what must have been a good twenty minutes of pacing around the tiny confines of her tent, Norah sat down at her desk, pinching the skin between her eyes with her thumb and index finger until the pain refocused her just a little. She stared at the fax on her desk. “CONFIDENTIAL: Birtamimab Trial.”
Chapter Eleven
A bright light penetrated the wall of Chase’s tent as she flipped the pages of the tattered infectious-disease textbook she’d brought with her to Louisiana. Her heart battered the wall of her chest, not because she was afraid, but because she was sure Norah was coming to see her. She’d been especially quiet and withdrawn on the way home from the medical tent, and Chase figured she was probably thinking about Stevens too. Probably beating herself up for each and every person who was sick with H7J1, because it was, of course, Norah’s personal crusade, and any casualties were exclusively her fault. Chase knew nothing she could say would convince Norah otherwise.
“Chase? Can I come in?”
John’s voice left her with a dull ache of disappointment.
“Uh, sure.”
The canvas rustled, and John struggled to maneuver his aging frame through the entryway. Chase was immediately crushed by a new fear—what if John got sick? He was older, overweight, and had a whole slew of medical problems that would make him a perfect victim of the virus if it got to him. Some of that same sense of personal responsibility Chase knew Norah was feeling began to transfer onto her.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Chase asked anxiously.
John smiled and sat down on her cot, groaning a little as he did. “I’m fine. I’m here about Stevens.”
Chase’s heart hammered again as she realized this constant state of suspense and terror couldn’t be good for her blood pressure.
“What about him?”
“I just got a call from medical. They’re transferring him to the city hospital.” John’s expression was solemn, and he looked almost frailer than he had moments earlier.
“Oh, god, is he…” Chase couldn’t say the word.
“No!” John shook his head and reached out to comfort her, but stopped himself just before they made contact. Taking away the comfort of human touch was almost cruel in a time of such peril. Then again, pathogens are heartless beasts. Chase couldn’t help but think about how hypocritical she and Norah had been behind closed doors. In reality, they were all living within a few feet of each other, breathing in each other’s faces twenty-four hours a day. A hug or a handshake wouldn’t make or break anyone’s health. At this point, it was all just a formality to make them feel like they were doing something to prevent the spread of the virus.
“He’s not dead.”
Chase exhaled through pursed lips, realizing she’d been holding her breath. “Thank god.”
