A skinny, middle-aged white woman with thinning hair, wearing yoga pants and a light, high-end jogger’s jacket, emerges from a screening area with her foppish husband in tow. An orderly herds them out of the rear of the tent and toward the hospital proper. Judging by his puffiness, he’s gowned to within an inch of his life (a joke from her residency days Ramola can’t help but recall, though it was clearly more endearing and humorous in non-outbreak circumstances), sporting at least two sets of scrubs and coats.
The woman’s right hand is wrapped in gauze and her face covered in a white mask. She yells to her husband, but purposefully loud enough to be heard by anyone within earshot. “We have to wait three days for the next shot? Can you believe that shit? Three days. Three drops of blood. No room service. Bedpans and lookie-loos, my ass hanging out of a johnny. I don’t want to go in there. I want to go home and die.” The rhythm of her sentences is off, landing somewhere in an aural uncanny valley populated by the first iterations of computer text-to-speech programs.
A police officer emerges to aid the orderly in escorting the couple into the hospital.
A short, stocky woman pulling on new gloves steps out from the same screening area and walks toward them. She squints at Ramola’s ID badge and says, “Hello, Doctor? Are you just getting here? Have you checked in with the Command Center yet? It’s inside, check in at the emergency waiting area—”
“My friend needs help first.”
As Natalie walks into the recently vacated cubicle and sits at the edge of the lowered treatment table, Ramola quickly introduces herself to Dr. Laurie Bilezerian (her name is written in script directly on her lab coat as well as the phrase “family medicine”), and the doctor introduces herself to Natalie, insisting she call her Laurie.
Ramola explains that Natalie was bitten by an infected man approximately fifty minutes ago and she’s thirty-eight weeks pregnant.
“Okay. Dr. Sherman, can you glove up and unwrap Natalie’s arm?” Dr. Bilezerian places the long, tapered temperature probe, which is tethered to her hand-sized electronic thermometer, in Natalie’s mouth. “Please hold this under your tongue and keep your mouth closed.”
Ramola puts on one glove and then freezes in place as she can’t help but watch Natalie and the doctor watch each other as they wait for the temperature reading. Dr. Bilezerian’s white mask presses tightly against her cheeks, indenting the bridge of her nose. A tuft of black hair leaks from under her cap, graffitiing her wide forehead. Natalie holds her breath without being asked to. All three women are motionless. Chaos churns outside the tent.
The thermometer beeps three times.
Dr. Bilezerian removes the probe and reads the digital screen, “Ninety-nine point two.” Her voice clipped, sharp. She turns away and disposes of the probe’s plastic cover.
Natalie says, “I’m fine. That’s not a fever. I tend to run hot.”
“It’s within the range of normal,” Ramola says, and puts on her second glove.
Dr. Bilezarian nods, says a solemn, “Yes, it is,” and returns the thermometer apparatus to the supply cart and prepares a needle.
Natalie shivers as Ramola unwraps her arm. They lock eyes and Natalie offers a preemptive explanation. “It’s cold out. I’m cold. I only have this thin, damp shirt-dress on.”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve given you my sweatshirt earlier.”
“Don’t be sorry. You don’t have to say sorry to me for anything ever again after today.” Natalie wipes tears. She flinches and grimaces as the last of the towel is pulled away from her arm.
Ramola says, “Laurie, prior to wrapping the wound I cleaned with water and hand soap. It should be cleaned again with Povidone.”
From her spot hunched over the supply cart, Dr. Bilezerian says, “We’ll get you all cleaned up and tended to, Natalie. Have you ever been previously vaccinated for rabies, pre- or post-exposure?”
Natalie shakes her head and says, “No, never.” Her right leg bounces up and down nervously, right foot tapping on the stepstool below the examination table.
“Roll up her sleeve, expose her shoulder for me, please, Doctor. Okay, Natalie, this first shot is human rabies immune globulin; it slows the virus down, keeps it from attaching to the nervous system until the vaccine can get in there and help your body make its own antibodies. Both the globulin and the vaccine are safe for you and your baby.”
“Oh, good. Great. I’m . . . Thank you, Doctor. Sorry, um, Laurie.” Natalie looks at Ramola and then away, and away from her belly, down at her jittery leg. Ramola assumes she’s feeling guilty for what she said earlier about not caring if the vaccine was safe for the baby. Ramola wants to shout, No! and hold Natalie and tell her that she is the one who doesn’t have to apologize, doesn’t have to feel sorry for anything, not after all that’s happened to her.
In a screening area across from theirs, a medical staff member has a needle in her hand while another grapples with a small, late-middle-aged man. His tan oxford shirt is dotted with blood, so too the mottled skin of his neck. He shouts, “No!” and as he loses the wrestling match, his shouts become mewling cries. Whether it’s intuition or that dastardly enemy, fear, taking the reins again, Ramola believes, for the first time today, that it is too late for Natalie, they won’t be able to help her, and in a matter of hours, she’ll be gone.
Dr. Bilezerian says, “This is going to hurt, I’m sorry, but it’s most effective when administered in and around the wound. Try to keep your arm as relaxed as you can.”
Laurie swabs the puncture wounds, most of which have already scabbed over, with iodine, staining Natalie’s forearm a coppery brown. Ramola offers Natalie the crook of her arm instead of her gloved hand. Natalie takes it. She turns her head and looks away as the doctor inserts the needle and injects globulin at three
