Inside the hospital they run a frenzied but well-organized gauntlet through checkpoints and hallways. Ramola is identified, briefly screened, and allowed to accompany Natalie after donning scrubs, gloves, and a lab coat. She does not remain behind in the ER’s waiting area, which has been reserved for visitors and family members of patients in which the infection has taken hold. Those patients are being treated in an isolation ward.
Ramola and Natalie are brought to the second floor and the department normally reserved for patients recovering from hernia and weight loss surgeries, procedures that were the first nonessential services suspended by the hospital. This ward is one of four areas reserved for monitoring people who have been exposed to the virus and have received the globulin and vaccination but have yet to exhibit symptoms of infection. They wheel Natalie to a private room, though a nurse tells her that it might not be private for long. The nurse takes her temperature again and tells Natalie they are going to continue to take her temperature every fifteen minutes until she is symptom-free for six hours, at which point she’ll be released. Her temperature remains at 99.2 degrees. Her blood pressure is 125/85, which is slightly higher than normal.
When Natalie asks what will happen if she begins to present symptoms, the answer is: try not to worry about that unless it happens. Natalie says that isn’t good enough, as she’s speaking for two. The nurse apologizes and promises Dr. Kendra Awolesi, who is working directly under the incident commander and chief medical officer, is on her way up to meet with them and discuss such protocols.
The nurse and the orderly leave. Natalie and Ramola are by themselves.
Ramola looks at her watch. 12:43 P.M. Natalie is now over an hour post-exposure, if their original estimate is accurate. Despite her having received the prophylaxis, this time marker has the ominous weight of both possibility and inevitability; from here on out, anything can and will happen.
Natalie asks, “Aren’t you going to wear your mask?”
“When I checked in I was informed the mask was not compulsory in this wing. And I’d prefer you see my smiling visage.”
Natalie slides her mask off her face. She parrots Ramola’s “visage,” elongating the soft g of the last syllable. She repeats the word again, as though reminded of something.
“Accent needs work.”
“You’re so mean. My French is impeccable.”
“Oh, that’s what that was?” Ramola smirks and wanders to the windows, which overlook a gridlocked Washington Street: flashing blue-and-red lights, National Guard troops working to keep one lane open for emergency vehicles, more and more people walking.
“Nice view?” With a mechanical whir, Natalie raises the head of the bed so that she is in a semi-upright position.
“Not particularly.” Ramola fusses with the curtains.
Natalie lowers the bed, then raises it again.
“Having difficulty getting comfortable?”
“I won’t be comfortable until after the kid is birthed—God, what a painful-sounding word—and isn’t sitting on my bladder or kicking me in the kidneys.”
Ramola is pleased she references a time after her child is born. Any positive talk of the future is a good thing.
Natalie grabs the side rails and pushes up as she twists her hips. She winces and grabs her left forearm. “Fuck, that hurt.”
“Want me to put a pillow behind your back, would that help?”
Natalie waves her off. “No. Well, okay. Let’s try it. Thanks, that’s actually better. Hey, when this other doctor gets here we’ll talk about what to do for my baby if I get sick, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Do you know—”
There’s a knock on the partially closed door and Dr. Kendra Awolesi walks briskly into the room. She has brown skin and is in her mid-to-late forties. While about the same height as Natalie, she is more slightly built. She wears a blue hair net and her respirator mask dangles around her neck. After a courteous but brief introduction she matter-of-factly informs Natalie that she is recommending they perform a cesarean section to deliver her baby within the next two hours. If Natalie were to begin presenting clear symptoms of infection, they would still perform the procedure, and remain reasonably confident that the baby would be not be infected.
“‘Reasonably confident’? Is that like a medical shrug?” Natalie asks.
Dr. Awolesi is direct and does not break eye contact with Natalie. “The latest from our area’s infectious disease specialist is that we are dealing with a rabies or rabieslike virus, one expressing increased virulence by the greatly shortened incubation period. Normally, the virus advances along at one centimeter per day as it travels up the nervous system to the brain. This one, as I’m sure you know, is moving exponentially faster. Regardless, the virus is not blood-borne and it will not pass through the placenta to the baby while you are infection-free. We know the post-exposure prophylaxis you received is safe for both the mother and fetus, but there isn’t a lot of medical literature out there regarding what happens if a woman at your stage of pregnancy succumbs to rabies, or this rabieslike infection, and begins to shed the virus in her saliva. As I said, we are confident the baby would remain free of infection, but we don’t know for how long, as there are no case studies available to refer to.”
“Okay, okay, let’s get the kid out as soon as we can, yeah?”
Dr. Awolesi nods. “As of eight A.M. Norwood Hospital ceased providing all other services beyond accepting patients who have been exposed to the virus. Right now there are two general surgeons in the building, and they are both occupied with cases they cannot leave. We have contacted Dr. Danielle Power, an obstetrician, and have sent a police officer to pick her up and escort her to the hospital. She should be here within the hour. While it’s preferable for Dr. Power to perform the procedure, either general
