Survivor Song

her mother projects a much larger figure. Ramola’s father, Mark, is a white man, nebbish-looking with his wire-rimmed glasses, face often shielded with one of his three daily newspapers, yet he is an intimidating physical presence with thick arms and broad shoulders befitting his lifelong career in masonry. Generally soft-spoken, he is equally quick with a joke as well as a placation. Hopelessly parochial, he has left the UK only five times in his life, including three trips to the United States: once for Ramola’s graduation from Brown University, a second time five years later when she graduated from Brown’s medical school, and a third time this most recent summer to spend a week with Ramola. The unrelenting humidity of greater Boston in July left him grumbling about how mad the climate was, as though the good citizens of New England had chosen the temperature and dew point. Ananya and Mark’s infamous and quite possibly apocryphal first date featured a distracted viewing of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a trip to a notorious pub, and the first match in what would become a playful if only occasionally contentious decades-spanning pool competition between the two. Both parents steadfastly claim to have won that first match.

It’s late morning. Ramola finishes eating cold, leftover white pizza that has been in the fridge for four days, before video chatting on Skype with her mother. Ananya’s image jumps all over Ramola’s laptop screen, as Mum can’t help but gesticulate with her hands, including the one holding her phone. Mum is concerned, obviously, but thankfully calm, and listens more than she talks. Ramola tells her the morning has been relatively quiet. She hasn’t left her townhouse in two days. She’s done nothing but sit on the couch, watch news, drink hot chocolate, and check emails and texts for updates regarding her role in the emergency-response plan. Tomorrow morning at six A.M., the second tertiary medical personnel from Metro South are to report to Norwood Hospital. Thirty-six hours ago all first tertiary were called in and assigned by Emergency Command Center unit managers. Now they already need the second wave of emergency help. Her being called in relatively soon after the first tertiary is not a good sign.

Ananya places a free hand above her heart and shakes her head. Ramola is afraid tears might be coming from one or both of them.

Ramola says she should go and read through the training protocols (she has already done so, twice) and so she can pack. She’ll be working sixteen-hour shifts for the foreseeable future, and likely sleeping at the hospital. It’s an excuse; her overnight bag is already packed and on the floor next to the front door.

Mum clucks her tongue and whispers a one-line prayer. She makes Ramola promise to be safe and to send updates whenever she can. Mum turns the phone away from her and points it at Mark. He’s been there the whole time, off-screen and listening, sitting at their little breakfast nook, his elbows on the table, his meaty mitts covering his mouth, glasses perched on top of his head. His eyes always look so small when he isn’t wearing his glasses. He’s already been crying and Ramola tears up at the sight. Before she closes out the chat window, Dad waves, clears his throat, and in a voice coming from thousands of miles away, he says, “A right mess, innit?”

“The rightest.”

“Be safe, love.”

Ramola is thirty-four years old and lives by herself in a two-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot townhouse, one of four row units in a small complex called River Bend in Canton, Massachusetts, which is fifteen miles southwest of Boston. Her well-meaning parents encouraged her to buy the townhouse, telling her she was a well-paid professional and “of an age” (Ramola’s “Thanks for that, Mum” did nothing to deter her from banging on with the hard sell) and therefore she should own property and not insist upon throwing money away on renting flats. Ramola regrets buying the place and feels foolish for allowing her parents, ultimately, to sway her when she knew better. Functionally, the townhouse has more space than she needs, or wants. The dining area of the large common room goes unused, as she eats her meals at the granite-topped kitchen island or on the couch in front of the TV. The spare bedroom/office has become the dusty storage/dumping ground for stacks of textbooks she can’t bring herself to sell or let rot in a basement. The monthly association fees in conjunction with the high municipal taxes are more of a burden than she anticipated. With all the open space—the high cathedral ceilings, the second-floor loft overlooking the common area—the heating and cooling utility bills are twice as much as what she paid in her one-bedroom flat in Quincy. If that weren’t daunting enough, Ramola faces twelve more years of suffocating medical school loan payments. She has confided in Jacquie and Bobby, two nurses at her office, that she doesn’t feel clinically depressed when she goes home, she feels financially depressed. Jacquie and Bobby are her closest work friends despite their only having gone out together socially on a handful of occasions, usually to celebrate a birthday or impending time off due to the winter holidays.

The laptop is closed, the television turned off, her phone in her pocket. She knows she should leave one of the devices on, stay connected, but she also needs a break—even for just a few deep-breath-sized moments—from the news onslaught and its cat’s cradle of conflicting information. The house is eerily quiet, making her too-large home feel downright cavernous as though the digital media light and noise fills physical, exterior space.

Should she check in with her neighbors? She doesn’t know them well. On her right is Frank Keating, the recently divorced town selectman—the only things more relentless than his conspiracy-leaden political proselytizing are his four male cats who spray everything in sight. In the unit to her left is a late-middle-aged couple, the Piacenzas; empty-nesters with one