She doesn’t, but she croaks, “Better already. I’ll be fine.”
He leaves the room, but Miranda can tell the door isn’t entirely closed. That’s alright though. It would be awful to recover only to drown in her tub.
Will she be alright? Given what’s happened, she’s not sure being fine again is in the cards. Millions of women? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? What do those numbers even mean once they get that high? What will happen to the world now is something she can’t even begin to consider. It’s too large and profound.
With a sigh, she sips the broth, which is salty and hot. Hints of onions and celery balance the rich meaty flavor of it. It feels like life being poured back into her body.
Life. She’s alive.
*****
As the days pass and Miranda improves, life takes on a new pattern. It’s not entirely unpleasant either. Tom shows up in the morning. They have breakfast. They chat. He goes to work at the hospital, but that slows by the end of the first week. Then stops.
“It’s a mess. Just like I couldn’t take you to the hospital because they were overwhelmed, they’re now overwhelmed by a lack of staff, but also, weirdly, a lack of patients. It’s not that people aren’t sick. It’s more like they aren’t going to the emergency rooms or are afraid to go to the doctor. Until we know what caused this, I think we’ll see more of that.”
“But you’re Ears and Noses, right? People still get sick.”
Tom shrugs. “It’s not the same. I specialize like everyone else. No one is getting elective adenoid surgery for sleep apnea, or correcting septum defects. I mostly do that sort of thing.”
“Ah,” she says, not really knowing enough about it to know what’s normal or not.
“Still,” he says, grinning. “That’s gives us more time, right?”
Returning the smile, Miranda says, “It does.”
That night, as they’re watching the news, which is just as dire now that eight days have passed as it was that first day, there’s a disturbance out on the street. It’s loud enough that Tom clicks off the TV and turns off the single lamp lighting the room.
It’s been happening more and more, but not in this area. Happily, all the disaster movies ever made were wrong about the chaos that would immediately follow anything truly awful. This part of London is nice, but the not-so-nice parts of the city aren’t that far away. No matter what the tourist books may say, this country is no different than any other. There is always a seedy side to be found, a dangerous side with dark undercurrents.
Even so, there has been no mass looting, no chaos, no hordes being shot down in the streets. Yes, there is disorder, but the truth is that almost everyone has someone to mourn. For some, there are many to mourn. For others, perhaps it’s the only person they ever loved. For most, it’s somewhere in between. Mourning is a quiet affair when it’s personal. That kind of emotion doesn’t invite chaos, only quietude.
But eventually, everyone knows there will be bad things. And now, for the first time, it’s coming here.
It’s dark, so Miranda feels no fear of looking out the window. They keep the shades drawn and the blinds tightly closed during the day. At night, she’s less restricted. She walks along the balcony at the rear of the house or in the tiny garden next to the rear drive. She doesn’t fear the windows or the sunlight at night. They both peek out of the blinds now to see a group of men making their way down the street.
They seem to be peering up at the houses with care, obviously looking for something. Tom pulls Miranda back a little, letting the blinds close until they pass. The house is dark, which is good, but they look at each other with worried expressions. Without a word, they both shift to the edges of the window, raising one slit of the blinds the smallest fraction, then set an eye at the gap.
About two houses down and across the street, one of the men points with a cricket bat toward an upper window. There are a few shouts from the group, and then two men carrying something that looks suspiciously like a police battering ram run for the door.
Miranda knows that house. There’s a survivor there, just like her. A young woman who only recently finished school and was about to begin her advanced studies. She’s been coming out at night for a few minutes when it’s very late. Her father watches her from the door while she runs in a big circle around the street and the parked cars. There are no back gardens for the houses across the street, so perhaps that’s the girl’s only exercise.
Since Miranda is now also nocturnal to avoid the sun, she’s seen the girl. Not quite brave enough to venture out of the front of the house, and certainly not yet strong enough to run, she enjoys watching that young woman very much.
And that is the house the men go to. It must be a battering ram, because after two very noisy runs at the door, it flies open. There’s a rush of men, then shouts. Tom reaches for her arm and squeezes it in support.
“We should do something!” she hisses.
“What? What could we do?”
Even as she’s about to say they should call the police, Tom has his cell phone out of his pocket. They still don’t get much in the way of long distance, but local calls still sometimes work. “Nothing,” he says, dropping the phone.
Miranda runs for the house phone and punches in the emergency number as she races back to the window. Holding the phone out for Tom to take, she watches. Amazingly, Tom starts speaking with someone. They must have made significant progress in that
