it. I didn’t think…She never…” The man began to sob; then there was a click. The interview was over. The image of the dead woman stayed on the screen a second more and then cut back to the newscaster.
“Oh God,” my mom was saying, her voice shaky.
For myself, all I can say is that I sat there trembling, convinced I’d just watched a preview of my death. She’d been at Dodger Stadium today. So had I. Who knows how close to Harmon Kirby she’d been? But it didn’t matter. I’d been close. Two rows away. Close enough to see it all. Close enough to be infected. I didn’t need a news analyst or a doctor or some other expert to tell me the dust from the ends of the stalks was the source of the infection.
What sort of infection…whether fungal or something else…that I didn’t know. Or how many others would die. Or how long it would take. The details didn’t matter.
I was going to die.
The strangest part is I actually felt relieved, like a weight had been lifted off me, a weight I hadn’t even known I was carrying around. It had been holding me down since Dodger Stadium…fear of the unknown. And now it was known. And with that knowledge, the weight lifted. The feeling didn’t last, but for those first few minutes the unburdening was almost euphoric.
The same can’t be said of my mother. She began crying harder. “We have to get you to the ER right now!” she said through her sobs.
“No,” I said, my voice calm.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Scarlett!”
“I’m not being ridiculous, Mom. If I go to the hospital now, who knows when I’m going to…when it’s going to happen to me? I’m not going to get you or Anna sick, too. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”
“We’ll call a taxi then!”
“No! Don’t you get it? I don’t want anyone to die because of me. Not you or Anna or some taxi driver or an EMT. No one.”
“But we can’t just sit here and…wait.”
“I know. And I don’t want you to.” Still calm, knowing I had to be. I wouldn’t get what I wanted by throwing a tantrum. “Mom…we don’t know what this is or how widespread. But I know there’s a good chance I’ve got it. Dad, too. And the boys.” It was hard not to get choked up as that realization hit. “And if we do…if any of us do, then anyone who’s around us when it happens is going to be sick, too.”
“I just want to help you.” She sounded so small, so frail as she said it. Like a little girl. Like I was the parent all of a sudden, and I had to tell her she couldn’t have what she wanted.
“I know. But if I’m sick, I don’t think you can help.” Reasoning with her now, breaking it down the way you would with an upset child, letting her know the options and steering her toward the only obvious conclusion. “And if I’m not, then it’ll all be okay, right? We don’t know how many people are sick, though. I mean, all those people at the stadium, and whatever else happened before then at the airport.”
“So what are you saying?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m saying that you need to leave.”
“Scarlett, I won’t! I can’t!”
“You have to. And not just to a hotel like I said before. You have to get out of the city. You and Anna both.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’m not going anywhere without—”
“You have to!” I raised my voice to cut her off, then repeated more calmly. “You have to. Mom. For me. You and Anna have to be okay. If something bad’s going to happen to me, the only thing that’s going to help me is if I know you guys are okay.”
Silence on the line for a moment. Then she said, “But I can’t” in the same tiny voice as a moment before. The situation we faced and the things I was saying were all just incomprehensible to her, and it reduced her almost to nothing.
It was like she was beaten, hit by waves from all sides until she couldn’t stand anymore and had only a feeble “I can’t” left as her defense.
“You can,” I said, my