A Cure for Madness (11 page)

I turned away from the window. “Sure. Thanks for looking after all this, and for everything else. Still won’t come with me?”

“Nah. I’m good here.”

“I know this is a lot to ask, but can you check in on Wes?” I gave him Dr. Hansen’s number and told him where the apartment key was. “I don’t know how long they’ll need him, but . . .”

“I’ll look out for him, don’t worry. Ready to go?”

“Almost. I just . . . want to say good-bye to them alone for a minute.”

“Take your time,” he said. “I’ll head home; come on over when you’re ready.”

It was strange, standing there between the remains of my parents. The words of Emily Dickinson came to me: “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.” Perhaps that was why my eyes were dry, why there was no great outpouring of sorrow. In that moment I didn’t feel anger, sadness, or even loss. There was only numbness, a strange acceptance that this was the way things were.

There was a polite cough from behind me, and I turned to see two latecomers. I recognized the couple as friends of my parents. They, too, wore masks. How odd that only a day had passed since the announcement and I was already used to the sight. They joined me in front of the urns.

“We’re so sorry for your loss,” the woman said.

“Thank you . . . Carol and Alvin,” I said, glad to have remembered their names. “You played cribbage with them, right?”

“That’s right,” Carol said. She shook her head. “Such a tragedy. We’re just praying this doesn’t happen to anyone else. All those infected people, it’s dreadful . . .”

“Do you know anyone else who’s been infected?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Donna Ray from the Missions Society, and one of my daughter’s old high school teachers—Mr. Sweeney. He got sick just a day or two ago. He was probably one of your teachers. Do you know him?”

CHAPTER NINE

All the air was sucked out of the room. “Mr.
 . . .
Sweeney?” I gasped.

Carol nodded, mistaking my shock for sorrow. “Yes. Tragic, isn’t it? Such a lovely man. His wife is sick now, too. She was traveling. Came back at the worst possible time. Must have caught it from him.”

“Excuse me,” I said, and bolted for the bathroom. I locked myself in a stall and leaned against the door.

Oh my God oh my God oh my God. Mr. Sweeney has Gaspereau
. I remembered his strange behavior at the airport, how he’d coughed into that beige handkerchief, specks of spittle flying everywhere . . . including on my face. I’d thought nothing of it at the time. When was that? The man on TV had said that the incubation period was twenty-four to seventy-two hours. I pressed my head between my hands and forced myself to calm down enough to think. I’d arrived on Sunday night, and it was now Wednesday afternoon . . . almost seventy-two hours later. I didn’t
think
I had any symptoms—but if I did, would I know? Did people with Gaspereau know they were thinking and acting bizarrely? What if I had it and had given it to Wes or Rob or Kenneth? I ripped off my mask and heaved over the toilet.

I wiped my mouth with a handful of toilet paper. Hands still shaking, I called Kenneth on my cell.

“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you this quickly,” he said, but he sounded pleased.

“Kenneth, I think I might have Gaspereau,” I blurted out.

“What? How? I just saw you. You said you haven’t been exposed.”

“I know, but I just found out that someone who coughed on me has it.” I told him about meeting Mr. Sweeney at the airport. “His wife has it, too, which means he must have been contagious. Kenneth, I’m freaking out here.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m still at the funeral home. What do I do?”

“Listen, I know you’re probably worried about spreading it—if you have it, that is. But remember, it’s not airborne. Just keep your mask on and try to avoid touching things for now. Come on up to the hospital and we’ll test you.”

“Kenneth . . . I can’t. I can’t go into one of those little isolation rooms. It’ll make me crazy.”

“If you test positive, you might have no choice, but between you and me, we’re running out of isolation units already. I shouldn’t do this . . . but if you come over now, I’ll do the test myself. A year ago we’d have been screwed, but the British recently developed a blood test for prions, and thank God. I have a buddy in the lab who can run it through for me quickly. Then at least we’ll know.”

“Okay. Thank you. I’ll head over right now.”

I left the funeral home without even noticing whether Carol and Alvin were still there. In the car, I sent Rob a text, saying I’d be late. I didn’t want him to worry or try to come see me.

In town, hardly anyone seemed to be taking the government’s advice to stay at home. There were long lines at the gas stations, and every grocery and convenience store was overrun. I kept running through the symptoms in my mind: Was I having paranoid thoughts? Had I done or said anything bizarre? Would I even recognize it if it happened?

I pulled into the hospital parking lot. A large sign had been erected that read “Gaspereau Triage.” An arrow pointed toward the front of the hospital, where a school bus sat blocking the entrance. I got out of my car and walked toward the bus. It was hard to believe what I was seeing. Military vehicles surrounded the bus, and armed soldiers stood in clusters on either side. I stopped walking. The doctor’s note Kenneth had given me was burning a hole in my purse. I could go; I could get out of here, get back to Seattle and hunker down in my apartment. No one would know, except Kenneth.

As I stood there, a car pulled up near the bus. The back door opened, and a woman fell out, landing hard on the pavement. Then the car drove away, its door still open. A nurse wearing head-to-toe protective gear ran toward the woman, accompanied by a soldier. He was holding what looked like a snare pole used to catch wild animals.

“That is really not necessary!” the nurse snapped at the soldier. He took a step back, but his eyes were glued to the nurse as she helped the woman to her feet. The woman seemed disoriented, unsure of where she was. The nurse led her into the bus.

I couldn’t go. Not yet. If I had Gaspereau, I couldn’t risk spreading it to the rest of the world.
I’m here
, I texted Kenneth.
Please tell me I don’t have to go into that bus.

Stay where you are—I’ll come get you
, he replied.

I stood rooted to the spot, half expecting one of the soldiers to strong-arm me into the bus if I moved any closer. After a minute, a figure covered in head-to-toe blue protective gear emerged from the hospital and waved at me. I assumed it was Kenneth, but he was unrecognizable under the suit, face mask, and respirator. When I got close enough to hear him, he said in a muffled voice, “It’s going to be okay, Clare.”

I couldn’t answer, so I just followed him inside. The hospital looked different this time. Even though I knew the white walls and linoleum floor were the same, it felt as though I was entering another world. And I didn’t know if I would be coming out.

I kept my head lowered as I followed Kenneth down a corridor. No one stopped us; apparently no one wanted to get too close to anyone wearing a hazmat suit.

We entered an examination room, and Kenneth shut the door behind him. I must have been staring, because he said, “The suit’s overkill. Especially since Gaspereau’s not airborne. But it’s protocol now. Don’t let it worry you.”

I nodded and sat down on the examination table. “Please, can you test me? I need to know.” I bit my bottom lip and blinked furiously. “Have you been tested?”

The face mask and respirator bobbed up and down. “We all were. I’m fine.” He pulled some swabs and empty vials out of a cupboard.

“Is there really no cure?” I asked. “I mean, if you can test for it, why can’t you cure it?”

He stared down at the vial in his hand. “We can identify cancer pretty quickly, too. Maybe whatever the CDC is doing with Wes will result in a treatment. I can only hope. But I’ll make sure you know one way or another as soon as possible.”

“Have you seen Wes? Do you know where he is?”

He shook his head. “How are you with needles?”

“Fine.”

“Then this should be over quickly,” he said. He tied a piece of elastic band around my upper arm, swabbed a patch on the crook of my arm, and stuck the needle in me without ceremony. I winced and watched the vial fill with dark red liquid. After a moment, it was over. Kenneth clutched the vial in his hand. “I’ll give this to the lab now, and we should have your results within a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours? What about my flight?”

“That’s the best I can do,” he said. “And my buddy is fast-tracking you. With the backlog we have on our hands, it would normally take a couple of days, maybe a week. If you’re all clear, you can catch another flight tomorrow.”

“If there are any seats left.” I put my head in my hands. “A couple of hours, and then we’ll know if I’m going to turn into a monster or not.”

Kenneth placed a gloved hand on my arm. “We’ll keep you safe, Clare, no matter what happens.”

“What if you can’t control it? What if too many people become infected?”

“If everyone follows the right procedures, it won’t come to that.” His eyes told me he believed what he was saying, but I wasn’t that trusting anymore.

“Is that what those soldiers out front are here to do? Make sure everyone follows ‘the right procedures’?”

“Partially,” he said. “A lot of the nurses and doctors are spooked. They appreciate the extra security. Gaspereau symptoms are so unpredictable. That’s why they moved triage to the bus outside. Easier to contain.”

“But they’ll find a cure soon, right? Then everyone will be okay. They said it’s not fatal.”

Even behind the suit and the face mask, I could see the sadness in his eyes. At the funeral home he had been warm and comforting, but here . . . he was on the front lines of a losing battle.

“A cure could take months, maybe even years,” he said. “We have a long road ahead of us.” Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m not helping things by being maudlin.”

“You’re just telling the truth. And Kenneth . . . if I have it, can you tell Wes I’m sorry? I . . . I might not be able to do it myself.”

He didn’t ask what I was sorry for. He just nodded. “I’ll let you know as soon as I do,” he said.

Then he went out, and I was left to ponder my fate. And the fate of the world.

I paced around the small room. I imagined a world of Terrys and Mr. Sweeneys and Emmas—everyone seeing things that weren’t there, hearing voices, believing their loved ones were now their enemies. A world of Weses at his worst.

I sank down in a chair against the wall. If I were infected, would I see Wes again? Would he come and visit me? When I’d visited him, years ago, in this psych hospital, I’d wanted nothing more than to leave. Had he seen it in my eyes? Would he feel the same way?

I tried to think of other things—of Latasha and Amy, of Kenneth and Maisie, of Rob . . . but my mind kept returning to Wes. Had he felt this scared, this trapped, while he was waiting for his results?

For the first time in my life, I saw my brother in a new light. I’d been living in terror of Gaspereau for just over an hour. Did he live with this same fear every day? Was he afraid his schizophrenia could take over—
would
take over—were it not for his daily medication regime? Did he wonder what it might make him do next? Did he second-guess every thought, wondering if it was a creation of his own mind—or a lie told to him by the disease?

I hadn’t prayed in years, but I was desperate. “Please don’t let me be infected, please don’t let me be infected,” I muttered, just on the off chance that I had gotten it all wrong—that there was a God after all, and he would choose to answer my prayers. Had Wes prayed this same prayer when he was in the psych hospital for the first time, awaiting diagnosis? How, then, did he still believe in God? What kind of God would let this happen?

And what kind of sister would leave her brother to this fate?

The thought came unbidden into my mind, driving in the truth with the force of a sledgehammer. I knew he’d been right, back in our parents’ kitchen. He
had
been the only one to defend me. And I had left him to rot.

It had happened ten years ago, but it wasn’t the kind of thing a person could forget.

I was as shy and socially awkward as ever, weighed down with the crazy brother and the house full of rules, when I met Myles. He was everything I was not: popular, outgoing, and attractive. He was the mayor’s son and the captain of the college track and field team. To me, he seemed perfect. And then he somehow noticed me, sitting beside Latasha in a corner at a house party. We danced, and I felt like I was flying. He asked me out to the theater—
the theater
—that weekend. We went for dinner, saw a show, and drank a bottle of the most excellent wine I’d ever tasted. And then we walked.

We ended up in Cranston Park, a beautiful sprawling park with huge leafy maples and oaks and an expansive, manicured lawn. Flowers grew in orderly groupings beside decorative stones, and a white gazebo stood on the edge of a grove of elm trees, where weddings were often held. In the center of the park, a large wading pool attracted scores of toddlers in the summertime, and a nearby playground rang with the laughter and screams of schoolchildren during the day. It was a delightful place.

We sat for what felt like hours on the swings, just talking, trading stories—his were better—and taking drags off his clove-scented Indonesian cigarillos. He hung upside down from the monkey bars to make me laugh and won me over by singing “I am sixteen, going on seventeen” while dancing around the gazebo. It was the most perfect date I’d ever had.

And then, his cheeks dimpling irresistibly, Myles asked if I wanted to take a swim. It had been a hot day, and the water in the wading pool was warm. We ran and splashed and laughed, and the wine and the cigarillos went to my head and I felt faint with life and love. Then he kissed me, and at first it was so tender, so slow, I felt I might melt into him. He laid me down in the shallow water and put his arm underneath my head to hold it just enough out of the water so I could breathe between kisses.

And then he raped me.

He started out gentle, but the water had cleared my head, and it was only our first date, and I had rules about such things. I said “No,” lightly at first, not wanting to offend or upset him after such a perfect evening. But he persisted, and so I said “No” louder and more forcefully. And when I tried to get up, he became angry, ugly, and petulant. He let my head drop so that it cracked against the concrete bottom of the wading pool and I saw stars and struggled to lift my head out of water, gasping for breath. “C’mon, Clare, you owe me this. Stay still—and
quiet
—or I’ll hold you under until I’m done,” he grunted into my ear, and I panicked and swallowed a mouthful of water. I coughed and choked in his face, but he wasn’t holding my head up anymore, and my neck ached with the effort. Finally I took a deep breath and let my head rest on the bottom of the pool to give my muscles a break. I could feel him inside me, and I just prayed that he would hurry up so I could breathe again.