Pandemic

How did we screw it up? he wondered. He increased the pressure of his thumbs against his scalp even after it began to hurt, because he knew where most of the blame lay.

Noah would never forget the day they met two days before his thirtieth birthday at a house party, to which both of them had been reluctantly dragged by friends. They ended up spending his entire birthday and as many subsequent days as their schedules allowed together in bed. Haldane had just completed his infectious diseases' residency while, at twenty-five, Anna had just begun her master's in languages, in Italian. They wed a year later. For the next six years, they stayed the best of friends, sharing mutual ambitions and an insatiable passion for one another. After Chloe's birth, their home life grew more idyllic. As with most couples, the sex life diminished in those sleep-deprived breast-feeding days, but their intimacy heightened. In Chloe, they shared something even more important than their deep romance.

When Chloe was only two, Haldane woke up one morning in a black cloud. At first, he didn't know what had hit him. He attributed his burnout to the constant fatigue and pressures of juggling his clinical and academic commitments, his WHO obligations, and his devotion to his daughter. Thinking it would soon pass, he took a few weeks off work, but the rest didn't help.

Determined not to let his funk affect his relationship with his daughter, he dedicated even more time to Chloe. He attended as many classes with her as possible. He took her to almost every playground in the city. But Noah found it impossible to try to fill the role of perfect father, doctor, and husband. Something had to give. And Anna wound up bearing the brunt. Not that he wasn't around as much or more than before, but their time together lacked the previous closeness. He had grown uncharacteristically irritable. He shared less of his work life. He stopped taking her out on regular dates. And he made so little effort in the bedroom that their once active and imaginative sex life dried up almost completely.

For eight months, Anna stomached his detachment in silence. One day, she sat Haldane down in their living room. With arms folded across her chest and tears welling in her large brown eyes, she pointed out that he had stopped being a husband and had become merely a co-parent. She told him that she could not and would not continue to live like that.

It was the wakeup call Haldane needed. Though aware that he had withdrawn from their marriage, he never realized the extent it had reached or how badly he had hurt his wife. The threat to his family hit him like a bucket of ice water. He resolved to right things. And while there were no easy fixes, he put energy into improving their relationship. Over the ensuing months, slowly but surely Anna and Noah reclaimed some lost ground. Then SARS hit, and Haldane was summoned to China to help deal with the crisis.

He had only been home for a few months when Avian Influenza, or Bird Flu, surfaced in the Far East, and he was sent back to help investigate.

At some point during his long absences, Anna fell in love with Julie.

* * *

Papers spread out over the bed and his notebook computer still on his lap, Haldane drifted off without intending to. The ringing phone woke him with a start. Sitting up, he knocked his laptop onto the mattress beside him.

He grabbed for the phone, hoping to hear from a more conciliatory Anna. "Hi," he breathed.

"Dr. Haldane?" the female voice said.

"Yes…" He cleared his throat and tasted the staleness in his mouth. "Who is this?"

"Gwen Savard, Department of Homeland Security."

Haldane positioned the computer on the nightstand. "Sure. I remember. We met at that conference on the end of the world."

Savard laughed. "You were the only one claiming the end of the world was near."

"Isn't it?" Haldane wet his dry lips.

"I've been trying to find that out from you, but you're a hard man to track down."

"One of the drawbacks of being in remote China, I guess… or maybe it's an advantage." Then he added, "Nothing personal, Dr. Savard."

"Gwen," she said. "None taken. I need to be unreachable for a month just to begin to catch up. Do you have a few minutes now?"

He looked at the clock, which read 10:18 P.M. He had the rest of the night. "What's on your mind, Gwen?"

"The Gansu Flu," she said.

He grimaced at the receiver. "Which genius came up with that name?"

"Some reporter," she said. "It's better than their other choice, the 'Killer Flu.' I don't know if you've noticed, but this virus is getting a lot of press coverage in the wake of SARS and the Bird Flu."

"Luckily, I'm also sheltered from most of the media, but I've seen some stories on the Internet," he said. "We call it Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome, or ARCS, because the syndrome was identified before the virus."

"What's it like, Noah?"

Haldane sighed, considering the question. "It's bad, Gwen."

"Worse than SARS?"

"Yes and no."