The Fireman (9 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

....................................

12

When her cell phone was close to dead, she knew it was time to make the call she had been putting off—that if she waited one more day she might not be able to make the call at all. She had a glass of white wine to loosen herself up and she rang her brother. Her sister-in-law Lindy answered.

In her early twenties, Lindy had parlayed her hobby of fucking the bassists in second-string rock bands into a job at a recording studio in Woodstock, which was what she was doing when she met Connor. He was playing bass for a prog-metal band called Unbreakable. They weren’t. Connor wound up with a bald spot the size of a tea saucer and a job installing hot tubs. Lindy became an instructor at an upscale gym, where she taught aerobic pole dancing to housewives, which she likened to being an animal trainer working with walruses: “You want to throw sardines at them just for turning in a complete circle without falling down.” Not long afterward, Harper let her own gym membership lapse. She couldn’t stop worrying about what the trainers said about her in private.

“How are you, Lindy?” Harper asked.

“I don’t know. I have a three-year-old. I’m too tired to think about how I’m doing. Ask me again in twenty years, if any of us are still around then. You must want Con.” She lowered the phone and screamed, “Con! The Sis!”

Connor picked up. “Hey! It’s the Sis! What’s up?”

“I’ve got big news,” she said.

“Is it the monk? The monk in London?”

“No. What monk?”

“The one they shot trying to walk into the BBC. You don’t know about the monk? Him and three others. They were all sick. Long-term sick—this monk has been walking around with spore since February. They think he might’ve infected literally thousands. They think he wanted to infect the newsroom staff to make a political point. Terrorism by way of disease. Crazy motherfucker. He was glowing like a lightbulb when they cut him down.”

“It’s not a disease, you know. Not in the traditional sense. It’s not a germ. It’s a spore.”

“Uh-huh. They talked to his followers when they rounded them up. He was telling them they could
learn
to control the infection and not to infect others. That they could go home, live among normal people. And if they did infect someone they loved, well, they could just teach them how not to be sick, too. He probably had a brain full of spore. You had some patients like that in the hospital, didn’t you? Crazies with spore all over their brain?”

“It gets all over the brain, but I don’t know if that’s why some people go crazy after they’re infected. Hearing you could explode into flames at any second will put a lot of mental strain on a person. Maybe the real surprise is that anyone stays sane.” She thought she would know pretty soon if the ’scale had any effect on a person’s mental state. It was probably beginning to coat her brain right now.

“Is there something happening besides the terrorist monk?” Connor asked.

She said, “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re—” he said. “Ohmigod, Harpo! Oh my God! Lindy! Lindy! Harpo and Jake got pregnant!”

In the background, Harper heard Lindy say, “She’s pregnant,” in a flat tone that carried no note of celebration. Then she said something else, in a lower tone; it sounded like a question.

“Harpo!” Connor said. He was trying to sound joyous, but she heard the strain in his voice, and she knew Lindy was being unpleasant somehow. “I’m so,
so
happy for you. We didn’t even know you were
trying
. We thought—”

In the background, but perfectly audible, Lindy said, “We thought you’d be crazy to get pregnant in the middle of a plague, after you spent months in constant contact with infectious people.”

“Do Mom and Dad know?” Connor asked, his voice flustered. Then, before she could answer, he said, “Hang on.”

She heard him press the phone to his chest to muffle it, something she had seen him do dozens of times. She waited for him to come back to her. Finally he did.

“Hey,” he said, out of breath, as if he had just run up a flight of stairs. Maybe he had jogged upstairs to get away from Lindy. “Where were we? I’m so happy for you. Do you know the sex?”

“It’s too early for that.” She took a deep breath and said, “What would you think if I came to visit for a while?”

“I think I would try to talk you out of it. You don’t want to go on the road the way things are now. You can’t go thirty miles without hitting a roadblock, and that’s the least of what’s out there. If something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

“If I could come, though—speaking hypothetically—what would become of me if I turned up on your doorstep tomorrow?”

“I would start with a hug and we’d go from there. Is Jakob on board with this plan? Does he know a guy with a private plane or something? Put him on, I want to say congratulations.”

“I can’t put him on. Jakob and I aren’t living together anymore.”

“What do you mean, you aren’t—what happened?” Connor asked. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Oh Jesus. He’s sick, isn’t he? That’s why you want to come.
Jesus,
I knew you were being weird, but I thought—well, you’re pregnant, you’re entitled.”

“I don’t know if
he’s
sick,” she said softly. “But
I
am. That’s the bad news, Connor. I came down with it six weeks ago. If I turned up on your doorstep, the last thing you’d want to do is hug me.”

“What do you mean?” His voice sounded small and frightened. “How?”

“I don’t know. I was careful. It can’t have happened in the hospital. They had us in rubber head to foot.” She was again surprised at the calm she felt, staring the fact of her sickness in the face. “Connor. The womb isn’t a good host for the spore. There’s a strong chance the baby will be born healthy.”

“Hang on. Hangonhangon. I mean. Oh
God
.” He sounded like he was trying not to cry. “You’re just a kid. Why’d you have to work in that hospital? Why’d you have to fucking go in there?”

“They needed nurses. That’s what I am.
Connor
. I could live with this for months.
Months
. Long enough to have the baby by C-section. I want you and Lindy to have him after I’m gone.” The thought of Lindy being mother to her unborn child was a bad one, but she forced herself not to think about it. Connor, at least, would be a good dad: loving, and patient, and funny, and a bit square. And her child would have
The Portable Mother
for the tough times.

“Harper. Harper. I’m sorry.” His voice was strained and close to a whisper. “It’s not fair. All you ever are is nice to people. It’s just not fair.”

“
Shh. Shh,
Connor. This baby is going to need you. And I’m going to need you.”

“Yeah. No. I mean—wouldn’t it be better if you went to a hospital?”

“I can’t. I don’t know what it’s like in New York, but here in New Hampshire they’re sending the sick to a quarantine camp in Concord. It’s not a good place. There’s no medical treatment there. Even if the baby lives, I don’t know what they’ll do with him. Where they’ll place him. I want the baby to be with
you,
Connor. You and Lindy.” Just saying Lindy’s name was hard. “Besides. People with the spore, when they congregate, they sometimes set each other off. We know that now. We saw it in the hospital. Going to a camp crowded with other people who have this thing is a death sentence. For me and probably the baby, too.”

“So what about
our
baby, Harper?” said Lindy, her voice sharp and loud in Harper’s ear. She had picked up an extension. “I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry I feel ill. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But, Harper. We have a
three-year-old
. And you want us to
hide
you? You want us to take you
in
and risk you passing this infection to our
child
? To
us
?”

“I could stay in your garage,” Harper whispered, but she doubted Lindy heard her.

“Even if you don’t pass it to us, what happens if someone finds out? What happens to Connor? To me? They’re locking people up, Harper. We’re probably breaking six federal laws even
talking
about this,” Lindy said.

Connor said, “Lindy, get off the phone. Let me talk to my sister.”

“I am
not
getting off the phone. You are
not
making this decision without me. I am
not
going to let her talk you into risking all of our lives. You want to see our fucking little boy
burn
to death? No.
No
.
NOT
happening.”

“Lindy. This is a private conversation,” Connor said—whined, really. “This business is between me and Harp.”

“When it comes to decisions that could affect the safety of our child, it stops being private business and starts being
Lindy
business,” she said. “I would risk my life for either one of you, but I will not risk my son’s life, and it isn’t right to ask me to. Being a hero isn’t an option anymore when you have a little kid. I know it, and Harper, you know it, too. If you didn’t know it before you got pregnant, you know it now. You want your baby to be okay. I understand,
because I feel the same way about mine
. I am sorry, Harper. I am. But you made your choices. We have to make ours. They aren’t heroic choices, but they’ll keep our little boy alive until this is all over.”

“Lindy,” Connor pleaded, although what he was pleading for, Harper couldn’t guess.

Because Lindy was awful, an awful person, someone who liked being a mother because it gave her a child and a husband to bully. Everything about her was horrible, from her pointy nose to her pointy little tits to her pointed, shrill voice . . . but she was right. Harper was a loaded gun now, and you didn’t leave a loaded gun where a child could come across it. The thought crossed Harper’s mind, not for the first time, that choosing to try to live was, in some ways, a monstrous act, an act of towering, possibly homicidal selfishness. Her death was a certainty now and she felt everything depended on not taking anyone else with her, in not putting anyone at risk.

But someone is
already
at risk. The baby is at risk.

Harper shut her eyes. A pair of candles burned on the coffee table, and she could dimly apprehend their light through her eyelids, a sickly red glow.

“Connor,” Harper said. “Lindy is right. I wasn’t thinking. I’m just scared.”

“Of course you are,” Lindy said. “Oh, of course you are, Harper.”

“It was wrong to ask. I’ve been knocking around by myself for too long—Jakob left last month, so he wouldn’t get it, too. You spend too much time alone, you can talk yourself into some really rotten ideas.”

“You ought to call your father,” Lindy said. “Fill him in on what’s happening.”

“What?” Connor cried. “Jesus, Dad can’t know about this! It’ll kill him. He had a heart attack last year, Lindy. You want him to have another?”

“He’s a smart man. He might have some ideas. Besides, your parents have a right to know. Harper ought to be the one to explain to them the situation she’s put us all in.”

Connor was sputtering. “If it doesn’t stop his heart, it’ll break it. Lindy,
Lindy
.”

“You might be right, Lindy,” Harper said. “You’re the most practical of any of us. I might have to call Mom and Dad at some point. But not tonight. I’ve only got three percent charge left on my phone, and I don’t want to give them the bad news and then get disconnected. I want you to
promise
you’ll let
me
tell them. I don’t want them to hear it from you and not be able to get in touch with me. Besides, like you said: I made this situation, I’m the one who has to bear the responsibility.”

Harper didn’t have any intention of calling her parents and telling them she would likely be dead within a year. There would be no good in it. They were in their late sixties, stranded in God’s waiting room, a.k.a. Florida. They couldn’t help her from there and they couldn’t come to her; all they could do was get an early start on mourning her, and Harper didn’t see the point.

Nothing mollified Lindy faster than someone telling her she was right, however, and when she spoke again, a kind of hushed calm had come into her voice. “Of course I’ll let you be the one to tell them. You speak to them when you can, and when you’re ready. If they need someone to talk to, we’ll do what we can to comfort them from our end.” In a distraught, distracted voice, she added: “Maybe this is the thing that will finally bring your mother and me together.”

There was a silver lining, Harper thought. Maybe she was going to burn to death, but at least it would give Lindy a chance to bond with her mother-in-law.

“Lindy? Connor? My phone is about to die and I don’t know when I’ll be able to call again. I haven’t had power in the house for days. Can I say good night to Connor Junior? It must almost be his bedtime.”

“Ah, Harper,” Connor said. “I don’t know.”

“Of
course
she can say good night to him,” Lindy said, on Harper’s side now.

“Harp, you aren’t going to tell the little guy you’re sick, are you?”

“Of
course
she won’t,” Lindy said.

“I—I don’t think you should tell him about the baby, either. I don’t want him to get the idea in his head that he’s going to have a—Jesus, Harper. This is really hard.” He sounded like he was trying not to cry. “I want to put my arms around you, Sis.”

She said, “I love you, Con,” because whatever Jakob believed about those three words, they still mattered to Harper. They were as close to an incantation as any she knew, had power other words lacked.

“I’ll put Junior on,” Lindy said, her voice gentle, hushed, as if she were speaking in a church. There was a plasticky clatter as she put her extension down.

Her brother said, “Don’t be mad. Don’t hate us, Harper.” He was speaking in a whisper, too, his voice hitching with grief.