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“Kennedy. Princess.” Her father’s voice was authoritative. Not a trace of panic. Not a trace of impatience as Kennedy wheezed and choked and tried desperately to keep from suffocating in the cramped bathroom stall. “Where are you right now? Where exactly?”
“In the bathroom,” she managed to reply.
“Not good enough. What part of the hospital are you in?”
“The ER.”
“What are you doing there?” Her dad spoke to her as if she were a preschooler practicing her animal sounds. And what does the cow say?
She sniffed. Something about her dad’s authoritative tone grounded her. She tried to cling to whatever strength he was offering her from the other side of the planet. “Carl ... Something was wrong with Carl. Sandy called and said I should bring Woong here to see him.”
“And what are Carl’s symptoms? Does he have a fever? Swelling in the brain? Aches?”
“I don’t know.” Kennedy wiped her nose on a wad of scratchy toilet paper.
“Ok. So where’s Woong? Is he there with you?”
“No. He’s with his parents. We were just about to leave when they shut the doors.” Her lungs spasmed as she tried to take in a pained breath. “We were just a foot away from the exit.”
“Who’s we?” her dad demanded. “Who are you there with?”
“Willow. I came here with Willow.”
“She’s not sick, is she?”
“No, we’re both fine. But we’re stuck here. And they’re not giving us any answers or telling us when we’ll be able to go.”
“That’s all right.” How could her dad lie to her like that? This was the guy who was freaking out when some unnamed 72-year-old pig farmer in Bangladesh came down with the Nipah virus. He’d freaked out way back then, and now here she was, stuck in a hospital in the middle of an outbreak about to reach the level of global pandemic, and he was telling her she was fine.
“I don’t know what’s going on. They haven’t told us anything.”
“Is it the Nipah?” he asked. “Have you been exposed?”
“I don’t know. I just came here so Woong could be with his dad.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. She couldn’t erase her brain’s projected images of Carl, weak and sick in a faded hospital gown, faintly holding his son’s hand. What was wrong with him? Would he be ok? She could almost endure the thought of being locked here if she knew he was all right.
“What about the other patients in the ER? What kind of symptoms have you seen there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” That’s what made this entire scenario so unbearable. The uncertainty. When would they get released? What if they weren’t sick yet but would catch the disease while they were all shut up in here like the prisoners in Shawshank Redemption?
“Ok. Well, hospitals get locked down for all kinds of reasons. Is it just the ER or the whole thing that’s closed?”
“I think it’s the whole thing.”
“You think?”
She felt the edge of annoyance creep through her veins. Being angry at her dad was preferable to feeling so panicked and terrified. “How should I know? Nobody’s telling us anything.”
“Just calm down. Don’t get so worked up if you can help it.”
Don’t get so worked up. He was the perfect person to tell her that. Mr. The-World-is-Ending. Thanks, Dad. That’s really helpful.
“Take a deep breath,” he instructed.
As if Kennedy weren’t trying.
“Ok, listen to me. If this lockdown has something to do with the Nipah virus, if they’re worried about infection, they’re going to set up triage stations. Figure out who needs to be quarantined, who needs to be isolated, who may or may not have been exposed. That’s what’s going to happen if they think there’s been some sort of outbreak. Understand?”
“Yeah.”
“And you know how fast people end up getting sick, right? Perfectly fine and then bam, they’re too sick to walk in half an hour’s time. So you got to stay alert. Keep your eye on all the other patients there. Avoid getting close to anyone.”
“I know.” She wished she’d listened to her dad sooner, wished she hadn’t ignored all his earlier advice.
“And I know Nipah’s scary stuff, but remember it might not be that. There are plenty of other reasons hospitals go into lockdown.”
“Like what?”
“Could be anything. Terrorist attack. Security breach. Armed gunman.”
Did her dad honestly expect any of this information to be helpful?
“What you want to do is stay close to the people you think are in charge. Look around. Position yourself near the ones who are most likely to have the answers. And then just wait it out. Nearly all of these situations get resolved in less than twenty-four hours.”
It was confirmed. Her dad would never be invited to give a motivational speech anywhere.
“Ok.” At least she could breathe a little easier now. At least she knew what to look for. If this was some sort of quarantine, they’d separate them into groups. Isolate the sickest. Keep the healthy from getting exposed.
“Listen. Who do you know that you could call? Someone who might know what’s going on? What about that journalist friend you’ve got? Do you have his number?”
“I don’t remember.” She didn’t want to admit her phone was just a quarter of a bar away from dying. It had already beeped at her once.
“Think of people you know who might be able to tell you what’s going on. Keep your phone right next to you. Don’t waste your charge on games or anything like that. You never know how long this sort of thing will take to get resolved.”
“All right.” She was only listening to his words with half her mental energy. With the rest, she was begging God to keep the phone working until they were through with their conversation.
“I’m going to let you go now, princess. I’ll call my lawyer friend. See if Jefferson knows anything about what’s going on.”
Kennedy couldn’t figure out what information a Worcester attorney would have about a hospital lockdown, but she didn’t ask. Maybe her dad just needed to feel useful. Feel like he was taking some sort of proactive measures.
Maybe she was more like him than she cared to admit.
“I love you, baby girl. You know that, right?”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
“You take care now. And save your phone battery. I’ll text you if I find out anything.”
“Ok.”
“Stay safe. Be smart.”
“I will.”
“Ok. Love you.”
“You, too.”
She sniffed and stared at the phone, thankful her battery had lasted through the entire conversation. She should write down her dad’s number before it completely died. That way she could call him on Willow’s phone if she needed to.
God, I just want to get out of here.
At least her breathing had calmed down. She wasn’t hyperventilating anymore. She could do this. Walk back out to Willow. Give a smile. Pretend like everything was ok.
But was that what she should do? If Willow was open with her own struggles and doubts, shouldn’t Kennedy try to be at least somewhat transparent? Then again, it’s not like she was keeping her PTSD a secret. They’d talked about it just a few seconds before the lockdown.
No, Kennedy was doing what she needed to do. Get through the day without turning into a complete mess, a psychological puddle too pathetic to do anything. She just had to keep on functioning. That’s all the victory she could expect at a time like this.
One minute at a time.
She went to the sink and washed her face, studying herself in the mirror to see if her eyes would betray her recent tears.
She jumped when her phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Kennedy, it’s Dominic.”
He cut her off when she started to ask about a dozen different questions at once.
“Listen to me. Listen very carefully. You might be in danger. You and Willow need to get out of the ER and meet me at the ...”
She pressed the phone harder against her ear as if that would make her hear better. “What? Where’d you go? What did you just say?”
Silence.
“Dominic?”
She stared at her phone.
Completely dead.
Kennedy bit her lip and hurried out of the bathroom.
It didn’t matter anymore who could tell that she’d been crying.