magician was doing card tricks for the children as actors in Disney costumes paraded by. Someone working for FEMA sat at a card table facing a long line of exhausted applicants looking for housing. But Helen and Teddy were not there. They were nowhere to be found.
* * *
—
HELEN AND TEDDY’S SCHOOL had been ransacked. The door was open, and Henry walked through the halls, peering in the empty classrooms. It looked like a tornado had gone through the building, scattering papers and books and overturning desks. Someone had taken a shit in the middle of Teddy’s second-grade classroom.
Henry heard a rhythmic sound that he suddenly recognized as a basketball. He followed it to the gym. It was full of children. He didn’t see Helen and Teddy, but perhaps some of the two dozen or so children gathered here would know where they were. Several were teenagers; most of them were younger, Teddy and Helen’s ages. They had made a dormitory for themselves out of blankets and bedrolls. The older boys were shooting baskets.
The children now finally realized he was there. The gym became quiet. Henry looked around for an adult but saw none. He did notice a familiar face, one of Helen’s classmates. “Laura?” he said.
The girl came over to Henry. She had been on the soccer team with Helen. She stood for a moment in front of him, then suddenly embraced him. Several other children surrounded them.
“What happened to your parents?” Henry asked Laura. She began to weep.
“Everybody’s dead,” an older boy said in a disgusted tone.
“Why aren’t you down at the stadium with the other orphans?” Henry asked.
“It’s a jail,” one of the other kids said.
“And we hear things about what happens there,” Laura said.
“We get by all right, on our own,” the older boy said. He gestured toward a knife sticking out of his belt.
None of them knew where Teddy or Helen were. As Henry was leaving, the older boy boldly demanded money. Henry handed him all he had. “What’s this, play money?” the boy said.
“No, it’s Saudi money. It’s all I’ve got.”
The boy threw it on the floor. “That’s fucked up,” he said.
* * *
—
HENRY SPENT THE AFTERNOON disposing of the bodies in his house. He buried Mrs. Hernández along with her cats. The dead man in Helen’s room he buried behind the playhouse so he’d never be reminded of him again. His backyard had become a cemetery. He spent the rest of the day putting his house back together. He couldn’t think beyond that. He went from room to room like a dervish, cleaning and straightening, trying to restore order, the one thing his life would never have again.
As he swept up the debris, he searched for clues. He found Jill’s iPhone in her purse. There was still some battery left, but it was in the red. Her last call was to her sister, Maggie, two weeks before. Henry tried calling Maggie, but there was no response. He didn’t allow himself to read too much into that.
He was standing in the bedroom changing the sheets when the house groaned back to life and he realized that the electricity was back on. The radio began to play, but only static, no broadcast. WABE, Jill’s station. She must have been listening to it when she died. Henry wondered if life was now going to bend back toward normality—or was this merely a temporary reprieve? He felt absurdly grateful just to have the lights on.
In the evening, he put on freshly laundered clothes and walked to Little Five Points. A few shops were open, as well as the Mexican restaurant where he and Jill used to take the children. It was astonishing how quickly life came back once the power was on. He was even able to get some cash out of the ATM. He sat at a table on the sidewalk and watched people drifting by, walking in the street because there were still so few cars. Their faces were blissful. He could read their thoughts: The worst is over. We’re back. We’ve suffered, but everything is going to be okay now. We survived.
Henry would have liked to believe that, but he knew what they were dealing with. Influenza never made just a single visit. This peaceful moment, while he was eating a tomato and mozzarella salad with a glass of Mexican beer, was a momentary, cruel intermission.
Tomorrow he would return to his lab at the CDC. He had had no contact with it for weeks,