She was the last person Henry could imagine being intoxicated. “I think I should call back tomorrow,” he said.
“No, I want to talk! I haven’t heard from you in two days. I know you’re really busy, but still. Tell me what’s up.”
“There was a bombing,” Henry said carefully. “I’m all right.”
In her unfamiliar state, it took a moment to take this in. “There was a bombing? Jesus, Henry, are you all right?”
“Yes, that’s what I wanted to tell you. I’m all right.”
“There’s more to it than you’re saying.”
“I got a bump on the head and a scratch, nothing serious. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. I know it’s confusing. It’s late there.”
“Henry, I just want you to come home,” Jill said, now completely sobered by the news. “I know you’re busy, and what you’re doing is important, but we all want you home. And safe.”
“Well, you know about the travel ban. And they really need me here. I feel somewhat responsible for the whole mess.”
“That again! Henry, I’m sure you did the right thing every step along the way. Nobody is more careful or responsible than you.”
When Henry said goodbye, Jill began to cry. Maggie tried to console her, but soon they were both sobbing. Henry had been gone more than a month, and in that time the world had gone crazy. Jill realized how vulnerable she suddenly felt without him.
“Mom?”
Jill was startled to see Teddy standing in the grass in his pajamas. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
He looked at Jill and Maggie in confusion. “It’s okay, we were just having a sad conversation,” Maggie explained, wiping away her tears.
“Come here,” said Jill. Teddy came over and crawled into Jill’s embrace. “Look at the stars,” she said. “Aren’t they amazing? Don’t you just feel like you could reach out and touch them?”
Teddy nodded. For such a bold little boy, he was strangely subdued. Maybe it’s just that he caught me in that emotional moment, Jill thought. She rocked him in her arms, letting the warmth comfort them both.
“You smell funny,” he said.
“It’s Maggie’s perfume. Do you like it?”
“No, it’s gross.”
“I won’t wear it again, honey.”
Jill silently promised herself that she would never go off duty again until her children were grown and no longer needed a paragon for a mother.
“Mom, I think I saw a ghost.”
“Really? You know there aren’t such things, right?”
Teddy ducked his head and didn’t answer.
“What did he look like?” Maggie asked. “Was he a soldier?”
Teddy nodded.
“People say there is a Civil War soldier who haunts this place, but I’ve never seen him,” said Maggie. “Or Tim or Kendall either. He must have felt something extra special about you.”
Teddy took this in, then said, “I just want to go home.”
23
Lambaréné
Soon after Henry went to work at Fort Detrick, his boss, Jürgen Stark, came to him with a question. “More than 40 percent of people infected with Ebola die of the disease, but many caregivers for Ebola patients who tested positive for the disease never showed symptoms,” he said. “Why?”
Henry loved questions like that. It was where science began.
“Are you sure they didn’t have the disease previously?” he asked. “And if they didn’t, how could they have developed resistance?”
“You go find out,” Jürgen responded.
So Henry flew to Gabon, in West Africa, and visited the hospital in Lambaréné that Albert Schweitzer had established in 1913. Few historical figures had had greater impact on Henry’s childhood imagination than the Alsatian theologian and organ virtuoso, who decided to study medicine at the age of thirty and then dedicated the rest of his life to relieving the suffering of humanity. With his wife, Helene Bresslau, he established a hospital on the Ogooué River in what was then French Equatorial Africa. They treated leprosy, elephantiasis, sleeping sickness, malaria, yellow fever—all the afflictions of the jungle.
The rustic hospital Schweitzer built had been reconstructed several times, and when Henry visited, it was an accumulation of low-slung, red-roofed bungalows with overhanging porches to shield against the storms of the tropics. Schweitzer’s vision was to create a native village, not an institution, and that original ideal remained. Dr. Fanny Méyé, a vibrant Ebola specialist with the Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville, took Henry through the research facility. She was overseeing a survey of the Gabonese population to determine the proportion with immunity to the disease. “We found antibodies in more than 15 percent of people in our rural communities, and as high as 33 percent in some villages,” Dr. Méyé said. “These were people who never had any