Lost Immunity

by Daniel Kalla

  Maisy hurries around from the other side of the counter. She guides them through the main lodge. With small windows, wood siding, and yellowing linoleum floors, it appeared to have been built in the fifties or sixties with minimal upgrades done to it since, except for maybe a paint job. A large cross is mounted above the fireplace, and posters of religious themes or members of Christian rock bands are scattered along the walls. They walk past the rows of long pine tables in the dining hall and through a set of doors into the kitchen. Boasting old appliances and cabinets, it’s as dated as the rest of the building but smells clean and looks spotless.

  Maisy leads them out the back door of the kitchen and along a dirt path that is canopied by trees. The scent of hemlock and fir meld with the cedar. Lisa picks up on the song of a robin overhead, and she feels her shoulders relax. The serene setting reminds her of her own childhood. Her early exposure to nature is one of the few things she’s still grateful to her father for. Even though she chooses to live in the heart of the city, she’s never happier than when she escapes it.

  They stop outside the first building they reach, a basic gray square cabin with shingles that are cracked and balding. Maisy points to the door. “We have eight separate dorms on-site for the children.”

  “Are they separated by gender?” Tyra asks.

  “Of course. By age, too. And at least one counselor sleeps in every cabin.”

  Lisa frowns. “So not all of the infected came from the same cabin?”

  “Two cabins,” Maisy says. “The Peter and the Matthew cabins. Where the oldest children are housed.”

  “How old?”

  “Fifteen and sixteen.”

  Lisa thinks for a moment. “Are any of the kids dating?”

  “This is a Christian camp. That’s not encouraged.”

  “They’re also teenagers,” Tyra points out.

  “I’m not a gossip or anything.” Maisy lowers her voice conspiratorially. “But I heard the other kids teasing Emma and Joseph. And I had my suspicions about Kayla and Connor.”

  Lisa is slightly relieved to hear that two pairs of the known victims were connected in such a way, since the exchange of saliva through kissing is one of the more common routes to spread meningococcus. But it doesn’t explain where the bug came from or how it spread among the other kids.

  They tour the two cabins that housed the oldest of the campers, and two others for the younger kids. But nothing stands out in the tidy open dorms that, aside from the rows of bunk beds, are relatively austere.

  Lisa’s phone buzzes for a third time, and she finally pulls it out. As soon as she spots Dominic’s name on the screen, she remembers their couples’ counseling appointment that’s supposed to be in twenty minutes. Oh, crap! This is all I need right now. Even though it’s not intentional, Lisa still resents her husband’s intrusion into her work at this critical juncture.

  Lisa turns toward the main lodge. “Thank you, Maisy, you’ve been a big help. We’ll be in touch.”

  “You haven’t seen the rest of the facilities.”

  “Our team will be back soon,” Tyra assures Maisy, picking up on Lisa’s urgency. “We’re going to need to do an environmental survey—take swabs for bacteria and such.”

  Lisa grabs Tyra’s wrist and pulls her toward the parking area. “I’ve got to get back downtown. And I need your best Formula 1 driving.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The room is cold, by preference. A steaming cup of tea sits, with the bag still steeping inside it, beside the keyboard. On the screen, the web browser is set again to incognito mode, just as it was at the eureka moment. The memory is still so fresh, as if it happened yesterday, rather than several months ago. It’s not surprising. After all, that was when the whole plan gelled.

  There had been nothing unusual about the day up until that point. The predictable work routine followed by the usual dogged research at night. And several more dead-end searches. Then one obscure website popped up on-screen. Nothing at first indicated that it would be a game changer. The site listed the twenty most allergy-inducing ingredients, which was neither informative nor helpful. But below those, it also divulged the agents most likely to initiate a cellular immune reaction. The kind of delayed response that would take days to manifest.

  It felt as if the clouds suddenly parted, revealing not just a few stars but the entire Milky Way all at once.

  Almost a year later, it still does.

  CHAPTER 8

  If Lisa were to ever review the seafood restaurant online, her take on it would read like most of the others, which average three and a half stars. Spectacular views. Good service. Food left me wanting.

  But its kid-friendly environment—especially the attached playroom where her niece loves to lose herself—and the restaurant’s location, at the water’s edge of Belltown, is reason enough for them to come back as often as they do.

  Despite—or maybe because of—her trying day, Lisa basks in the view through the floor-to-ceiling windows beside her. The sun is beginning to dip over Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountain range beyond. A cruise ship drifts away from the neighboring pier. Sailboats and other pleasure craft dot the water as a ferry makes for the horizon with its running lights already on.

  Deadly outbreaks, controversial vaccinations, and futile counseling sessions all seem more distant from where Lisa sits across from her sister, while sharing a chair with her niece, Olivia.

  Drawing on the back of the kids’ menu, Olivia uses a royal-blue marker to frantically color in the sky above a vessel that Lisa thinks is meant to be the cruise ship but might be the ferry. Either way, it’s a pretty damned good likeness for a six-year-old.

  “Is this for my office collection, Liv?” Lisa asks.

  “Not sure, Tee.” While auntie was one of the first words Olivia ever attempted, it came out more like “Tee” and the nickname stuck. “We’ll just have to see.”

  Lisa ruffles Olivia’s curly hair. “I liked you better when you didn’t have such a mouth on you.”

  Without looking up from her drawing, Olivia says, “You’re not helping your case, Tee.”

  Lisa laughs in surprise. “Now you’re just channeling your dad.”

  Amber rolls her eyes. “The crap this one picks up from Allen.”

  Olivia drops the marker, sweeps up the drawing, and holds it out to Lisa. “You can have it, Tee.” She grins. “This time.”

  “It’s not worth anything if it isn’t signed.”

  Olivia grabs a black marker and signs her name deliberately, in the cursive she only recently learned, in the bottom right corner. “Happy?” she asks, dropping the marker on the table.

  “Ecstatic.” Lisa pulls Olivia into a hug and kisses her on the forehead.

  Olivia wriggles free and turns to Amber. “Mommy, can I go play?” As soon as her mother nods, she shoots out of her chair.

  “What the hell? Did I miss her nineteenth birthday or something?” Lisa asks as she watches her niece race toward the playroom.

  “That one came out of the womb sassy, remember?” Amber reaches for her quarter-full glass of Pinot Noir and views Lisa curiously. “So?”

  “So, what?”

  “You and Dominic… the counseling?”

  Lisa looks out the window. The ferry is just a blip on the horizon now against the setting sun. “One step forward, two steps back. Sometimes three.”

  “The way he acted when you were named the chief public-health officer…” Amber shakes her head. “It takes time to repair that kind of damage.”

  “Sometimes you can’t repair it. Dad taught us that. Remember?”

  “Don’t even start,” her sister groans.

  “Besides, the harder Dom tries, the worse it makes things. What does that say about me?”

  “That you’re pretty fucked up.”

  Lisa laughs. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Amber takes a sip of her wine. “Hey, my friend Helen went to your vaccine forum today.”

  Lisa wo
ndered how long it would take her sister to get around to the topic. “And she’s now totally sold on the HPV vaccine, is she?”

  Amber shrugs. “She told me you got into quite the debate with some cute doctor in the audience. Said he was very convincing.”

  “Any chance Helen might have already been on his side?” Lisa reaches for the glass of wheat ale that comes from one of the countless local craft breweries whose name she can’t recall. “Like you are.”

  “You’ve got to stop taking this so personally.”

  “What? That I work for Public Health and my sister is an anti-vaxxer?”

  “Bit dramatic, isn’t that? I’m not some activist. And what’s wrong with a little healthy skepticism?”

  “It’s not so healthy when people die.” Lisa motions toward the playroom. “I still can’t believe you didn’t get Olivia immunized against measles.”

  “Here we go…”

  “In 2000, we eradicated measles in the States. Not a single case reported that year. This year alone in Washington, we’ve had three deaths from it.”

  “And what about all the suffering and death among the healthy kids who got the vaccine?”

  “Aside from a few sore arms, what suffering?” Lisa says, raising her voice in spite of herself. “Massive population studies have shown over and over again that the MMR vaccine—like all the others—is safe.”

  “Studies done by the same doctors who peddle the product.”

  “Doctors and scientists all over the world are in bed with Big Pharma, is that it?”

  “You don’t need to sound so condescending,” Amber huffs. “It’s not so simple. I’m not saying doctors are all corrupt. Just that you’re biased. You’re spoon-fed a pro-vaccine agenda from your first day in med school. And most of you have drunk the Kool-Aid.”

  “We’ve drunk the Kool-Aid?” Lisa slams her glass down on the table hard enough for the beer to slosh out. “That’s rich. Show me a bigger cult than theanti-vaxxers! Besides, what the hell would you know about what is or isn’t taught at medical school? You and Allen run a weed dispensary.”

  “Nice, Liberty!” Amber folds her arms across her chest.

  Her sister’s body language aside, Lisa knows she’s touched a nerve. Lisa legally changed her name from “Liberty” when she was nineteen, and Amber only calls her by the childhood name when she’s irate. “I’m sorry, Amber. Didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s been a long day. And maybe I get too amped up sometimes. But I’m an epidemiologist, and vaccination is a big part of my life’s work.”

  Amber only stares at her, unappeased. “As usual, this is really about Dad, isn’t it?”

  “Not this old chestnut.”

  “It’s true. Your whole life you’ve been rebelling against him. From your choice of names to the career you picked. Like almost every other decision you’ve ever made. It’s all been one giant ‘fuck you, Dad!’ ”

  “Uh-uh,” Lisa says. “True, I spent a bunch of my early years trying to escape his clutches. But once I did, I haven’t looked back.”

  “You expect me to buy that?”

  “Don’t care. I’m just glad I’m free of it all… his megalomania, his conspiracy theories, his imagined slights, big and small. He’s sick and you know it.”

  “Was sick,” Amber stresses. “He got treatment.”

  “Got treatment? The state troopers had to drag him onto that psych ward in handcuffs.” The unwelcome memory of her first day visiting her father on the locked mental-health unit floods back. His scraggly beard, wild eyes, and nonsensical ramblings. Lisa was twenty years old and hadn’t seen him in two years. She felt genuine empathy then. Love, even. Suddenly all his erratic behavior and the progressive withdrawal of their family from society made sense in light of his diagnosis with bipolar disorder. She visited him regularly in the hospital, and for a few months, there was a thaw between them. Affection, even. But it fell apart soon after his discharge. Maybe his mental illness explained the extremes of his behavior, but even once he was stabilized on medication, he remained the same obstinate, self-absorbed, and closed-minded man he’d always been, characteristics that his disease accentuated rather than caused. And after Lisa enrolled in medical school, a move that her dad viewed as a betrayal of his belief system and all he had tried to teach her, they stopped talking altogether.

  Dispelling those thoughts, Lisa asks, “How’s Mom?”

  “She’s OK. Would be nice if you found out for yourself.”

  She chose her husband over her daughters, Lisa wants to say, but she doesn’t have the appetite for any more conflict today. “Yeah, I’ll call her soon.”

  “She’d appreciate that.”

  Lisa can’t tell if there’s sarcasm in her sister’s voice, but her phone rings and, happy for the distraction, she answers.

  “Hey, Lisa, sorry to bug you,” Tyra says in an unusually somber tone.

  Lisa already knows why her colleague must be calling, but all she says is, “What’s up?”

  “Three more meningitis cases were reported late this afternoon.” Tyra hesitates a moment. “And another death.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Kayla doesn’t know where she is. It’s been dark forever behind eyelids that refuse to open. She can hear muffled sounds, though. Electronic chirps and beeps, the reassuring words of a kind woman who hovers near her head, and, of course, her granddad’s voice. She’s never heard him talk so much. Or sound as concerned. Kayla can feel the pokes of needles in her arms and the roughness of something down her throat. But she’s so groggy.

  Have I been drugged?

  The only comparable feeling in her life came right before her wisdom teeth were removed, when the doctor was counting backward from ten as the milky-white anesthetic ran into her arm. It feels the same now, except she has been stuck at one forever.

  Her head still throbs. And her skin still burns. But the fear is totally gone, replaced by a calmness that borders on serenity. And her body is getting lighter by the moment. As if she’s about to float off the bed.

  Rapture.

  Sirens are sounding. The wailing grows louder and softer simultaneously, as if the same fire truck is approaching and leaving at the same time.

  “Don’t leave us, Kay!” She hears her granddad’s faint yell from what seems like miles away.

  Her little brother, Thomas, somehow appears out of the darkness. He’s still three years old and clutches the yellow toy bulldozer that he used to carry everywhere. When he grins at her, his front tooth is still missing.

  And then Kayla sees her parents. Her dad is laughing as he sweeps Thomas up into his arms and waves to her. Despite her mother’s loving smile, tears stream down her cheeks as she extends a hand to Kayla.

  “Hang in there, Kay. Please. You are all…” But the rest of her granddad’s words are swallowed up by a sudden vacuum.

  It’s time for Kayla to join the rest of her family.

  CHAPTER 10

  Lisa is hoping to slip out of bed before Dominic stirs, but just as she lifts the sheets and raises her leg, he rolls toward her. She only goes along with him to avoid another post-counseling debrief that she senses might be imminent. She can’t handle another one of those this morning.

  The physical release from her orgasm is unexpected and welcome, creeping up faster than usual in their frenzied tangle. But their primal connection has never been an issue. At forty-four, Dominic is in as good shape as he ever was. Though her desire has lessened and the frequency of their sex diminished—it’s been weeks since the last time—Dominic can still find the right touch and pace to help bring her over the top, even when her mind and heart are elsewhere.

  Sadly, the act doesn’t bring her any closer to him. And as she lies in his arms, listening to his heavier breathing and feeling his bony chest press against her breasts, she plots her escape. She silently concedes to herself that their counselor’s assessment at yesterday’s session was accurate: she does bear more responsibility of late for the growing chas
m inside their marriage. But to her, the momentum feels as unstoppable as feet slipping on a slick embankment.

  Besides, Dominic’s utter lack of support for her recent promotion still stings. Much of their strength as a couple came from mutual respect and admiration for each other’s professional ambitions. Lisa has always championed Dominic, especially after he became his hospital’s head of interventional cardiology, the specialty responsible for placing stents into all those blocked coronary arteries that genetics, diet, and lifestyle have made rampant across America. And despite his tendency toward self-absorption, Dominic used to genuinely encourage her, too. That all changed once she was named the city’s new chief public-health officer. Maybe he felt irrationally threatened by her promotion—as if she had surpassed him professionally—or deprived by her longer hours away from home, but neither excused his petulance. And she can’t help but resent him for it.

  “I thought we got some good stuff off our chest yesterday, Lees,” Dominic says, startling her.

  “Yeah, me too,” she answers quickly, shuffling away from him, trying to ease out of his embrace.

  “It’s not quantum physics, is it?” Dominic says, hanging on to her. “Nothing we didn’t know. You could basically draw a line and see where our fertility issues and the problems in our marriage intersect.”

  Not this again There’s no way in hell. “Look, Dom, it’s hard to focus right now with this meningitis scare at work.”

  “Of course. Work comes first nowadays. Always.”

  Lisa ignores the implication. Would it kill you to ask me how I’m coping with the biggest health crisis I’ve ever managed? She rises from the bed without voicing the thought. “I’ve got to be at the office soon. There’s going to be some long hours until this mess is sorted out.”

  Dominic only shakes his head and rolls away.

  Pushing her marital woes to the back of her mind, Lisa races to get ready, and leaves. She reaches her office by six thirty, but she’s not the first one to arrive. Not even close. The place is abuzz, almost as busy as on a Monday afternoon during flu season.