“I’m not interested,” David said.
“Thanks,” Angela said. “You know this is important to me.”
“I’m too preoccupied to worry about that stuff,” David said.
“I have the time and energy to listen to your problems,” Angela said. “You could at least extend the same courtesy to me.”
“I hardly think the two issues are comparable,” David said.
“How can you say that? You know how upset I am about this whole Hodges thing.”
“I don’t want to encourage you,” David said. “I think I’ve been very clear about that.”
“Oh, you’re clear all right. What’s important to you is important; what’s important to me isn’t.”
“With everything else that’s going on, I find it amazing that you are still fixated on Hodges. I think you have your priorities mixed up. While you’re chasing off to Burlington, I’m here bringing antibiotics to our daughter while her friend is dying in the hospital.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this,” Angela sputtered.
“And on top of it, you make light of Wadley threatening to fire you,” David said. “All because it was so important to go to Burlington. I can tell you this: if you get fired it will be an unmitigated economic disaster. And that doesn’t even account for the jeopardy you’re putting us all in by pursuing this investigation.”
“You think you are so rational,” Angela yelled. “Well, you’re fooling yourself. You think that problems are solved by denying them. I think you have your priorities mixed up by not supporting me when I need it most. And as for Nikki, maybe she wouldn’t be sick if you hadn’t allowed her to visit Caroline before we knew what the poor girl had.”
“That’s not fair,” David yelled back. Then he restrained himself. He did think of himself as rational, and he prided himself on not losing his temper.
The problem was, the more controlled David became, the more emotional Angela got, and the more emotional Angela became, the more controlled David got. By eleven o’clock they were both exhausted and overwrought. By mutual agreement David slept in the guest room.
21
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28
At first David had no idea where he was when he opened his eyes in the dark. Fumbling with the unfamiliar bedside lamp, he finally managed to turn it on. He looked around in a daze at the unfamiliar furniture. It took him almost a minute to realize he was in the guest room. As soon as he did, the previous night’s unpleasantness came back in a flash.
David picked up his wristwatch. It was quarter to five in the morning. He lay back on the pillow and shuddered through a wave of nausea. On the heels of the nausea came cramps followed by a bout of diarrhea.
Feeling horrid, David limped from the guest bath to the master bath in search of some over-the-counter diarrhea medication. When he finally found a bottle, he took a healthy dose. Then he searched for a thermometer and stuck it in his mouth.
While waiting for an accurate reading to register, David searched for aspirin. As he was doing so, he realized that he had to keep swallowing, just as some of his now dead patients had.
David stared at his reflection in the mirror as a new fear made itself known to him. What if he had caught the mysterious illness that had been killing his patients? My God, he thought, they had the same symptoms I’m manifesting now. With trembling fingers he took out the thermometer. It read one hundred degrees. He stuck out his tongue and examined it in the mirror. It was as pale as his face.
“Calm down!” he ordered himself harshly. He took two aspirins and washed them down with a glass of water. Almost immediately he got another cramp and had to hold onto the countertop until it had passed.
In a deliberately calm manner, he considered his symptoms. They were flu-like, similar to those of the five nurses he’d seen. There was no reason to jump to hysterical conclusions.
Having taken the diarrhea medication and the aspirin, David decided to take the same advice he’d given those nurses: he went back to bed. By the time the alarm in the master bedroom sounded, he was already feeling better.