He ended the call, lowered the phone, and looked at her. “What’s wrong? Why are you home?”

“There was a man behind the school,” Harper said, and then a wedge of something – an emotion like a physical mass – stuck in her throat.

He sat down with her and put a hand on her back.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”

The pressure on her windpipe relaxed and she found her voice, was able to start again. “He was in the playground, staggering around like a drunk. Then he fell down and caught fire. He burned up like he was made of straw. Half the kids in school saw it. You can see into the playground from almost every classroom. I’ve been treating kids in shock all afternoon.”

“You should’ve told me. You should’ve made me get off the phone.”

She turned to him and rested her head on his chest while he held her.

“At one point I had forty kids in the gym, and a few teachers, and the principal, and some were crying, and some were shivering, and some were throwing up, and I felt like doing all three at the same time.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I passed out juice boxes. Cutting-edge medical treatment, right there.”

“You did what you could,” he said. “You got who knows how many kids through the most awful thing they’ll ever see in their lives. You know that, don’t you? They’re going to remember the way you looked after them the rest of their lives. And you did it and now it’s behind you and you’re here with me.”

For a while she was quiet and motionless inside the circle of his arms, inhaling his particular odor of sandalwood cologne and coffee.

“When did it happen?” He let go of her, regarded her steadily with his almond-colored eyes.

“First period.”

“It’s going on three. Did you eat lunch?”

“Uhn-uh.”

“Light-headed?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Let’s get some food into you. I don’t know what’s in the fridge. I can order us something, maybe.”

“Maybe just some water,” she said.

“How about wine?”

“Even better.”

He got up and crossed to the little six-bottle wine cooler on the shelf. As he looked at one bottle, then another – what kind of wine did you pair with a fatal contagion? – he said, “I thought this stuff was only in countries where the pollution is so thick you can’t breathe the air and the rivers are open sewers. China. Russia. The Former Communist Republic of Turdistan.”

“Rachel Maddow said there’s almost a hundred cases in Detroit. She was talking about it last night.”

“That’s what I mean. I thought it was only in filthy places no one wants to go, like Chernobyl and Detroit.” A cork popped. “I don’t understand why someone carrying it would get on a bus. Or a plane.”

“Maybe they were afraid of being quarantined. The idea of being kept from your loved ones is scarier than the sickness for a lot of people. No one wants to die alone.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Why die alone when you can have company? Nothing says ‘I love you’ like passing along a horrible fucking fatal infection to your nearest and dearest.” He brought her a glass of golden wine, like a cup of distilled sunshine. “If I had it I’d rather die than give it to you. Than put you at risk. I think it would actually be easier to end my own life, knowing I was doing it to keep other people safe. I can’t imagine anything more irresponsible than going around with something like that.” He gave her the glass, stroking one of her fingers as he passed it to her. He had a kind touch, a knowing touch; it was the best thing about him, his intuitive feel for just when to push a strand of her hair behind her ear, or smooth the fine down on the nape of her neck. “How easy is it to catch this stuff? It’s transmitted like athlete’s foot, isn’t it? As long as you wash your hands and don’t walk around the gym in bare feet, you’re fine? Hey. Hey. You didn’t go close to the dead guy, did you?”

“No.” Harper did not bother to stick her nose in the glass and inhale the French bouquet as Jakob had taught her, when she was twenty‑three and freshly laid and more drunk on him than she would ever be on wine. She polished off her sauvignon blanc in two swallows.