tip.
    Ward could hear the muffled rumble of dump trucks and earth- moving equipment, could see a rotating concrete truck with a dozen men standing around it. The woman on the other side of the room awoke and started to moan in pain and call out, Nurse? Nurse? Where are you? Help me. Help, nurse.
    Ward walked down the hallway to the nurses' station and told them of her calls. They nodded and said they were busy with an influx of flu cases. Someone would be there in a moment. He saw two nurses talking to each other and frowning. One of them said, Oh, good Lord.
    He drove to his mother- in- law's and found his daughter vomiting, her face pale and skin hot. She was crying and calling out for her mother. Mama's sick, baby, said Ward. She's in the hospital. But she'll be better soon and then she'll come home.
    Mama, said his daughter. She held up her hands and said, Mama.
    Ward drove his daughter to the same hospital that held his wife, with his mother- in- law in the backseat holding the child, trying to comfort her, a washcloth on her forehead. The emergency room seemed busier than before, with more people in the waiting room, watching television with worried looks on their faces. All the nurses and staff wore gauze masks over their noses and mouths. It muffled their speech and gave Ward a strange vibration in his chest. A tremor of fear.
    The hospital put his daughter in the same room with his wife, moving their beds side by side. The older woman who had been calling for the nurse was gone. Ward stood beside his daughter in the hospital room and tried to calm her. She was crying so hard she hiccupped and had to be held down to put an IV tube in her arm. She looked into Ward's eyes and said, Go back home.
    She didn't know how to say I want to yet.
    Go back home, she said. Mama Mama Mama. Go back home.
    I'm sorry, pumpkin, said Ward. You and Mama are sick and have to stay here until you get better.
    Go back home, said his daughter. Now. Go back home.
    Her lips were chapped and swollen. Her breath was ragged. When he put his hand on her back, he could feel each inhale, a rattling inside her. His hands were shaking as he tried to push the hair out of her eyes, as the nurse said, Please. You shouldn't be touching her. She's contagious.
Go back home, cried his daughter, stretching out her hands.
She never did.
He remembers returning to the empty house, how still and silent it seemed.
    He didn't want to move a thing.
    At first he was so exhausted from days without sleep and his body fighting the virus that he slept for twelve hours. He awoke groggy but with no fever. He half expected that he would come down with the virus, and every moment he felt queasy he thought he'd start vomiting and become weak.
    He wanted to die, to get it over with. He didn't see the point in anything. He quit eating. He thought that maybe he would simply fade away, become too weak to get out of bed, close his eyes and sink into darkness.
    But the days passed and he grew stronger. He starved himself until his body rebelled and he took to buying doughnuts and cheeseburgers. Food he had not eaten regularly since being married. He read constantly. About birds mainly, but other scientific works as well. Anything to ignore the hollowness of his world.
    Months passed. He applied for grants to study the birds of the Colorado prairie, his specialty. One day a man from the Audubon Society left him a voice mail saying, Congratulations.
    After he recovered from his weakness, he found that he could not fall asleep without his wife. When he was so tired he could no longer keep his focus on a book, he watched television until four o'clock in the morning and fell asleep on the couch. It became normal for
    Ward could hear the muffled rumble of dump trucks and earth- moving equipment, could see a rotating concrete truck with a dozen men standing around it. The woman on the other side of the room awoke and started to moan in pain and call out, Nurse? Nurse? Where are you? Help me. Help, nurse.
    Ward walked down the hallway to the nurses' station and told them of her calls. They nodded and said they were busy with an influx of flu cases. Someone would be there in a moment. He saw two nurses talking to each other and frowning. One of them said, Oh, good Lord.
    He drove to his mother- in- law's and found his daughter vomiting, her face pale and skin hot. She was crying and calling out for her mother. Mama's sick, baby, said Ward. She's in the hospital. But she'll be better soon and then she'll come home.
    Mama, said his daughter. She held up her hands and said, Mama.
    Ward drove his daughter to the same hospital that held his wife, with his mother- in- law in the backseat holding the child, trying to comfort her, a washcloth on her forehead. The emergency room seemed busier than before, with more people in the waiting room, watching television with worried looks on their faces. All the nurses and staff wore gauze masks over their noses and mouths. It muffled their speech and gave Ward a strange vibration in his chest. A tremor of fear.
    The hospital put his daughter in the same room with his wife, moving their beds side by side. The older woman who had been calling for the nurse was gone. Ward stood beside his daughter in the hospital room and tried to calm her. She was crying so hard she hiccupped and had to be held down to put an IV tube in her arm. She looked into Ward's eyes and said, Go back home.
    She didn't know how to say I want to yet.
    Go back home, she said. Mama Mama Mama. Go back home.
    I'm sorry, pumpkin, said Ward. You and Mama are sick and have to stay here until you get better.
    Go back home, said his daughter. Now. Go back home.
    Her lips were chapped and swollen. Her breath was ragged. When he put his hand on her back, he could feel each inhale, a rattling inside her. His hands were shaking as he tried to push the hair out of her eyes, as the nurse said, Please. You shouldn't be touching her. She's contagious.
Go back home, cried his daughter, stretching out her hands.
She never did.
He remembers returning to the empty house, how still and silent it seemed.
    He didn't want to move a thing.
    At first he was so exhausted from days without sleep and his body fighting the virus that he slept for twelve hours. He awoke groggy but with no fever. He half expected that he would come down with the virus, and every moment he felt queasy he thought he'd start vomiting and become weak.
    He wanted to die, to get it over with. He didn't see the point in anything. He quit eating. He thought that maybe he would simply fade away, become too weak to get out of bed, close his eyes and sink into darkness.
    But the days passed and he grew stronger. He starved himself until his body rebelled and he took to buying doughnuts and cheeseburgers. Food he had not eaten regularly since being married. He read constantly. About birds mainly, but other scientific works as well. Anything to ignore the hollowness of his world.
    Months passed. He applied for grants to study the birds of the Colorado prairie, his specialty. One day a man from the Audubon Society left him a voice mail saying, Congratulations.
    After he recovered from his weakness, he found that he could not fall asleep without his wife. When he was so tired he could no longer keep his focus on a book, he watched television until four o'clock in the morning and fell asleep on the couch. It became normal for
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