Free An Ordinary Epidemic by Amanda Hickie Page A

unsatisfiable addiction.
    First Canberra’s weather. Fine and sunny. Minimum of three, maximum of sixteen. A nice day, but a bit chilly tonight. Zac would be at Parliament House now. Maybe walking around the grassy hill.
    The front page of The Herald snapped in place. ‘Eleven More Suspected Cases.’ She scanned the article. More than what? More than last night? If she’d checked this morning, she would know.
    The story was full of vague assertions and paragraphs lifted from previous articles. The only real detail was at the bottomof the page, a table of hospitals and cases. Newcastle still only had two deaths—the doctor and the very first woman who’d been at that conference—but they now had nine confirmed cases. On the North Shore, all seven cases were unconfirmed. And at the hospital just down the road, the hospital she had been at on Monday, her hospital—four unconfirmed cases.
    She looked around for Oscar. As if she would see a haze of contagion drift towards him from the hospital.
    He was standing with his toes on the middle rail of the fence, his chin not quite reaching the top. His head was tilted back so he could see over. Blanched tips and red knuckles betrayed the strain in his fingers as he held up his weight. On the other side, Gwen was patiently listening to what appeared to be a long and convoluted story. Through the glass, Hannah could barely hear the sound of their voices. Gwen smiled at Oscar, gently patted his small hand, then picked it off the fence and held it in hers.
    The very old and the very young, that was who the internet said were most at risk. Oscar climbed down from the fence and ran back to her in the office.
    â€˜Gwen asked why I wasn’t at school. She said I don’t look sick.’
    â€˜What did you tell her?’
    â€˜I said I’m not sick. I said I’m home so I don’t get sick.’
    â€˜Sweetie, it’s probably best if you don’t touch anyone over the fence. Not Gwen or Ella or Natalie, not until you go back to school. You can talk to them, that’s fine, we don’t want to be rude. Just don’t go near the fence.’

    Wedged between Hannah and the sink, Oscar stood on a low stool, washing the carrots while she reached her arms around him to scrub the potatoes. It kept him occupied and he liked to feel useful, grown-up. The carrots came out clean, if drippingwet, and most of the water ended up on the bench or down the front of his t-shirt.
    â€˜Mouse,’ she tried to sound stern, at least stern enough to impress Oscar, ‘be a little careful. You’ll get cold.’
    â€˜I’m not cold.’ He laughed and shivered as one movement.
    She tried not to let on her amusement at his impish smile. ‘Try to keep the water in the sink, okay?’
    â€˜I can see Natalie. Is she making Ella’s dinner too?’
    Through the window and over the top of the side fence, Natalie’s head silently bobbed around in her kitchen. Here they both were, doing the same things at the same time, no more than a couple of metres apart. Another life, separate but mirror to her own, being lived in spitting distance and yet totally isolated from hers, intersecting only to pass conversation on the front step or in the back lane.
    â€˜Don’t stare at her, Mouse, it’s rude.’
    â€˜But that’s where the window is, and I’m standing here. I can’t not look there.’ Fair point, neither could she. He twisted himself so his hands were in the sink and his head pointed at the ceiling.
    Hannah glanced across to see Natalie laugh as she floated across the room and out of sight in the direction of the garden. Through her own back door, Hannah heard Natalie’s back door open. She heard her call Ella for dinner and Ella call back.
    They could have moved this window when they were renovating to give a view of the garden, but she’d had other distractions that year. Even in the