The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

and Dick. I really thought getting us out of Vegas was the answer. I guess I was wrong.
    Please forgive me for not burying any of you. When Maryanne and Lucia died, we debated it. Ryan said he would help but in the end none of us could face it. I can’t face it alone, I know that. We don’t even have a shovel. I thought about burning the house down to take care of everybody, but it might take the whole lake and the woods. I’m going to leave you all as you are. I’m sorry.
    You know I slept with Dick. It was years ago and we were so drunk and so stupid. I swear it never meant anything, it just happened. I’m so sorry I hurt you, and I hope you two are in heaven together and that you can forgive him. You might be able to forgive me soon, too.
    I’m going to head south toward Mexico. Before the news stopped, they were saying it was better down there. I’ll head straight down the 5, maybe steal a car. Wish me luck.
    I don’t know why I’m writing this. I had to say something. I was so sick that when I woke up I didn’t know where I was. I found you dead and there was nothing I could do. I’m sorry.
    Please forgive me. I love you both. I’ll see you when I get to where you are.
    Always,
    Andrea
     
    Balled it up and threw it on the floor. Andrea had gotten out. Wished her well.
    Brought everything I found back here. Think I know how to use this gun. Found the safety and I can load the clip. Good to have another one. Wish I could practice with it.
     
    * * * * *
     
    On a clear day, she climbed the tallest hill to get a better sense of where she was. She saw Mt. Shasta in the distance and thought she could identify it on the map. She was close to Oregon, then. She could see small fires south of her, probably campfires. She heard nothing.
      She took two practice shots with the new gun, aiming at a tree at a distance from the house. The gun popped like a toy and there was almost no recoil. Compared to her revolver, it barely felt real. It was light and accurate. She liked it, and fingered it constantly.
    She came down on the other side of the hill to circle around to the lake. There was a bait and tackle store, she decided to check it out. She raided some chewing tobacco and gum. Signs hung askew and the cash register had been emptied. There was not much left inside but the bugs that had lived through it all, skittering over everything when the light fell upon them. She shivered, but looked anyway.
    They had a couple of newspapers from last year. She glanced over the stories of “Lymphatic Fever” and “Women’s Plague.” There were awful pictures of hospitals in New York and Paris overflowing with the dead and dying. No cure in sight, ran one lede. Men recovering at ten times the rate of women, ran another. Nothing she didn’t know, but she stared.
    How did it get so out of hand? How did it spread so fast? Why did I recover?
    Her hospital in San Francisco had a great lab. Everyone who had any lab tech experience had been locked up in there, looking at this thing under a microscope. She wasn’t one of them, she worked in labor and delivery, trying to bring fevers down and watching women birth dead and dying babies. She recalled the pandemonium, when she tried to call it up and reason it out. She had never attended a stillbirth before. The first couple were solemn and chastened doctors struggled to explain dead babies patiently, compassionately. After a solid week of them and one hundred percent infant mortality, there was quarantine protocol and screaming, wailing, demanding answers. Parents and doctors alike were unhinged. She remembered putting a baby girl on a Japanese woman’s chest. The child lived long enough to curl her hand around her mother’s finger, and then she was gone. Limp and turning blue. They resuscitated, they injected, wheeled crash carts to every room. The girl’s mother died that day, on fire with a fever they couldn’t touch. Within hours, the baby’s father disappeared.
    No cure in