Lost Immunity by Daniel Kalla (best free ebook reader txt) 📗

as they do. Amber and her husband keep long hours running their marijuana dispensary business. Since they live in Bellevue—the affluent suburb twenty minutes outside of Seattle—they often leave Olivia for sleepovers, especially when they have evening meetings in the city.

“Dinner’s not ready yet,” Dominic says, looking up at Lisa with a small wink. “Your niece treats pizza toppings like they’re some kind of work of art.”

“I’m your niece, too,” Olivia says without taking her eyes off the task.

“And my favorite one.”

Olivia laughs. “I’m the only one,” she says, which is true since Dominic is an only child like she is. She waves to Lisa. “Hi, Tee.”

Lisa steps over and kisses Olivia on her forehead. She brushes her hand across Dominic’s cheek. “Wine?” she asks him.

“OK,” he says. “But only one glass for Olivia. She might have to drive home later.”

Olivia giggles. “You’re silly, Uncle Dom.”

Lisa selects a bottle of Chilean Syrah from the rack on the counter. As she uncorks it, she contemplates again what a good father Dominic might have made. It’s at these times that she appreciates her husband most, when he lets his guard down and shows his softer, playful side, one that’s too often hidden behind his proud, sometimes even arrogant exterior.

Ironically, though, it was their struggle to have kids that drove the original wedge in their relationship. For the longest time, both of them assumed Lisa was the source of their infertility, because Dominic had supposedly impregnated one of his college girlfriends, who subsequently miscarried. It was only after months of invasive testing failed to find any fertility issues with Lisa that they learned Dominic’s lack of viable sperm was the real problem. The sudden change in his attitude toward artificial insemination bewildered Lisa. While he had been prepared to accept a donor egg, he was unwilling to consider using anyone else’s sperm to impregnate Lisa. He wasn’t even open to the possibility of adoption. And the flip-flop—which Lisa still views as the ultimate hypocrisy—opened a fissure in their foundation that was only compounded by his envy over her job promotion.

Lisa whips together a salad while Olivia and Dominic finish the pizza and put it in the oven. The dinner chatter is light and frivolous, focused mainly on Olivia’s excitement over the impending start of first grade at her new school—the friends she will make, the supplies she will need, and the activities she plans to master. Not dancing, though. Olivia stresses how she is “done for good” with ballet. Ever the tomboy, just like her aunt. They finish the meal with Neapolitan ice cream, Olivia’s favorite. All three spoons feeding from one carton.

Once Olivia changes into pajamas and brushes her teeth—under Lisa’s watchful eye because she has faked it before—they climb into bed together in the spare room that has effectively become Olivia’s bedroom. They take turns reading paragraphs from one of Olivia’s favorite books, featuring a wisecracking rabbit who goes to school with the rest of the kids. Olivia reads her passages so well that Lisa has a sneaking suspicion she must have memorized the words.

Olivia has always been a poor sleeper, prone to nightmares, so Lisa stays with her until she’s certain her niece is asleep. She even nods off briefly herself, before she eases out of bed and joins Dominic on the sofa in the living room, where he’s refilled both wineglasses.

“Thanks for doing such a good job with Olivia tonight,” Lisa says.

“She’s my niece, too, Lees.”

“Of course, but I know you had to come home early for her.”

“The cath lab wasn’t too busy today,” he says of the cardiac catherization unit where he works. “Speaking of work, they were talking about your meningitis thing on the news again tonight.”

“It’s kind of terrifying, Dom.”

“A real public-health emergency, after all.”

She leans in closer to him, resting her shoulder against his. “See?”

“So what’s next? A vaccine?”

“Yeah, we hope so. But the only one we believe will work is basically experimental. It’s a bit risky. And it’s gonna be controversial.”

“The anti-vaxxers?”

Lisa nods. “I had a public forum earlier in the week about the HPV vaccine. And the whole room practically piled on me—”

“I know that feeling! Just yesterday, at our staff meeting, I was trying to convince the other cardiologists to consider a new catheter that has strong evidence of better anticlotting properties. But do you think for one moment they would listen to logic or all the recent solid data behind it? No, of course not. They all know better than me.”

She listens as he rails on about his colleagues’ resistance to trialing the new device he covets. Much as she appreciated his flicker of interest in her world, she sees that he cannot sustain it. It always has to come back to him, usually sooner rather than later.

Lisa recognized Dominic’s self-absorption before they married. She assumed it was a residual effect of being raised as an only child—something she could live with and perhaps eventually tame. But as time passed and their divide grew, she came to realize he wouldn’t, or at least couldn’t, change. Too often, she feels like just a passenger in their relationship.

CHAPTER 18

Six of the chairs around the conference table are empty. The attrition is natural for any committee like the Outbreak Control Team, which meets daily at the offices of Seattle Public Health. Besides, three members have logged in this morning via videoconference. The only vacant seat that catches Lisa’s eye is the one usually occupied by Angela. Her friend didn’t mention anything about missing today’s briefing, and Lisa can’t help but jump to conclusions. Angela seemed even more frail yesterday, at one point sitting down quickly in the main office as if she were suddenly light-headed.

One of the attributes Lisa has always admired most about Angela is her at times painful candor. Whether complaining about her “deadbeat” daughter—who dropped out of college to find herself and work “whenever the muse strikes her” as a Pilates instructor—or joking about her husband’s clinginess,