staff.
When Gordon reached his office a voice came over the speaker phone: "Hiya, Dad."
Gordon stepped inside and closed the door. His teen-aged son 's voice was deepening. Gordon smiled, thinking back to the time when he was his son's age. A wonderful, exciting time; when Gordon was a teenager he never felt the angst of growing up, he had been too focused on the many things in this world to do and see and think about.
But sometimes when he noticed his son was growing up, Gordon became sad. He wasn't sad for his son, but for himself—Gordon realized he was getting old. Every once in a while he felt like his life was slipping away.
" Hello, Jeff," said Gordon into the microphone.
" I set the phone on automatic callback so it would switch on the minute you got into the office."
" So I noticed." Gordon sat on the edge of his desk.
" Catch you at a bad time?"
" No, not particularly."
" You sure? You sound like you're facing a firing squad or something."
" No," said Gordon. His gut tightened but he tried to pay no attention to it. "No firing squad. And no more crises than usual."
" That's good, cause Mom wants to know if you can drop by this weekend. We need you to operate the grill."
" Pretty early in the year for a cook-out, isn't it, Brad? It's not even Memorial Day."
" Yeah, but come on, Dad. It's been a long winter."
Gordon nodded. "True enough." Could be a long spring, too, he thought idly. Then he perked up. Why was he so worried? It's not like anything bad had happened. Yet.
" You know Mom can't operate the grill. Too many buttons." Brad laughed. Needling his mother about her lack of technical sophistication was one of his favorite pastimes.
" Why can't you do it?"
" Because I'm gonna be tired from practice!"
Baseball season was coming up. Gordon recalled that he 'd promised Brad's coach to help out this year.
" What do you say, Dad?"
" I don't know," said Gordon, frowning.
" Aw, come on, you work too much."
That, Gordon knew. Knew and realized a long time ago, and was the reason why he was going home this evening to an empty condominium instead of a comfortable suburban home. "We'll see. I'll call you later. Bye, Jeff. Say hi to Einstein for me."
Brad laughed at hearing his mother 's nickname.
Sitting down in his chair, Gordon wrestled with the urge to call Jennifer at home. Finally he gave in.
A man answered the phone. "Hello?"
Gordon recognized Jennifer 's husband, whom he'd met a few times at the company's Christmas parties. "Hi. Sorry to bother you. Can I speak to Jennifer?"
" I'm afraid she's under the weather."
Gordon felt a chill run down his spine.
"She's just fallen asleep," said her husband, "and I don't want to wake her. It's not anything important, is it?"
" She's...not too ill, is she?"
" Oh no, nothing like that. Probably just a cold."
" Call me back if the symptoms worsen," said Gordon quickly.
The man paused. "Anything wrong?"
" No, no," said Gordon. "Just worried about one of our best scientists, that's all."
" I don't think there's any need to worry," said the man cheerfully.
Gordon couldn 't think of anything else to say, so he awkwardly mumbled goodbye.
He rested his head in his hands. Twice he thought about making another call. Once he almost started to punch in the number, but he didn 't. He just sat in his office, feeling torn and miserable.
Medburg, Pennsylvania / 4:45 p.m.
The sun was low and Moshatowie Creek was in shadow. Cecily Sunday, mouth and nose covered with an ultrafine mask and filter, stepped up to the running water. The creek was shallow here, a foot and a half deep, ten feet across. With nitrile gloves she dipped a thirty milliliter vial into the creek, let it fill, then took it out and quickly capped and labeled it. She opened her sample bag. The vial joined a dozen others, clanking gently as it dropped in.
Somewhere in the trees an owl cried, "Whooooo."
" That's what we'd all like to know," muttered Cecily through the mask. Gingerly
Kate Kelly, Peggy Ramundo