A fictional short story inspired by world event worries:
Both of her parents died in an explosion of disease that gutted the world, but which neither of them really believed in, not even on their deathbeds.
“Your father always thinks he’s sick. He goes to the doctor all of the time,” mother said, wheezing. “He thought he would die at thirty, you know…”
The daughter nodded, remembering.
As if surviving that milestone, his fortieth birthday, and then becoming longer-lived than his own father seven years later proved that he would not die now at seventy-five, despite the machine coaxing air in and out of his lungs. Poor health was not an adequate excuse for avoiding a conversation.
Mother was not sick. She never got sick — even if she were coming down with or getting over something — she was not really sick. She ate small, healthy portions, each meal containing every food group. She jogged through parking lots from car to building entrance. At work, she always took the stairs through the doorway in the wall across the large room from her partitioned workspace.
During long-distance phone calls with her daughter, the septuagenarian rued the fact that she could no longer attend her normal socializing activities because masks meant she could not clearly hear what, for example, her book circle was saying. When the members met outside she had to be the martyr who kept her face covering on — because no one really understood how far apart six feet actually was. She had measured it, so she knew.
“It’s farther than you think.”
Even joining in the after-service receptions on Sundays fell flat. So few people showed, and then everyone was masked and separate, so it was hard to carry on a fulfilling conversation. She could not even see her other daughter or her youngest grandchild because they had to stay cloistered in the daycare room where they worked, and where sometimes the young woman’s two eldest children helped out. One by one, families decided not to attend at all, and so waving at her daughter’s family from a distance was not even possible.
Shopping was now mother’s primary avenue to be around people. She no longer went to just one grocery store: She went to three. Because purchasers were clearing out the shelves, the products she wanted were not available. The shops made suggestions, but the woman scoffed.
“Of course if someone knows they like a particular product they are not going to take the risk on something they might not like.”
On the other end of the phone line, her daughter silently stirred a creamy potato soup she would never have discovered if what she had been looking for had not instead created a hole on a shelf.
Instead of grocery shopping taking usually only an hour, mother sighed, it now took over two. Sometimes she forgot her mask and had to go back to get it. She knew how important masks were, so she did not complain about wearing one, even at work, although they were annoyingly hot and confining. Other people did not wear them correctly.
As if proving her right, someone in her cubicle-filled office space had tested positive one day, but mother assured she was safe.
“They could not say who it is, of course, for privacy reasons, just which department they’re from. But it’s okay, they work on the opposite side of the office and my department doesn’t do business with theirs.”
Mother felt lucky that she and her family (except for the far-flung daughter who did not visit anymore) lived in a county that had such low resident-case numbers. She certainly did not know anyone who had contracted the germ. A few acquaintances knew of someone in other states or cities who had taken ill — which may or may not have been due to the malady because no one mentioned had indeed died.
Mother was not sick.
“I’m just having a little… difficulty breathing,” she assured. “If I do have anything, your father gave it to me.”
Father went to work everyday, either to his fields where he escaped from duties and people he disliked, or to the shop where he and his business partners sold natural herb products, some with CBD oil, which mother was certain to insist every time that she brought it up on the phone that it was not a drug.
“But don’t ask me about it,” she added, washing her hands of any connection to the (possibly unseemly) business. “I don’t know what products it’s in.”
She had never tried any merchandise her husband had brought home to her, even before the Marijuana Legalization Act was passed. Since the wide-spread affliction had reared its head after the launch of the new product line, father’s business was deemed essential and he could continue working, possibly to the relief of them both.
Mother coughed, sweat beading at her brow, and continued weakly elucidating from whom her husband might have contracted his ailment.
“He goes to work every day of the week,” she repeated. “Did you know that?”
Her daughter, fully clothed in scrubs, booties, plastic face shield and cloth mask, gently held her mother’s bony, crepe-skinned hand in her gloved ones, and nodded. She was not sure if her mother had noticed.
“When he gets better I will tell him… again… He shouldn’t do that… He gets tired.”
“I think he enjoyed it,” the daughter posed. She was not sure if her mother had heard.
“He was at the shop at least…” The gray-haired woman continued groggily, “three times a week, and his fields the other days…. Who knew how he got it…. I thought it was just your father being your father,” she croaked. She attempted a wan smile. “He never forgets my birthday, Mother’s Day, our anniversary… I had a cough several days… before he started complaining, you know.” She took a deep, rattling breath and confirmed, “It was nothing, but I wanted him to… at least notice… I wasn’t feeling well. Maybe he will now.” She squinted up at her daughter. “When is he going to visit?”
“I just saw him,” the younger woman assured. “He’ll see you soon.”
It was not a lie. She had just seen her father, and she had no doubt that her mother would see him in only a little while. She saw no point in sharing her conversation with the doctor about hope, health, future prospects, and the sad reality of needing a bed for someone else. Breathing deeply, and benumbed, she had walked down the hallway to her mother’s room after all of the equipment in her father’s had been unplugged.
“Good.” Mother harrumphed. “He should notice… when I’m not feeling well…”
Her daughter squeezed her mother’s hand once more and listened to her panting chatter become weaker and more broken by pauses until the pause was all there was.
Contact tracing never proved who had infected whom. There had been too many possibilities. Her father’s business had had to close because two of his three co-partners had been hospitalized. Half of her mother’s office floor was now empty, and many older members of the congregation would never be returning to church. The pestilence had swept through the daycare, too, and the daughter had had to close out her sister’s house as well as her parents’. When she could not reach her niece and oldest nephew on the phone, she found them in the apartment they had rented together. Anesthetized, she placed a call to their raspy-voiced landlord.
She left a bouquet on each of the six new graves before she boarded the nearly empty airplane for home.
Back at home, the remaining daughter stared out through the glass towards the black spruce outside her window. At the end of her quarantine and closer to a second, hopefully negative test result, she did not see the wind sway the trees nor hear the rain clink againt the panes. Her eyes held no more moisture to finish washing the grief from her soul.
She still could not contact her brother. The last she had heard he was living in his car.
The clock ticked.
The daughter changed her clothes, washed her hands and face, looped the mask’s elastics about her ears, and slid on a pair of blue gloves. She drove down her muddy driveway and through the silent streets towards the clinic to stand in a subdued dashed line for her turn at future.
