by Willow Rose
In our little neighborhood, I noticed people waved more at one another from the porches or the front yard while mowing the lawn. Every now and then, we’d have a rendezvous, each standing on our own porch, and we’d chat, yelling at one another just to get a little bit of human interaction that I don’t think we understood how essential was to us until now. It really was like they said, you didn’t know what you had till it was suddenly gone. Never had that saying been more fitting to a situation than now. I didn’t know I’d miss my neighbors; I didn’t know I’d miss the cars on my street, or seeing people walking the streets downtown. I didn’t know I’d miss going shopping when I wanted to and not have it limited to once a week. I didn’t know I’d one day miss being able to look into the eyes of my love or take her to dinner.
Just as I finished the thought, her car drove up the street, and I got up. Excited like a boy on prom night, I walked to the railing and watched her car as she drove past me. She waved out the window before she parked in her driveway. My heart threatened to jump out of my chest as she got out, and I could finally see her face. I could see the tracing of the mask she had worn all day etched into her skin. Her beautiful dark blue eyes lingered on me, and she got that look in them that made me so happy.
She’s mine. She’s all mine. And soon, I’ll hold her in my arms again. Soon.
“Harry,” she sighed and slammed the car door shut.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. How badly I wanted to run down and take her in my arms and just kiss her, pretending like this virus had never happened, like everything was back to normal and the rest had been nothing but a bad dream—a terrible, terrible nightmare.
“Jean,” I sighed.
Seeing her made me so happy, I couldn’t help but smile. I felt like I was about to explode. That’s how badly I wanted to run to her.
Her eyes grew serious.
“How’s your dad?”
I had texted her and told her he was sick. I didn’t want to worry her, but I had to tell her. She adored my father, and he loved her just as much.
“He’s sleeping,” I said. “I took his temperature two hours ago, and it was the same, I am afraid. The Tylenol hasn’t helped. I just hope he’ll be able to break the fever during the night.”
“And Josie?”
“Seems fine. At least for now. She’s staying upstairs. I brought her dinner and placed it outside her door.”
“That’s gotta hurt,” she said. She looked toward Josie’s window. “No fun being a teenager locked up in your room. Is she going to be okay up there all alone?”
I nodded. “I think so. She’s playing on her computer and doing these three-hour-long conference calls with her friends. I know she’s scared and just doesn’t want to show me. But right now, it’s her health we’ve got to be worried about. I just find it hard to believe she hasn’t been infected, you know? She was with my dad all weekend and this morning while I went to work. I’m watching over her like a darn hawk. It’s like waiting for a bomb to go off, and you just don’t know when.”
Jean smiled compassionately. “There is a small possibility that she didn’t get it. You gotta cling to that hope, Harry. Maybe she isn’t infected.”
“I’m afraid that I don’t think that’s very likely,” I said with a deep exhale. “But here’s to hoping, right?”
Jean tilted her head. “How are you coping, Harry? It’s gotta be tough. It’s a lot right now for you.”
I shook my head with a scoff. “You’re unbelievable, do you know that? Here you are, coming home from the front lines of the war. You’ve been saving people, taking care of them all day, watching people—some of them children—die right in front of you, and still you have the energy and compassion to ask me how I am holding up.”
She shrugged. “What can I say? It’s in my blood to take care of people. I can’t help myself.”
“How was today?” I asked. “At the hospital?”
Jean’s eyes grew weary, and I regretted asking.
“Tomorrow will be better.”
My heart sank. This was her way of saying it had been awful and that tomorrow could only be better.
“You’re amazing,” I said and smiled gently. I was so in love with this woman at this moment; it seemed impossible.
“We all gotta do what we can,” she said. “And this is what I am good at.”
“Do you have time for a glass?” I asked.
Since the lockdown started, every night when she came home, we’d sit on each of our porches and have a glass of wine together, yet apart, while catching up on our day. It was the highlight of my entire day, and I especially needed it tonight.
Jean smiled back gently, completely melting away my heart.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter 16
I called the major the next morning and told him that my dad had gotten sick. He took it very seriously, and, according to protocol, I was told to stay home. We started contact tracing just in case it was the Florida Flu that my dad had contracted, and my partner, Propper, was sent home too. I knew he would be very upset about that, but those were the rules. I continued working on the case of the missing woman from home and read more about her brother, Bobby Kay, the famous activist and founder of the group OUTRAGED. Bobby Kay was a DJ and poet from Miami. His group was initially known as a running club, dedicated to changing and empowering the next generation. The group mostly consisted of artists, activists, and influencers that used the platforms they had, primarily online, to speak about issues that were important to them. The environment was a big issue for most, but also social issues like women’s rights, and the rights of the LGBT community and civil rights. They were known to arrange protest runs in and around Miami. But they were most active in the online community, where they could connect to a lot of viewers—especially young people. They had tons of followers on their social media accounts and YouTube.
Naturally, a guy like him didn’t leave his phone number out anywhere. So, I contacted Bobby Kay through his Facebook page. I wrote him a private message, leaving my number, telling him to call me, saying that I needed to talk to him about his sister, stressing it was important.
My dad stayed in the room in the back, but I could hear his moans all the way in the living room. His breathing had become faster and shallower. His fever was the same this morning, and he hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours now. He barely drank any water, and that had me worried. I was scared he’d dehydrate.
Josie was still showing no symptoms. I, for one, had barely slept all night since I had been awake, worrying that she was in her room, sick, unable to tell me. But as I knocked on her door this morning and peeked inside, I found her lying in bed with her computer in her lap. She smiled back at me before she ordered pancakes for breakfast.
Naturally, I made her all the pancakes she could eat and even put small chocolate chips in them to make them extra delicious. I also cut up a bowl of fruit for her, mostly to ease my sense of guilt for giving her an unhealthy breakfast. She was happy with both and ate it all, though. At least the fruit gave her some vitamins for her body to build up her immune system. Or at least that’s what I told myself when I felt panic rise in my chest. It was hard not to let the fear overpower me. I fought a tough fight to keep the images of her in the hospital, intubated and fighting for her life, at bay. Still, I lost the struggle from time to time, and I had a small panic attack in the kitchen, thinking about her dying in there and me not even being able to visit or say goodbye.
The thought was unbearable.
After writing the message for Bobby Kay, I finished up a report from two weeks ago on another case that I had neglected. I went through my emails, then accidentally went on Facebook and scrolled through my newsfeed.
I should never have done that. All I saw were images of nurses in hazmat suits telling us how awful it was at the hospitals or doctors telling us to please stay home. For some reason—I don’t know why—I read the story of some celebrity who had th
e virus and wrote about it for her fans, telling people this was no joke and the worst thing she’d ever experienced.
This is no flu; please, stay home.
She also said her son now had it and that he was just admitted to the part of the hospital where no one returned from; no one recovered—where body bags were piling up in the hallways.
People are dying from this. Kids are dying. Hold your children tight tonight; I might never hold my boy again.
I felt my heart rate going up, reading this and hurried past it without reading it to the end. Next, I saw videos of people’s dogs doing tricks and scrolled past tons of memes and gifs about how people now drank at ten a.m. because they had nothing better to do, and then saw posts from an old friend of mine who was showing pictures of the slow-roasted turkey she was making for dinner. I ended my scrolling when a political post from a friend turned ugly, and I found myself reading the comments from all the trolls, who seemed to believe that this virus had emerged from the cell phone towers and that it was the government’s way of trying to control us all. Realizing this was doing me no good, I shut the phone off and put it on the table. I exhaled, trying to shake all these emotions and was about to grab myself some iced tea when there was a sound outside my door. A second later, a knock followed. Puzzled at who could be at my door, I walked over and opened it.
The eyes meeting me on the other side almost made me start to cry.
Chapter 17
“Reese?”
My sister’s big blue eyes stared up at me. She was tall for a woman, six feet tall, but with my six-foot-eight, I still towered above her, even though she was my older sister.
I looked down at her, my heart beating fast, and I realized I was barely able to breathe. I hadn’t seen her in about a year, maybe even more. It felt like forever. I had been so worried about her.
“What are you…how…?” I stuttered.
“Can I come in?”
I looked at her when reality sank in. I took a step backward, remembering. “I thought you were in the ICU? They called dad from the hospital and told him you’d been admitted with a strange virus they didn’t know what was, and then told him we couldn’t visit. You were patient zero, we were later told, the first one to have it. We were so worried and didn’t think you’d make it.”
“But I did,” she said, sending me a weak smile. She threw out her arms. She had a weak and exhausted look to her eyes and could only stand for a few seconds without holding onto the door frame. “Look. I’m well now. They said I had recovered, then sent me home.”
I stared at her, scrutinizing her. My sister had been mentally ill since we were teenagers, struggling with her anxieties ever since she was raped. She was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and had a hard time keeping a job or even living a normal life. She struggled with paranoid delusions and sometimes hallucinations. I never knew if I could trust what she told me. She lived in a world of her own for the most part. Her medicine could usually keep it at bay, but not always.
“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “I mean, I can see that you’re better; you’re here, standing up—well, almost. But are you sure you’re not still contagious?”
Reese swallowed. Her big eyes lingered on my face. I loved her so much, and I was relieved to see her alive. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn’t.
“The doctor said I was well and not contagious anymore,” she said. “You can see it in this letter he gave me.”
She held up a letter in which a doctor from Jackson Memorial Hospital wrote that Reese was “Certified Recovered.”
“It doesn’t say you’re not contagious,” I said, concerned. I wanted terribly to let her inside my house, but I had to think about Josie. “I read that they don’t know if you can still infect others. They know so little about this new virus.”
“I tested negative twice,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t have it anymore.”
I smiled gently—how I had missed my dear sister. I was used to her disappearing out of my life for weeks, maybe even months at a time, but never this long. When I heard she had been hospitalized, I had been so certain she wouldn’t make it, but here she was, standing right in front of me. It was hard to believe.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“I’m okay, I guess. I’m tired and out of breath from walking. I feel like I’m eighty years old, heh. But other than that…”
“What’s that?” I asked suddenly when looking at her arm. A red patch was soaking her shirt. “Are you bleeding?”
She got a strained look on her face, then nodded.
“I…I didn’t know where else to go.”
I felt my heart rate go up. “That’s a lot of blood, Reese; come inside and let’s take a look at it.”
Chapter 18
I helped her take her shirt off, carefully, then looked at her arm. She had a long cut running up her upper arm. It was deep, but it had stopped bleeding. I cleaned it and bandaged it while remembering the many times she took care of me when we were children. She had been the strong one back then. She had taken care of me. It wasn’t until she reached seventeen that things began to go south for her. Since then, her life had been a struggle, one I didn’t believe she deserved at all. I had prayed for God to set her free for as long as I could remember.
“There,” I said, looking at the bandaged arm. I wasn’t much of a paramedic, but I had gotten some training and knew how to do simple things. “You’re as good as new. Almost.”
Reese smiled with a small sigh. I could tell she was troubled about something, and she was waiting for the right moment to tell me.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened?” I asked and nodded at the bandaged area. “To your arm?”
She swallowed, and her upper lip vibrated slightly like it used to do when we were children, and she was scared.
“What’s going on, Reese?” I asked. “Please, tell me.”
Her shoulders came down. “I think someone is trying to kill me, Harry.”
I wrinkled my eyebrows. I had heard her say stuff like this so many times before and knew to be cautious what I believed.
“What do you mean?”
“When I got back from the hospital, I was in my apartment, when…there was someone there, Harry, the handle…it was moving and then I…I…managed to get to the fire escape. I think…I think…no, I know someone came into my apartment and was after me. I saw a shadow rush across the room from outside on the fire escape. I hid there until he was gone.”
“Do you have any idea who it might be?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Could it maybe have been someone you knew?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was the door locked?”
She nodded. “Yes. I think so.”
“So, how did he come in? Did he have a key?” I asked.
“He kicked it open,” she said. “I heard it break as I crawled across the living room toward the fire escape.”
I bit the side of my cheek, wondering about this story. My sister had had her share of shady boyfriends. It wouldn’t be the first time she was scared of one of them.
“And the arm? How did you get the deep cut?”
She looked up at me like she didn’t know what I was talking about. Then she looked down at her arm again and seemed to remember suddenly.
“Oh, yes. I…I…I’m not sure, Harry. I think I fell. Yes, that was it. I fell, and there was a spike in the fire escape…if only I could get my mind to stop spinning.” She tapped herself with a fist on the forehead. “I can’t seem to remember much about anything these days, Harry. You know how I get.”
“Are you off your meds?”
She looked away.
“Reese? Did you go off your meds again?”
She nodded vaguely.
“How long? How long have you been off?”
I was fighting to keep calm. She knew how important those meds were and what would happen if she got off them. How could she be so stupid
?
“I had to go off, Harry,” she said.
I sighed. Here we go again, I thought. Here comes the usual story of how the meds make her brain foggy, how she feels like she’s someone else, and she can’t think clearly.
Reese was rubbing her face excessively. “I don’t remember, Harry, but it’s been a long time. I didn’t realize it until I got back to the apartment, but now I remember something. I think I got off the meds because I had to.”
“You had to? What is that nonsense? You have to stay on them. There is no reason why you shouldn’t take them at all.”
“But there is, Harry. Don’t you see?”
“I really don’t, no. You’re starting to ramble. You’re making no sense, Reese.”
She was biting her lip as she looked me in the eyes. “They told me I had to get off my meds. The doctors did.”
“And why would any doctor tell you to go off your meds?” I asked, exhaling tiredly. This wasn’t exactly what I needed right now.
She grasped my arm, squeezing it hard. “For the baby. They told me that I couldn’t have a baby while still on my meds. I risked harming it. That’s why they wanted to remove it, to kill it, but I didn’t let them. Instead, I stopped taking the pills. For the baby’s sake. I didn’t remember this till I found the pacifier at my apartment; look.”
Reese reached into her pocket and pulled out a pink pacifier. “I think it was a girl, but I am not completely sure.”
Chapter 19
I didn’t believe my own ears. I stared at my sister, feeling so confused.
