Keep You Safe

by Melissa Hill

  In the immediate aftermath, my parents had of course come up to stay, but they’re in their late sixties and in poor health, and were themselves too racked with grief to be of any real help. And while I had others—work colleagues and old friends from Dublin—around at the time willing to do what they could, Lucy was the drill sergeant we all needed.

  Now I watched through the glass observation window as Rosie’s class started. This was really the first time this week I had been able to just sit and breathe, I realized.

  I reached into my bag, grabbed an elastic and pulled my tousled shoulder-length hair up off my shoulders, tying it into a makeshift bun at the nape of my neck. It was starting to get greasy and I really needed a shower but there’d been no time. Later, hopefully, when Rosie had gone to bed. She usually went up about eight o’clock, and while Greg and I used to relish the few hours together before our own bedtime, now the silence made his absence even more pronounced. So I tended to keep myself busy by cooking, reading or going online and wasting time on Pinterest and the like.

  Inside the studio, my daughter was standing in fifth position as normal, but something she was doing caught my eye.

  She put her hand up and scratched her back, right along her shoulder blade. I grimaced; she must have grabbed the wrong cardie by accident earlier. That purple one she had on was an itchy wool, and now she was paying the price.

  “Is anyone sitting here?”

  I looked up to see Christine Campbell. A tall woman with a slightly aloof air about her. Her son, Kevin, was in Rosie’s class and, by all accounts (including Rosie’s), a bit of a troublemaker, constantly causing grief for the teachers. Typical boy stuff, really. She also had a daughter, Suzanne, who was older and in a more senior ballet class.

  I didn’t see Christine often, but our daughters’ class times sometimes overlapped. She and Lucy knew each other well, though personality-wise they seemed to me to be chalk and cheese.

  “No, go ahead.” I moved my oversize bag and placed it on the floor at the same time that Lucy rejoined us and sat back down.

  All at once, I felt like I was smack bang in the middle of a gossip sandwich as the two women tried their utmost to outdo each other for local “news.”

  The topics were wide-ranging and flung about rapidly—Christine conveyed her annoyance about a neighbor who had illegally constructed a shed against a boundary wall and how she was going to talk to her solicitor cousin about it, while Lucy condemned a hapless mother who’d promised she would volunteer at the Applewood PTA, but had not turned up to a meeting. I grimaced, making a mental note to be sure to keep any volunteer commitments.

  But since I myself was short on scandal, I searched my brain for something to contribute to the conversation.

  “I heard poor Clara Cooper went home early from school with chicken pox the other day,” I offered. “Is Kevin OK so far?” I added, knowing that Christine’s son was one of the kids in Rosie’s class who hadn’t had it yet. I glanced toward the dance studio and frowned. My daughter was still scratching.

  “I know. I was the one who picked Clara up,” Lucy commented. “Madeleine rang me first thing that morning—Clara woke up a bit poorly, but Madeleine was due at Channel 2 for a TV thing and had to send her in. She asked if I’d do the honors in case she got any worse.”

  “Typical,” Christine harrumphed, her horn-rimmed glasses falling down her nose. “Getting someone else to do her dirty work. Mad Mum is right. And I’m sure it’s only a matter of time till my poor Kevin gets it.” She pushed the glasses back up and rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t surprise me that Clara did, either. You know what the bloody Coopers are like.”

  I bit my lip guiltily, having forgotten that Lucy and Clara’s mum were also close and had grown up together in Knockroe. And I especially regretted bringing up the subject in front of Christine. Lucy had once confided that Madeleine’s rapidly growing celeb status was a sore point as far as Christine was concerned, and I hadn’t intended to open that particular can of worms.

  I started to reply, but Lucy beat me to it. “Ah, leave it, Christine. To be fair, you don’t usually vaccinate for chicken pox anyway.”

  At this, my ears pricked up. “What do you mean?” I asked, turning to her. “What’s that got to do with the Coopers?”

  Rosie’s allergy or the fact that she couldn’t be immunized wasn’t common knowledge among the school community, mostly because of the inevitable negative reaction it provoked among parents. And I didn’t want my daughter to be singled out in any way because of reasons she (or I) couldn’t control. So when before Easter the school secretary had sent out Health Service permission forms for the MMR booster to be carried out in the school, I had quietly marked an X in the “decline” box and forgotten all about it.

  But now I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the Coopers and I had something in common.

  “But Madeleine and Tom don’t believe in vaccination full stop,” Christine said bitterly. “Complete nonsense. Not to mention irresponsible.”

  My mouth went dry. So while I’d had no choice but to opt out of the standard vaccination program, it seemed the Coopers had willfully declined.

  “Don’t believe in... You mean the Cooper children haven’t had shots—for anything?” I asked, feeling more than a little unnerved.

  This was what Greg and I had worried most about—the idea that so-called “herd immunity” wasn’t guaranteed to protect Rosie so long as there were parents who chose not to participate. Yet I couldn’t condemn the Coopers for anything when I didn’t know the reasons. For all I knew, their children might also have some kind of autoimmune condition or other valid reason not to go along with protocol.

  “Yep. Apparently they don’t trust the HSE and the pharmaceutical companies, even though all that controversy over the MMR jabs was written off ages ago.” Christine rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. They’re just lucky this time that chicken pox is fairly harmless.”

  This time.

  I swallowed hard, not sure what to make of this. “Well, I hope Kevin avoids it anyway. Nasty, scratchy thing,” I mumbled sympathetically. “But not too hard on the kids if it’s mild enough.”

  Lucy had gone unusually quiet and, sensing she was uncomfortable with the discussion, I decided to change the subject. “Oh, look, they’re starting,” I said, turning back to the ballet class and feeling bad for bringing all this up in the first place.

  But Christine wouldn’t be diverted. “A bit poorly my ass. Kevin was saying that Clara was coughing the day before that, too,” she said. “What kind of mother sends a sick child to school so she can go off to flatter her own ego? And what kind of parents take their kids out of class for an extra week over Easter so they can go and sun themselves in Florida?”

  I remembered Rosie saying something about Clara being absent the first few days back after the break, but hadn’t realized it was because she was still on holiday. Must be nice to be able to fly off somewhere warm and sunny for so long. I could only dream.

  “Ah, Christine, it’s not as if the kids missed that much for the few extra days they were away,” said Lucy. “And in fairness to Madeleine the other morning, she really didn’t think there was anything to worry about...”

  “Oh, save it, that’s no excuse. A blind man could see that the child was coming down with something, though of course maybe those Prada sunglasses her mother likes to wear messed up her eyesight...”

  “Christine, seriously,” Lucy reproached, “there’s no need for that. I know Madeleine. If she honestly felt that Clara was ill, she would have canceled the TV thing, end of story. As it was, the little dear just had the sniffles and a bit of a temperature when I went to pick her up.”

  “Well, Kevin said he spotted a cluster of spots on her neck. And if a five-year-old can see it, I don’t understand how the child’s own mother—”

  �
�That could just be heat rash from the temperature,” I said matter-of-factly. “Pox don’t cluster.”

  “Thank you, Nurse,” Lucy chuckled, evidently hoping to lighten the mood. “In any case, Christine, Maddie was distraught and full of apologies when she got back from Dublin,” she insisted. “She couldn’t have known.”

  As Christine muttered something unintelligible, a thought started rattling around in my head. It was what I had just said: that chicken pox spots didn’t cluster.

  They don’t, I reminded myself. There were just individual sores when the rash popped up.

  I nodded, affirming my own train of thought. Christine’s son was probably just being a typical five-year-old boy. Making everything seem more dramatic and exaggerated than it actually was.

  Returning my attention to the studio where Rosie practiced, I smiled with appreciation as she pirouetted gracefully. She did a slight bow in front of her teacher and classmates and then returned to the barre.

  Whereupon once again, almost absentmindedly, my daughter raised her arm and scratched her back.

  5

  Rosie turned over in bed and pulled the covers up over her head. Shoving her face into the pillow, she tried her hardest to stifle the sound of her cough. She rolled over onto her back, then sniffled and pulled her leg up to her chest, so she could scratch her knee.

  She didn’t feel well.

  And she was very itchy.

  Rosie had noticed when she got home from ballet and started undressing to put her pajamas on that she had some little red dots on her arms. And there were a few on her chest, too. She was sure that if she turned on the light and looked at her knee, she would probably find some spots there, too.

  But her mum said that you couldn’t get chicken pox twice.

  Rosie felt worry build in her chest. She really didn’t want chicken pox again. It had been miserable the last time. She couldn’t stand the thought of being cooped up in bed, not being allowed to play with her friends or her dinosaurs, and having to take long, warm baths just to try to ease the itch that came with those yucky blisters.

  She shuddered, thinking about it.

  Maybe she was just tired. That had to be it. It had been a long week and maybe she was just feeling a bit worried because her friend Ellie wasn’t well and then Clara had gone home sick the other day, too.

  Kevin hadn’t looked like he was sick, though—and he said he’d never had chicken pox before—so how could she get them twice?

  She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. That was what Mum had told her to do anytime she was feeling overwhelmed. Of course, she had told her that because of what she had seen with her dad, but Rosie supposed that trick could be used in this situation, as well.

  Taking one, two, three deep breaths, she closed her eyes in the darkness and willed herself to go to sleep. In the morning, everything would be fine. She would feel better.

  But then her eyes sprung open as it felt like something had bitten her on the back. She cranked her arm around awkwardly to shove her hand up the back of her pajama top to reach the area. Once the itch was scratched, she ran her fingers over her skin and felt a few flat bumps. There were more of them all over her, too, she just knew it.

  Breathing hard again, she whispered to herself like her mum told her to do when she needed to calm herself down. “You’re fine, just go to sleep. Everything is OK. You don’t have chicken pox. Everyone knows kids can’t get it twice.”

  Debating on whether or not to get up and tell her mum about this, she decided against it. Mum worried about things. And Rosie knew she’d be even more worried if she had to take time off work to take care of her, when there was no need.

  She was a big girl now.

  “Just go to sleep,” she told herself quietly in the darkness, trying to count sheep like her dad had once told her. But that had never worked, so instead Rosie decided to try counting the names of all the different dinosaurs she knew—especially all the new ones she’d learned from the exhibit she’d been to over Easter. And after tossing and turning for an hour or more, she finally fell asleep, achieving a fitful slumber.

  Several hours later she woke, realizing that she had kicked all of her covers off. She felt hot and cold at the same time and her pajamas felt wet and her skin clammy. She was covered in sweat!

  At once, the problem of the previous night came rushing back to her and Rosie realized that she didn’t feel better—at all. Instead she felt much, much worse.

  “No, no, no,” she said, feeling a fresh wave of panic. She was so warm—she had to have a fever, like that time she’d had a bad flu and her mum had explained all about how fever was the body’s way of getting rid of bad germs.

  Bad germs like chicken pox?

  And as much as she wanted to jump out of bed to look at herself in the mirror to confirm that the spots were still there, she just couldn’t. She felt exhausted.

  Rosie wanted her mum, but when she opened her mouth to call out, she found she could barely manage a squeak.

  “Mum...” she croaked. When she didn’t hear any footsteps on the stairs, she tried again, and this time it was a bit louder. Her mum had to hear her—mums just knew, somehow, when their kids needed them. Particularly her mum.

  Sure enough, a moment later, Rosie heard, “Coming, honey,” and she felt some of her panic subside.

  Mum would make this OK, she thought. In just a second, Mum would tell her that everything was fine—that this was just a flu and she would be right as rain in no time.

  * * *

  On Friday morning, I pushed the button on the Nespresso coffeemaker Greg had bought the year he died and waited for my morning dose of caffeine to be dispensed.

  Looking quickly at the clock on the microwave, I guessed that I needed to get Rosie up this morning. Usually she was very good about getting herself out of bed and ready for school. No worries, still plenty of time, I told myself as I grabbed my coffee cup and took a tentative first sip, savoring the warmth.

  Then, picking up my phone to check for any messages from work, I heard a small whine coming from upstairs.

  Rosie was calling for me, and something about her voice wasn’t right.

  Immediately, my brain defaulted to panic mode, as it did so often.

  How would I shuffle my day around if she needed to stay at home because she wasn’t feeling well? Trying to summon just how many days of annual leave from work I had left, I called out back to her.

  In fairness, I’d been lucky—Rosie hadn’t missed a single day since starting school last September. Quite the feat considering most of her classmates seemed to have permanent sniffles, and I chalked it down to my insistence on her eating vitamin C–rich fruits and veggies as well as a regular multivitamin for us both to heighten our immune systems—especially given my own exposure to various bugs at the hospital.

  But it was impossible to fight everything all of the time.

  I placed my coffee cup on the counter and raced upstairs, mentally reorganizing my day as I opened my daughter’s bedroom door to make the inevitable diagnosis: Yup, you’re staying home today. My thoughts drifted to Madeleine Cooper, who had evidently faced that selfsame scenario earlier in the week.

  But nothing could have prepared me for what I actually saw when I entered Rosie’s room.

  My little girl lay uncovered, her blond hair limp and damp and sticking to the sides of her face. Her skin was flushed and her pajamas had patches of wet here and there, as if she had been sweating throughout the night.

  And on the surface of her skin that wasn’t covered by clothes there were spots. Lots and lots of small red spots on her face, her neck, her hands, even her feet.

  My mouth dropped open in shock, and my mind automatically jumped to the thought Of course she had to be the kid who gets chicken pox twice.
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  But then my professional training sprang into action and cautioned me against being too hasty with my diagnosis. I saw Rosie looking at me, studying me, and a small crease appeared on her forehead, while her expression changed from worry to fear and finally...panic.

  I quickly tried to rearrange the look on my face, willing myself to appear calm and in control.

  When I was feeling anything but.

  “Mummy, I don’t feel well,” she whimpered.

  I picked up my pace, closing the distance to her bed. I sank to my knees and reached out, placing my hand on her forehead.

  She was burning up.

  “Do I have chicken pox again?” she asked weakly. “How could I have it again?”

  “Shush, honey, I don’t know. Let me take a look at you,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice as I peered at the spots on her skin. “Let me unbutton your top, sweetheart, I want to see your chest.”

  Rosie allowed me to unbutton her pajama shirt while my fingers trembled. Somehow I just knew what I was going to find next.

  Her chest was covered with rash. Small red clusters. Everywhere.

  My mouth was suddenly dry and I licked my lips, willing myself to say something to comfort my daughter.

  “I’m so itchy, Mummy. And so hot.” She was still watching me closely, and then she coughed violently, spittle lining the corners of her mouth.

  My mind raced as I placed a hand on her forehead again and my heart pounded with fear. “I know, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I’ll take you to the doctor. We’ll get you sorted.”

  The rash, the clusters. This is different, the nurse inside me protested. This isn’t chicken pox. Chicken pox spots don’t cluster. And they aren’t flat, either. This is something different...

  And with a sudden terrifying realization, I knew. But I couldn’t allow myself to even think the word.