My mouth fell open into an O. “How can you ask me that? How can you stand there and tell me it's no big deal when you know what I look at all damn day? How can you be that thick-headed, Billy?”
He started to argue, but evidently thought better of it. Instead he said nothing at all.
“Please, Billy. I count on you. I wish things weren't the way they are, but I need you to promise me you'll make her wear her mask when I'm not around. I need that reassurance. Please.”
He nodded. Our eyes met. I loved those eyes. My whole world was in those eyes.
“Okay,” he said.
I felt like my life was a ship running aground, like I was unconsciously destroying the relationships that I needed to sustain me.
“Thank you,” I told him, and went back inside.
Connie was wearing her favorite pair of pajamas-a purple silken shirt and pants with little birds all over them. Thanks to Connie, I knew the birds were starlings. Connie knew the name of every bird she saw.
From the hallway, I watched her climb into bed and pull the covers up to her chin. I couldn't believe how much she'd grown. My baby.
Her favorite book was a collection of Frog and Toad stories. It was on the table next to her bed. I went into her room and picked up the book.
“Would you like Mommy to read you a story?” I asked her, getting down on my knees next to her bed.
“No,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“Are you sure?”
“I want Daddy to do it,” she said.
“Connie, honey, Daddy's cleaning the kitchen.”
She raised her voice, each word a stab in my heart. “I want Daddy to do it!”
“Connie,” I said, an edge creeping into my voice.
But she wasn't listening. She turned her face to the wall and at that moment I ceased to exist.
The living room was lit by candlelight.
I'd got my yoga mat out. The copy of Vogue that Chunk was making fun of earlier and an issue of In Shape magazine were both open on the floor in front of me. Every night I did a mix of the yoga routines in those two magazines to clear my head, but after the mess I made of putting Connie to bed, I could tell it wasn't going to work for me that night.
I tried anyway. I spread my legs and bent forward at the waist, putting my hands on the floor as far out in front of me as I could. Then I slowly moved my hands towards my feet in a sweeping arc motion.
Between my legs as I stretched down, I could see Billy in the kitchen, scrounging for something to eat. I noticed he was getting a little pudgy. It was from the MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), I figured, that he always bought at the food distribution center. Those things have got 3000 calories per package, and he'd eat two, sometimes three a day. His favorite was the chicken alfredo. He said it tasted good hot or cold, but I couldn't eat it. Too salty for my tastes.
He came out to the living room, eating a granola bar.
“Looking good from here,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, but without enthusiasm.
I got down on my back, right knee bent, left leg pointed out straight, about 6 in off the carpet. I raised and lowered my left leg for 25 reps, then switched to my right leg.
The magazine said it would make my thighs and abs look the girl in the picture.
When I was finished, breathing hard, Billy asked, “Have you given any more thought to her party?”
He meant Connie's party. Her sixth birthday was coming up in five days, and it was scaring the ever loving crap out of me.
Little girls should have birthday parties. It's only fair. I wanted Connie to have one. I really did. But everyday I went back to that damn mud pit, the Scar, and when I saw the bodies tumbling in on top of each other, and the horrible smell hovering over the grave pits like some beast out of the Book of Revelations, I felt like I had to tell her no.
“I'm scared, Billy. I'm so damned scared of what could happen.”
He smiled. “I know you are, babe. I know. But I honestly think it'll be okay. We can do this.”
“Are you sure? Billy, are you really? I need you to tell me you believe that.”
“I do,” he said. His eyes were filled with light. “I do.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
Then a thought shamed me. We didn't have any gifts to give her. Even though we were doing better than most, we had very little. Just enough to buy staple groceries and run the air conditioner during the 105 degree days. I was spending so much time away from home during those days that I didn't even know what my daughter was into anymore. She used to be all about birds, every kind of bird, and even though she still wore the pajamas, I didn't know if birds were still cool.
“Is it still birds?” I asked.
Billy smiled and nodded.
“I wish we could get her something bird-related. I don't know. A book maybe?”
“I've got something to show you,” Billy said, and crossed the room to the bookshelf, where he took down a few books and carefully removed what looked like a cigar box he'd hidden back there.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Something I've been working on,” he said, “out in the shed, while Connie's in here reading.”
He pulled out a bird and handed it to me. It was hand carved from oak wood, polished smooth, painted with exacting and loving detail. It was a blue jay, a perfect likeness, right down to the wrinkles on its claws.
I took it in my hands delicately, like it was made of glass.
I could feel a tear threatening to break loose.
“Her favorite right now is the gray barn owl. I've already got one of those made too, but it's too big to put in the box. I have it out in the shed. I'm gonna start on a nest for it tomorrow.”
I looked up at him, and the tear fell.
“Hey,” he said, kneeling next to me, taking my face in his hands. “Hey, it's all right. We're all right.”
I closed my eyes and lost myself in his hands. Such wonderful hands.
“I love you so much, Billy. God, so much.”
“I love you too, Lily. Always.”
Chapter 8
I kept a journal of the flu. It wasn't anything as organized as a diary, more a collection of random thoughts and feelings, and sometimes news clippings. But peppered throughout the entries were little flashes of inspiration, things I thought were as powerful as a wildfire, and just as temporary. I felt I had to put them down on paper, else they'd become ashes, flavorless and without meaning, only the echo of something that had once burned hot within me.
In looking over it now, I saw a lot of those flashes, all of them written in an urgent, slashing hand, like I was trying to carve them into the paper. Yet it pained me to realize that nothing of the desperate need that prompted me to write them down survived.
One passage read:
This morning, through the fog and the clean, brisk smell of the Vespers Creek, two deer. A mother and her baby. Must tell Connie about this, when she's older. Nature can be kind and beautiful, too. Death is not all there is.
I could only guess at the emotions that prompted me to write that, for I no longer had them readily on tap. Like the memory of the scene, the words were no longer vivid and vibrant in my mind. Only gray survived.
H2N2.
My journal was filled with my thoughts and observations about this killer version of the influenza virus. I
