I plunge a quarter-sized dollop of hand
sanitizer into my palm.
The crowd goes wild.
He looked pale and thin with eyes of
water-slicked glass. In our family these symptoms generally mean
healthy with a touch of rhinovirus (the common variety) and an
aversion to vegetables (of all varieties).
No fever. No Fatigue. No trouble
breathing. Just a lingering cough and sniffles.
Of course, he'd been coughing all
morning; one dry roar after another followed by lengthy rubbing of
his nose onto a shirtsleeve. I remind him to use the crook of his arm
to catch the sneezes as we mingled with the masses.
Of course, we have things to do. Places
to be. Volunteerism forced upon us by the recreational league.
Buck up.
Yet every sternutation sent my gaze to
the floor and my shoulders to the ceiling. What kind of mother brings
her little bundle of typhoid into the world at large on the weekend?
Doesn't she know she'll just spread his disease?
I sense the condemnation even though
it's unspoken.
“Well … that's why I put him at the
cash box instead of making hot dogs,” I said wryly to the person in
my head who censors what words are allowed to escape my mouth.
“Everyone knows money's filthy anyway ...” Lately, she's been
tsk-ing a lot but letting none of my thoughts pass.
“Shhh. No need to be like that,”
she hisses in my ear.
“Let's just get through the day, shall we? You are doing the best
you can. Repeat that.”
I may have no trouble listening to my
inner voice, but I have a difficult time believing her sometimes.
It doesn't matter that the crowd is
pulsating with a rhythm and harmony of phlegm. I only hear the nasal
hum of the boy trailing after me as I work the concessions table at
the school game. I feel a shocking desire to pretend he's not with
me. And guilt.
I feel guilt.
Which turns out to be something my son
will always help grind in like dirt at the knees:
“I've been coughing for a week,” he
announced as if he had pulled a microphone and speaker from his
pockets and switched it on. I cringed at the sound of it as it hits
my ears.
“No, you haven't,” I respond with a
loudspeaker voice of my own. “You came HOME from SCHOOL with this
two days ago,” as if making the point we are at the place of likely
origin will absolve me of any parental blame.
No time to lather and rinse, I plunge
another coin-sized dollop of hand sanitizer into my palm and repeat.
I know … I know … He should be home
in bed, warm in bed with hot soup and G-rated cinema. I should be
feeding him citrus and feeling his forehead, asking him if he has
enough blankets.
Eventually, that's where we'll be.
Home, with our pets and TV.
Home, where tissue after tissue I hand
him winds up scattered on the floor like discarded gardenias not yet
past their prime. Each one wrinkled from rubbing against the nose as
if to scratch an itch. One per sniffle. A new flower drops to the
floor at regular intervals.
I will pick them up with the tips of
two fingers and deposit them in plain brown paper bag – an
inch-wide cuff folded at the top the way my mother use to do. I will
wash my hands until they start to crack.
“You need to blow,” I will scold.
He will comply, half-heartedly, and
start rubbing his nose again.
Of course, in the morning, when he
looks at me with the puppy dog eyes and barks at me with a productive
howl I will have second thoughts about sending him back into the mill
…
These thoughts only last a minute. Just
long enough for the beep of the thermometer.
“Sorry, kiddo: 98.6. You're going to
school.”
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