Coronavirus Survivor’s Log-Day 13
Don’t trust my day count…it’s my best guess.
Today we learned that my daughter has had contact with someone who has the dreaded COVID-19. It’s odd sort of mix of education and abilities I own, but among the random things I remember from my time studying biological sciences is the calculation of epidemiological vectors and rates. One brush with disease and I am turning our family into a case study for transmission opportunities. Yes, my children are in some sort of homeschooling hell when it comes to this particular subject, but I find it both fascinating and troubling at the same time. So now my poor girl is holed up in her room, desperately avoiding in me in the hopes of keeping me healthy. This takes isolation to a whole new level…and frankly….it stinks.
Today’s prompt is an interesting one…Tell me about a time you pretended not to care… write for ten minutes….GO!
I remember the time I called you and she was there. My dad and I screamed at one another….he said “Ungrateful..” I said, “You’re an **shole.” He said, “Get out!” I said, “gladly!”
I drove the twenty minutes back to town and picked up the pay phone at the Easy Mart just down the road from the apartment we had shared together for the last semester. I’d only been home for the summer for a couple of weeks. I missed your blue eyes and crooked nose and the way that you made fried eggs and pancakes at two in the morning when late night studying and sometimes partying kept us up too late. So when my people said I had changed and needed to get a hold of myself, you were the safe place I ran to.
I dropped 25 cents into the pay phone and dialed your number. I could hear Jimi Hendrix ripping away at his guitar in the background, and a girl’s voice say near your ear, “come back over here, I’m lonely.” I tell you I need a place to stay the night, and you crooned into the phone, “Oh, I’m so sorry baby…tonight’s no good. I have company.”
“A girl?” I asked….and then you tell me…she was the greatest girl….you’d never felt so alive…she totally gets you….and then you asked me, “Hey babe…you’re not mad or anything, right? This is always how it was…”
I swallowed my pride and my hurt and my heart way down deep…I buried that future of pancakes and fried eggs six feet under next to “one day I’ll be president” and “I look good as a blonde.”
“No…I’m not mad. Why would I care? I just thought you might like to hang,” and hung up the phone. It was the last I ever saw you.
Clamoring to be Visible 