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While Maureen continued to contact clients, she kept the television in the family room on with the audio muted so she could monitor news updates about COVID-19 in between making sales calls. She kept hoping that at some point, she might hear something positive about a decrease in death rates or a change in risk factors. More and more, it was a challenge to keep up with work and help the twins complete their school assignments.
She pulled up their lessons on two separate laptops, assumed they were each engaged, but when she diverted her attention, all hell broke out. By the time she returned to check on them, she found Ethan and Evan tussling on the floor or pitching Nerf darts at each other. Bottom line? Maureen needed help. Time to head to Nana’s house. Her mom deserved to be checked on. And she desperately needed assistance.
"Mom, that mean lady across the street is shaking her finger at us,” Ethan said. His job was to load the car with his and Evan’s sports equipment. “Look, she’s knocking on the window, too.”
“Ethan, just keep loading the car and ignore her.”
"What are we going to do if she comes over here?”
“She’s not leaving her house, Ethan; she’s at high risk for catching the virus.” Maureen rolled her suitcase and one of the twins’ duffle bags to the driveway’s edge. Then dared to smile and wave at the woman, who responded by closing the blinds as quickly as skill would allow. “I can guarantee she won’t bother us.” Only a charitable heart kept Maureen from displaying an obscene gesture.
Evan pushed his bag through, then scurried underneath the garage door that was perpetually stuck at half-closed, half-open. He yelled at his brother. “Don’t forget the tennis rackets, dude.”
“I’m not loading rackets, Evan. Pretty sure Mom won’t let.”
"Exactly right, fellas. Only take a few sets of clothes, your laptops, school bags. And your baseball and basketball equipment, things you can do at Nana’s house. Your grandmother doesn’t have a tennis court in her backyard.”
“We could sneak into the club,” Evan whispered.
"No, sir. We’re supposed to be in lockdown, guys. Sneaking off Nana’s property isn’t going to cut it.”
“Who’s getting the dog food?” Ethan asked.
Wait, who was getting the dog? Maureen passed being overwhelmed a week ago. She’d thought of everything but their golden retriever, Buster. She found him hiding under the dining table, with his favorite stuffed rabbit resting underneath his chin. No coaxing worked until she remembered a treat left in the car.
“Ethan? Evan? One of you grab Buster’s bacon chew from the back seat. Please?”
A couple of hours later, Maureen locked the house, set the alarm, and backed out of the driveway. She hoped Ms. Juanita would still be alive when they returned in a few weeks. No one deserved to die from a horrible virus that had no available cure or vaccine.
A half an hour or so later, Maureen remembered she’d forgotten to call her mother and report they’d left. “One of you call your Nana, tell her we’re on the way.”
Ethan volunteered, reaching for his mom’s I-phone in the console. Evan had already fallen asleep.
“Can I Facetime?” he asked.
"If that’s what you want to do.”
He tapped the green app and within seconds his grandmother’s face filled the entire screen. He laughed the beautiful quixotic laugh of a child with no worries. “You don’t have to hold the phone so close, Nana,” he said.
"I’m outdoors, Ethan, working in the rose garden. See? So, I really cannot see you, the glare is too bright.”
“Maureen wanted me to….”
"You mean Mama wanted you to call me,” she added in a correctional tone.
“Whatever, Nana. We’re on our way.” He continued to laugh because Nana had over-adjusted the phone again, now close enough to reveal her nostril hair. “What’s for lunch?”
“Probably hot dogs, something I can throw on the grill.”
"Awesome, see you soon, Nana,” Ethan said.
Halfway through the three-hour ride, Evan demanded a bathroom stop.
“I thought we discussed this, E,” Maureen said. “We’re not really supposed to be leaving our home, much less making multiple stops.”
“It’s a lockdown, bro!” Ethan yelled as if he was the taskmaster of the pandemic.
"If we don’t stop, Mom, I’m gonna mess my drawers.”
"Okay, okay.”
She turned on the right signal and exited the interstate. A gas station attached to a convenience store was on the right. “I’ll go in with you, get us some snacks. Ethan, stay here with Buster, better yet, why don’t you walk him in that grassy patch over there?”
"Why do I have to do all the crap work?” he mumbled.
“Because I’m the one taking a crap,” Evan said. He had doubled over in the back seat with stomach pain, so as soon as Maureen stopped the car, he opened the door and ran.
Maureen grabbed chips, sodas, and a handful of candy bars and told the cashier she needed $20 of gas. By the time she had purchased everything, Maureen assumed Evan was back in the car. It wasn’t until she threw the plastic bag in the backseat that she realized he was still in the restroom.
And that was never a good thing.
“Evan?” She knocked on the door of the men’s room. “You still in there?”
"Yes, Mom. Leave me alone. I’ve got the runs.”
Of course, he did. What else could turn a horrible situation into something even worse? A perfect disaster. An unanticipated storm.
"Do you need me to get you anything?”
“Space.”
"I’ll see you in the car.” She managed to refrain from telling her ten-year-old to wash his hands afterward. They’d had so many discussions in the past weeks about handwashing, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Again.
"Where’s Evan?” Ethan asked.
"Having some digestive problems, he’ll be here in a minute.”
“Yeah, he had the runs after breakfast.”
Maureen turned around, abruptly, to face her son. “And no one thought this was important for me to know?”
“Sorry, Mom. Thought you knew. Evan tells you everything.”
Maureen sighed. Was it asking too much to go from one family member’s house to another? To travel from madness to safety? To seek comfort with no further complications?
Fifteen minutes or so passed before Evan returned to the car. By this time, both Maureen and Ethan had torn through most of the snack items. Evan looked a little pale, but Maureen passed it off to possible dehydration. She handed him a blue Gatorade.
Thankfully, Maureen pulled off the road and drove into Nana’s town with no additional stops. But by the time they’d parked in front her mom’s house, Ethan was complaining of stomach cramps and ran past his grandmother to make it to the bathroom in time.
“What’s happening, Maureen?” Nana asked, still wearing her gardening gloves and straw hat. “Tell me, you haven’t brought sick children into my home.”
“I don’t think they’re sick, Mom. They just ate something that didn’t agree with them.” It will pass, she told herself. At least it’s not COVID-19. She reminded Nana of that. “They could be a lot sicker, Mom. It’ll be fine. We’ll all sleep upstairs tonight, so we won’t disturb you.”
Nana finished trimming her rose bushes while Maureen unloaded the car. She pretended not to notice the number of bags that her daughter dragged in. Nana tried to recall what she’d promised Ethan for dinner, hamburgers or hotdogs? One or the other. What could it matter? They’d probably love either one, maybe even both.
The bug seemed to have worked its way through the twins during night. Both boys woke up ravenous and ready to take on a new adventure at Nana’s. There was more space for batting practice and shooting hoops at their grandmother’s place. Maureen banked on using this to her advantage: finish your math and English assignments, then the back door will be thrown open.
The day began pleasantly. Things turned dramatically sour when Maureen started to feel nauseous and feared she had a fever. When she stared at her pale face in the mirror, it seemed as though her lips were turning blue. No, no, no! She called her best friend. “What are all the weird symptoms of COVID?”
“It’s all in your head, Maureen. You’re thirty-two years old, you don’t have COVID.”
“Tell me the symptoms, why don’t you?”
“Okay, let me see.” Sara took a second to scroll through a news app. “Fever, cough, shortness of breath, trouble breathing, okay, that’s the same thing. A weird one is loss of smell and taste. Maureen, you have none of these things!”
“I need to take my temperature, but I don’t want to alarm Mama.”
“Drink a cup of tea and stay close to the bathroom. You probably caught the twins’ tummy bug.”
“Right. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Before she lay down to rest for a minute, she looked out from the upstairs bay window to check on the boys. Having the time of their lives, they were. No worries here. If they needed anything, Nana could help them. She took a few sips of tea and leaned back against the bed’s headboard. She fought sleep. When she thought about her mother, she realized they had not spoken since shortly after breakfast. Where was she? Would she hear the boys if they needed her? A few minutes later, Maureen was asleep.
Nana had climbed up in the attic after rinsing the breakfast dishes to look for a table-top grill she bought last summer. She couldn’t find it anywhere. An hour later, she still sat on the floor next to a partially opened box, flipping the pages of her high school yearbooks. A flicker of light caught her eye near the door to a crawl space. She made a mental note to call the electrician about a possible short in the wiring.
Nana turned the pages until she located her picture. There I am! With my Farrah Fawcett hair and baby oil-tanned skin. Memory lane called, and Nana answered. Hours passed before she realized there had been no sounds from below. No youngster called her name, begging for more Cokes or chocolate bars. No grown woman wondered where to find something in her own childhood home.
Odd, it seemed, but not odd enough to interrupt Nana from chasing her memories. She found pictures from prom, homecoming, and talent shows. Homecoming shots, senior week antics, and silly pranks. Photos of fun former boyfriends, and others she regretted granting the time of day.
Again, the flicker of light by the small crawl space door. What was it?
“Mama, do you know where the thermometer is?” Finally, she heard the call of someone in need. It made Nana feel nervous to have family sleeping in her house when they failed to voice any requests. More than anything, she wanted to remain a vital member of the family, still able to make that special peanut butter and banana sandwich, still capable of finding the smallest misplaced item.
Her daughter’s voice faded, sounded far away in the distance. Nana struggled to concentrate. How close was Maureen? What did she just ask me to find?
The light. I don’t remember Jock installing a light behind the crawl space door. We always used a flashlight to look for things back there. Nana stood, approached the tiny door. She thought about going back downstairs to get the flashlight in the pantry, but suddenly that didn’t seem so important.
I should be okay. There’s enough light to guide my way.
Wait a minute. What am I saying? Guide my way? I need to find Maureen and help her find what she lost.
Nana tried to retreat, tried to go back down the attic stairs she had just climbed. The harder she tried, the stronger the pull toward the crawl space and its illuminated door.
She heard her daughter calling for her. “Mama, where are you?”
When Nana reached to open the crawl space door, an enormous shield of light shifted in front of her. As she stumbled and tried to cover her eyes from the brightness, another force took hold and swept her into a vortex. What happened?
When she awoke, Nana recognized her surroundings; she was sitting in the stands overlooking her high school’s athletic field. She was the one lone fan watching two young athletes practice passing a football. When she heard one of the voices, she recognized it was Jock, her beloved high school sweetheart, and husband of forty years.
Why was Jock here? Am I dead?
No, please don’t look at me. I don’t want you to see me like this: older, sporting frown lines, wearing glasses, carrying extra weight. When she looked at her hands, her feet, to self-consciously check her appearance, Nana realized her aging had been reversed. She was the same sixteen-year-old cheerleader who fell in love with the high school quarterback. And had to get married. In a few minutes, Jock would run off the field and threaten to throw her the ball, challenge her to catch it. He would run up the stands and sit next to her. They’d talk about prom that next weekend. She knew what he’d say, she’d remember her words, too.
She didn’t want to go back. Return to a life without Jock, back to a life that consumed her youth. Back to the demands, she told herself she appreciated.
“Hey, beautiful,” Jock said. “You’ll always be my number one girl, my only love,” he said. Then he kissed her softly on her cheek.
Instantaneously, Nana felt herself being propelled again, thrown back into the vortex. When she awoke this time, Maureen and the twins were standing over her, waving a fan in her face and trying to check her blood pressure. She blinked her eyes and laughed.
“Nana, it’s not funny. We thought you had a stroke or something,” Ethan said.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. “Move back so I can sit up.” Nana looked at their faces, filled with concern and love. “I took a little trip, that’s all.”
“Did you pass out looking at yearbooks, Mama?”
“Thank God, you’re not dead, Nana, ‘cause Maureen thinks she’s dying and needs you to tell her she’s okay,” Evan said.
“Seriously, Maureen?”
“He’s kidding, Mamma. Let’s get you back downstairs, so we can all get some lunch.”
Life was back to normal. Normal, minus the pandemic threat. As normal as it would be for a long, long time.
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