The plague

It struck Louisa first, last week. Caked on her peejays, her pillow case, her pink blanket, her bedspread, her fitted sheet. I didn’t even notice at first. She showed up at my bedside at 2am complaining about whatever, and I rolled out of bed and took her by the hand and hurried her down the stairs, and all the while she clucked, clucked, clucked about whatever had made her get out of bed this time, and I ignored her, as I usually do, knowing that if I could just get her tucked back into bed, sing her a few bars of “Blackbird,” and tuck a coupla stuffed kitties under her arm, she’d go back to sleep, and so could I.

The smell hit me the moment I stepped into the girls’ room. And there it was, on every available surface. And I looked down and there it was, all over Louisa’s chin and shirt in a technicolor bib.

And right then I knew. It starts now, I thought, and ends when the last of us gets it. Before us, the Thompsons and Bigelows and Penningtons and Baxters. The ultimate act of consecration: spreading disease to all members of the family, each according to his needs. Louisa gets first turn.

I could have handled it all myself, but I thought Amy would enjoy practicing our teamwork, so I hollered up at her. She set up the little mattress at the foot of our bed, with two big silver mixing bowls on either side of a fresh new pillow. I took Louisa into the bathroom and stripped her and dumped her clothes in the sink and turned on the faucet and toweled her down and got her some new clothes and sent her up to her mother.

Then I stripped the sheets, all the while indulging in hypochondria. I could feel the contaminants working their way through my fingers, up my arms, and down into my stomach. I felt my insides wobble like green jello.

I spent the night jumping out of bed every time Louisa made the slightest sound and grabbing one of the silver bowls. “Get it in the bowl, sweetheart!” Then I’d hold her hair out of her face while she dribbled the contents of her empty stomach into the bowls we use to mix our bread dough. Then she’d look up at me and give me what she calls the “good thumb’s up” and she’d roll over and go back to sleep.

Lydia was next. She, too, was struck while sleeping, only she was on the top bunk in a sleeping bag with two stuffed animals. I heard her cry out, and I knew. Lydie’s turn. I got to her bed in time to step on the lower bunk and catch the second volley in my hands. Lydia leaned forward and deposited her retch in my cupped hands, like she was bestowing a precious gift. I bellowed up to Amy again, who came down and told me to calm down for once and just deal.

I dumped the contents of my hands into a rubber toy box and grabbed Lydia by the armpits and carried her, my arms straight out, into the bathroom for the same routine we went through with Louisa the night before.

The sleeping bag and pillow case and bedspread all went into the tub to be rinsed. So did Dan, her penguin, and Scarlatti, her scarlet macaw, who both had been shampooed in Lydia’s sick.

Another nice touch: the remnants of a cascade, having run down the safety bar, down the side of Lydie’s bed, down the side of Louisa’s bed below, and puddled on the carpet.

We led her up to the Bed of Sickness, flanked by the Big Blech Basins, where she spent the night in a 45-minute cycle. Lydia was stoic in her suffering. “That’s it,” she’d say when it was all over. “No more.” And she’d roll over and go back to sleep.

By 4am Amy had it. By 6, I had it.

Ben survived. We sent him to ski day with a gallon Ziploc bag, just in case. That night, after he came home in good health, we put a bucket on his dresser by his bed and laid a plastic tablecloth on the carpet, expecting Ben to run anchor for us, but so far he’s decided not to participate.

As far as plagues go, it wasn’t all that bad. I can think of worse things happening. By this morning we had all pulled out of it. We made scrambled eggs and hot cocoa and exulted in health, though with a renewed sense of its fragility. We’re more than happy to pass the plague on to the next family. We wouldn’t want to keep it to ourselves.

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