It was only Tuesday evening, and I was already bone-tired. Wrung out. I stepped through the front door of our apartment, peeled off my white disposable KN95 filter mask. Dropped it in the small beige plastic trash bin my boyfriend, Gregory, had mounted on the wall. Squirted hand sanitizer into my palms and rubbed the stinging gel all over my hands and wrists. The alcohol burned inside my nose. I rolled my neck and shoulders to work some of the stiffness out. Unbuttoned my green wool peacoat and hung it and my purse on the coatrack.
I blamed my exhaustion on stress and anxiety. Last week, the world had gotten the worst Valentine’s Day present ever: a new pandemic called PVG. Polymorphic viral gastroencephalitis. It had popped up in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Toronto, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City, and Mexico City at roughly the same time, which made finding Patient Zero (if he or she existed) a challenge. Nobody knew yet where it had come from, exactly how it spread, or what it was likely to do in the long run. All anyone knew for sure was that it was landing people in the hospital with scary symptoms.
Someone on CNN described it as “the stomach flu on nightmare mode,” but apparently it wasn’t an influenza virus. Or a rotavirus or a norovirus, everyone’s favorite cruise ship plagues. It was something new and strange. Our governor hadn’t declared a mask mandate yet, but many of us instinctively fell back on the protective measures we’d learned during the coronavirus years.
It was a relief to be home. Home felt safe. The outside world? Not so much. Even though Gregory and I had built a pretty cozy space for ourselves, I hated the idea that we might be in for months of depressing isolation and shitty delivery food. Months of mostly only getting to see the world secondhand, through screens. I silently prayed that the disease would burn itself out quickly.
“Erin, is that you?” It sounded like he was in the dining room.
“Nope, I’m a burglar.” I hung my keys on one of the brass hooks below our coupon-plastered corkboard. “I’m here to steal your Funko Pops.”
“You’re early! I was expecting the robbery around six thirty.” His tone was cheerful but held an anxious edge.
“Yeah, there wasn’t much traffic this evening.” It occurred to me that I’d just touched my keys, which I’d previously handled with possibly contaminated hands … so I gave myself another sanitizer squirt. We were probably going to have to buy the stuff by the gallon before this was over. Hopefully there hadn’t been a huge run on the stock at Costco yet.
I continued: “It looks like most of the other companies on the West Side have already shifted to work from home.”
My company was headed that direction, too, but it would be another week at least. Universal Corporate Computing had a huge, stegosaurian bureaucracy; change came slowly, when it came at all.
“That’s cool … but don’t come in here yet!” I could hear the scrape and clack of him shuffling china plates. “And don’t look down the hall! Just, uh, look at your feet or something.”
“Okay…” I stared down at my black Chuck Taylors and shucked them off with my toes.
A bright pink business card on the floor below the trash bin caught my eye. I picked it up. The card had an all-over design of fuchsia roses on a light pink background. It bore only a name—Savannah—and a local phone number. No business name, no address.
I didn’t have much time to wonder about the card, or to think to apply yet more hand sanitizer, because Gregory gave a triumphant “Ha! Done!” and rushed into the foyer, his white shirtsleeves rolled up and his shirttails half out over the belt of his khakis. A brown substance I hoped was chocolate was smeared on his breast pocket.
“Don’t look!” He blocked my view of the dining room, waving his arms like he was playing defense in a pickup basketball game. “Cover your eyes, please.”
“Uh, sure.” The alcoholic goo hadn’t quite dried on my hands, so I tucked my upper face into the crook of my arm. Pandemic dabbing.
He took me by the elbow and led me down the hall. As I stepped from carpet to the vinyl planks of our dining room, I smelled soy sauce and burning candles.
“Okay, open!” he declared proudly.
I dropped my arm and beheld our small dining room table decked out in fresh red roses and pink carnations, gold-and-silver streamers, and candles. A glittery gold HAPPY 5TH ANNIVERSARY! banner hung from the wall. Amidst the table decorations was a big platter of fresh sushi decorated with edible blossoms, two place settings from the good china set he’d inherited from his grandmother, lacquered red chopsticks, tall wine flutes, and a dewy green bottle of Riesling from Schaff’s Winery. Their vineyards were south of the city, and we’d gone on a tour there the first weekend we spent together, when we first started dating.
“Ta-da!” He spread his arms wide. “Are you surprised?”
I stared at the table, confused. “But our anniversary isn’t until next week.”
Then panic surged in my throat. Oh God. Had I gotten the dates mixed up? I’d ordered him a new tablet, but it wouldn’t arrive for a bit. “It’s not our anniversary today, is it?”
He laughed and said reassuringly, “No, our anniversary is next week. You’re fine. But it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if I threw this the day of, would it?”
“No, I guess not.” I stared at the table, feeling a little stunned. And deeply touched. None of my previous boyfriends had ever done anything like this. Not even my family had thrown me a big party like this for my birthdays, not since I’d turned ten. Part of me was thrilled, but another part awkwardly wondered if all this was really for me or if I’d suddenly crossed over into the life of some other, more fortunate woman. “Wow, you went all out.”
“Ope!” He’d noticed his shirttail was flopping loose, so he quickly tucked it in, smoothed his short brown hair, and then pulled my chair out for me.
I sat down, absently setting the rosy business card on the table by my plate. “The sushi looks great.” There had to be at least ninety dollars’ worth of artfully sliced rolls and sashimi on the platter. Mostly salmon, tuna, and barbecued eel. My favorites.
“I got it at a new place called Oiwai Sushi.” He smiled. “My boss took our team there for lunch last week. I was really impressed with their tako sashimi. It was nice and firm and fresh. Not watery and limp.” He made a face. “The last time I got it at Hibachichan, it was really disappointing. Like it had been frozen and thawed a couple of times.”
“Yeah, they seem to have gone downhill since their chef quit.”
“Well, you know me … I like to support good places. Especially when it looks like they might be in for a rough ride.”
“Yeah.” I used my chopsticks to grab a couple of pieces of salmon sashimi for my plate. Perfect glossy rectangles of orange fish secured to plump mounds of rice with savory seaweed bands. My mouth was watering in anticipation. “So many good restaurants went under last time … I hope that doesn’t happen again.”
“Your words to God’s ears,” he said. “Anyhow, let’s talk about something more cheerful. How was your day?”
“Pretty good, all things considered. I ran into Mareva Buduci in the lunchroom today and we got to chat about the new Spider-Man movie for a bit before I had to get back. That was fun.”
“She the one you hit it off with at the Christmas party?”
I nodded. Mareva and I had bonded over the new megacephalopod species scientists had recently discovered in the Pacific, when she overheard me geeking out about it. She had a life sciences degree, too, but had gone further and started her Ph.D. I envied her a little for that, even though she’d had to quit for health reasons. “Yep. Nerds of a feather!”
He poured me some wine. “You gonna ask her to hang out after work sometime?”
“Maybe.” I took a sip. It was just as sweet and crisp as I remembered. “Right now, it seems like a bad idea to make any social plans.”
He nodded slightly, looking pensive. “It’s hard to know how careful everyone is, or where they’ve been.”
The cryptic pink business card on the table caught my eye again.
“Speaking of going places…” I picked up the card and flashed it at Gregory. “Where the heck is this from?”
He stared at the card for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he rolled his eyes and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, that. That’s just trash. I was thinking of getting you a massage, and went around to a half dozen places to check them out. After the virus news broke, I tossed all the business cards I picked up. Must have missed the bag with that one.”
“A massage would have been nice.” I smiled and put the card down. “But honestly, I’m just as happy with wine and sushi.”
“Well, this isn’t all of your present. Though the rest isn’t exactly a present. I mean, there’s cake for dessert. But the other thing. I mean. Wait. I’m babbling, aren’t I? Sorry.” He rubbed his palms on his khakis as if to wipe sweat off them, looking nervous and excited.
I nodded, confused. “It’s okay, honey. But what do you mean?”
He cleared his throat, stood up, and smoothed the front of his shirt. Took a deep breath, stuck his hand in his pocket, and strode around the table to me.
“What are you—” I began.
He pulled a red velvet box out of his pocket and got down on one knee beside me.
“Will you marry me?” He opened the box to reveal a glittering, expensive-looking engagement ring. A large, sparkling square diamond flanked by two smaller diamonds on a burnished gold band. At least, I figured they were diamonds. The way they caught the light was mesmerizing.
I was stunned into absolute silence for a moment. Sure, I’d assumed that after five good years, Gregory and I were in it for the long haul, but we’d never really talked about formalizing things. After having spent my teens and college years dating casually indifferent boys and men who mostly all thought a fancy date meant going to Olive Garden, I’d never expected to be the recipient of a grand, romantic proposal like this. I hadn’t imagined it, not once. My brain just didn’t know how to process what was happening.
“Wow,” I finally said, still staring at the expensive-looking ring.
His face fell a little. “If you don’t like it, I can exchange it. We can go look at rings together. I know I should have had you pick out something you like, but it was hard to do that and make this a surprise—”
“No, it’s great,” I assured him. I’d never been especially girly, and since I seldom wore jewelry, I knew close to nothing about it. The ring was pretty, and it wasn’t ostentatious. “It’s perfect.”
He beamed up at me. I scooted my chair around, took his face in my hands, and kissed him deeply.
When we both came up for air, I said, “But.”
He looked nervous again. “But what?”
“But … what brought this on? I mean, we haven’t talked about marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed! I just … want to know what’s happened to change your mind.”
He took a deep breath. “First, I love you, and I want the whole world to know. But the other thing is … the pandemic could last years, like it did before.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” I definitely wasn’t connecting the dots on what he was telling me yet.
“I know. But hear me out. During those years, one of the worst parts—for me, anyway—was feeling like I couldn’t make any plans. Like I didn’t have anything to look forward to. And I want us both to have that. I want us to plan a cool wedding together, and an even cooler honeymoon. I want us to get a house together. A house with a real yard, where you can have an amazing garden. We could have a kid. Maybe a couple of kids. If you want! We could start with a puppy or kitten first. Probably should, in fact.”
He paused anxiously. Tears welled in his eyes. “I mean, if you want all that with me.”
My heart seemed to melt into warm, pink, sugary goo in my chest. “I do want that with you.”
“So you’ll marry me?”
“I will.”
“So, try the ring on! Try it on!” He was adorably excited.
“Okay,” I laughed. “Put it on me, then.”
He carefully extracted the ring from the white satin crease and tried to slip it on my finger. It wouldn’t go past my second knuckle. “Uh-oh. I guess I should have picked a size eight.”
I laughed again. “It’s fine. We can go out this weekend to exchange it, right? I promise you, it’s the thought that counts.”
After we finished our wine and sushi, we went to the bedroom to fool around for a while, then put on our robes and came back out to have dessert. Gregory had gotten an amazing red velvet cake layered with vanilla cream and covered in chocolate ganache. We both had two huge slices, and afterward I was glad we’d gotten busy before dessert, because I was nearly too stuffed to move.
“Oof,” I said. “That cake feels a lot bigger than it looked.”
Gregory surveyed the tableau of dirty plates. “Well, I should attempt to clean this up before my sugar coma hits.”
I started to get up. “I can help you.”
He waved me off. “This was my gift to you. Not much of a gift if you have to do dishes at the end, right? And besides, it won’t take long.”
“Do you mind if I call my family to tell them the news?” I asked.
“I don’t mind at all.” He smiled at me. “Like I said, I want the whole world to know I love you.”
I got up, planted a kiss on the top of his head, and went to get my phone from my purse. On my way into the foyer, I realized that an itchy, stabby pain was building behind my eyes. I felt a little warm, too. Probably I’d had too much wine and the wine had too many sulfites in it. Oh, well. I took a couple of ibuprofen in the kitchen, then went into the bedroom to make my calls.
I had a moment of indecision. Who should I call first, my father or my sister? I didn’t have any other family left to tell. My long-gone grandparents were all only children, and so were my parents.
My mother died of pulmonary fibrosis when I was a junior at Northwestern and Claire was working on her MFA in fine arts at RIT. A long-haul complication of a stupid, random flu infection that just kept getting worse every year. Mom fronted that everything was fine, pretended that the steroids were working and she wasn’t slowly suffocating. My parents’ logic for hiding how sick she’d gotten? We kids needed to focus on college. Her dying was so distracting. They didn’t want me doing something that might endanger my future, like abandoning my classes in the middle of the semester so I could come home to be with her during her final weeks. And I’m sure it was also a matter of their own denial: If they admitted to us that she wasn’t long for the world … well, by default they had to admit it to themselves, didn’t they?
Claire and I both took her death pretty hard, and instead of pulling us together as a family, like you’d see in some heartwarming Hallmark Christmas movie, it created uncomfortable distances. We were upset with Dad that he’d kept the truth from us, and we both collapsed into depression and withdrew from each other. Claire buried herself in her art and anger and made some brilliant pieces, but I mostly hid under the covers. Nearly flunked out.
The three of us still loved and cared about one another, but Mom’s death hurt us all too much, I supposed, even after a decade. Time just hadn’t done a very good job of healing the wounds. I hoped that maybe someday we’d all get back to a better place as a family.
Claire frequently opined that men all low-key suck as romantic partners and I should date women instead. But she seemed to like Gregory well enough anyway. So I decided to call her first.
But the phone went to her voice mail: “Hey, this is Claire. I’m probably in the garage blowing glass, or Liz and I are out gardening. Leave a message.” In the background of the recording, I could hear one of her Yorkshire terriers yapping for attention.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said. “Got some great news … Gregory and I are going to get married whenever it’s safe to have a ceremony. I hope you’d like to be in the wedding. Matron of honor? No pressure. But let’s talk about it. Please call me back!”
I ended the call. Pain spiked behind my left eye, and my stomach churned sourly. Ugh, the sushi, wine, and cake were not sitting well. I got a bottle of Pepto from the linen closet, took a disgusting thick pink shot, and dialed my father in Leander, Texas. He still lived in the house Claire and I had grown up in. The house our mother died in.
“Hello, young’un!” It sounded like he was on the old landline in the kitchen; I could hear the white noise of the vent fan and the pop and crackle of something frying. “What’s new with you?”
“Hey, Dad.” I sat down on the bed. “I just wanted to tell you that Gregory and I are going to get married. He proposed this evening!”
“Well, that’s fine news! I’m so pleased to—”
Whatever he was about to say was cut off by the panicky beeping of his smoke alarm. The screechy noise made my skull throb.
“Grease fire! Gotta go!” His shout felt like an ax in my forehead.
“Call Saturday?” I gasped.
“Yup. Love ya!” He hung up.
A sharp cramp hit me like a baseball bat in the gut.
“Shit!” I curled up on my side on the bed, hugging my knees, hoping the cramp would pass. It did not. The increasing pain made my eyes water. It felt like a glob of lava boiling in my stomach. The heat of it spread up my neck into my skull, making the pounding behind my eyes ten times worse. Tears rolled down my cheeks. My whole body broke out in a sweat and I started to shiver. Magma leaked out of my stomach, into my intestines. A searing bolus snaked through my gurgling bowels.
Oh Jesus. Bad fish? The sushi had seemed so fresh. Damn it. I sat up, shrugged out of my fluffy purple robe—no good in getting vomit or diarrhea all over it—and stumbled into the bathroom.
I flinched when I turned on the light and saw myself in the mirror. My face and chest had turned a bright, fevered red. My eyes were glassy, the whites deeply bloodshot, like I’d just smoked an entire bowl of Purple Haze. My blue irises had gone nearly white.
Another cramp made me double over and curse in pain. A tear dripped off my nose, onto the white tiles, and splattered red between my feet. Blood. I was crying blood. What the hell?
This isn’t food poisoning, a little voice warned in the back of my head. But I quickly pushed the thought away. No. I’d been so careful. It couldn’t be PVG.
Vomit rose in my throat. I barely had time to lunge for the toilet and fling the lid up before I hurled. Pepto-pink chunks splattered into the bowl as I gagged. Acidic rice stuck in my sinuses, burned. I broke out in a sweat again, and my trembling muscles felt like they were turning to overcooked noodles.
I groaned, swore, and barfed again. This time it was dark red. The cake, I guessed.
My vision was starting to blur, and it felt like all I could do to cling to the toilet. Shivering. Thank God we’d cleaned the bathroom a couple of days before so I wasn’t sitting naked in pee splatter and hair. And I hadn’t shit myself yet. Small mercies.
I heard Gregory step into the bathroom and cross the tiles.
“Honey, are you okay in here?” It sounded like he was a few feet behind me. “Oh, you poor thing! Do you want me to hold your hair?”
I nodded, moaning. He knelt beside me, gently gathered my sweaty brown hair at the nape of my neck, and pulled sticky strands away from my face.
“Thank you,” I tried to say, but instead I vomited copiously into the bowl. Red. So much red. As scarlet as the anniversary roses on the dining room table. I didn’t eat that much cake, did I?
Then I realized I was smelling iron.
Gregory froze beside me. “I think that’s blood. I think that’s a lotof blood.”
He dropped my hair, stood up. Backed away. “I—I’m going to get you some help.”
Please don’t go I’m so scared, I wanted to say, but I was throwing up again, purging the remains of the expensive anniversary dinner. Painfully bleeding out through my throat. Dying. I was sure of it. ...
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