Page 4 of Maybe Some Other Time
The Fog
There was no going straight to the market after picking up Robbie and Debbie from their respective schools. From the moment Thelma approached Grover Cleveland Elementary, her daughter’s hand in hers, she saw the look of distress on her son’s face.
“Ireallydon’t feel good…”
With a surge of children rushing by them, their cries louder than the wind blowing through Thelma’s hair, she held her hand to his forehead again.
This time, there was definitely a fever.
“Oh, Robbie.” That was her quiet apology to her son, who could barely stay upright on the fifteen-minute walk home. Yet with Debbie’s hand in one grasp and Robbie’s in the other, Thelma trudged forward, dragging both children behind her.
She left Debbie in front of the television so she could help Robbie into his pajamas and lay him on the couch. Thelma called the doctor’s office, but it was too late in the day to get Robbie seen. So she scheduled an appointment for the morning,assuming his fever held, but the receptionist mentioned that there was a flu going around the schools.
Debbie will probably get it, then.Thelma tucked her son beneath a blanket and asked him what he wanted to watch on TV. After changing dinner plans to canned soup and green beans, she went upstairs to grab Robbie’s teddy bear that he still secretly slept with. He didn’t like to admit it at his age, but Thelma knew—and her boy didn’t complain when she tucked it beneath his arm.I will probably get it.With any luck, Thelma wasn’t already infected and had passed it on to Sandy.
Sandy…
How quickly the mood of the day changed.
Thelma almost forgot that her friend had left something in the bedroom when she departed.Fine thing if Bill found that!Yet Thelma was quick to snatch up the little love note Sandy scrawled while Thelma freshened up in the bathroom after their passionate tryst. She let herself furtively read it before tucking it into her dress pocket. It was barely big enough to contain her driving gloves, let alone a note from her friend, but there was a reason Thelma had bought three of the same style of dress after realizingthiskind came with tiny pockets.
With any luck, she would remember to empty them before doing laundry…
Well, there wasn’t any time to consider that with a sick child in her house. Bill would be home from work around six, and it was the one time he wanted coffee.Not in the morning. It has to be with dinner.Even canned soup and green beans required coffee.
Robbie was asleep on the couch when Bill arrived home ten minutes early, his eyes going straight to the scene in his living room. Debbie had hopped up on the couch by her brother’s feet and played with a doll in her lap while a prime-time game show began on the television. While removing his hat and puttingdown his bag, Bill wordlessly looked at his wife back in the kitchen.
“Robbie’s sick,” she mouthed at him.
Bill snuck up behind the couch and checked on his son before coming into the kitchen. “How bad?”
Soup was moved off the stove. “We’ll find out tomorrow when I take him to the doctor. I’m keeping him home from school.”
“Kid got what he wanted, huh?”
“Don’t be too hard on him. He’s been sleeping it off most of the evening. Poor thing has congestion, too. I heard him sneezing.”
“A cold?”
“Could be a flu. The doctor’s receptionist said it’s going around.”
Bill said nothing as he went upstairs to get ready for dinner.
Thelma finished prepping their supper. Usually, she would call the children into the kitchen or dining room to eat together, but this felt like a TV tray and primetime show night—assuming she could get Robbie to sit up long enough to eat.At least Debbie will be excited.Thelma’s youngest loved it when the family sat in the living room for supper, even if she had to be extra careful about making a mess.
When she attempted to wake up Robbie and get him ready to eat, he hung his head back, slightly drooling.
“Oh, look at you.” Thelma wiped the dribble away with the handkerchief she carried. “My poor, pitiful Robbie. Can I get you something, pickle?”
He didn’t respond to one of her nicknames for him the way he usually did. Instead, he grunted, rubbing his eye and sniffing so hard it sounded like his brains were about to blend in the back of his head.
“Milk,” he said.
“What was that?”
He remained woefully collapsed in the corner of the couch, but was louder when he next spoke. “Can I please have some milk?”
“Of course. Just a second.” Thelma retreated to the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator—and instantly recalled that there hadn’t been a delivery in two days.
