Pests
It starts with a sniffle.
“Are you getting sick?” I ask my stepson one morning as he digs into a bowl of yogurt.
“No,” he reassures me. “I only feel something weird in my left nostril.”
Perhaps it’s true at the time, but within a day the right nostril catches up, and then the throat joins in with a dry cough.
Oh no, I think, as I drive my other son to preschool—the time of pestilence is upon us.
At the door to his classroom, I remove our shoes and walk in to see toddlers gathered around a big bowl of cut-up fruit: thinly sliced apples and gooey banana medallions smushed together. Sticky fingers reach into the bowl. On one side of the room, a child gnaws on a wooden train as a trail of slime runs down her nose. I give my son a hug and quickly flee. Outside, the birch trees are turning yellow, the rowan berries red, and the dandelion leaves are as long as my forearm. It may be August, but there’s no misreading the signs: autumn has arrived. I return in the afternoon and find my son happily playing, his mint green outfit covered in sand, color-coordinated mucus smeared on his face.
It’s impressive how many germs a child picks up: there are the classic cold, flu, and RSV bugs. Strep throat and pink eye and ear infections. Hand, foot, and mouth. The dreaded stomach virus that hardens a parent, teaching us to spring into action at the slightest gag. Moving on, there are parasites: pinworms and lice lurking in the shadows of our subconscious, as if denial could prevent infestation.
Hands go in mouths, shared toys are tasted, objects that should never pass the lips inevitably enter them. In my womb, my son tasted what I ate through the amniotic fluid. Now, it’s my turn to share the germs he’s picked up. And despite hand washing, antibacterial wipes, and prayers, the pests eventually win.
“I’m not getting sick,” I tell my husband as I sip homemade ginger tea, “I just feel something weird in the left side of my throat.”
He laughs, but the next day, when I speak in a stuffed, nasal tone, he says, “You sound really bad.”
I keep my toddler home so we can cough and sneeze together, conjoined in crankiness. “No afternoon walks,” I say. “Mama is tired.”
I put him in the carrier he usually doesn’t like, similar to the one I used when he was three months old and would only nap held close to my chest. We spent endless time glued together in those early days, which I remember as a crazed tapestry of sleep deprivation.
Now, his legs thump into my thighs as I rock him at the window and start a running tally of his favorite things. “Look, a red car. A black car. A white car. A silver car. A bus.”
“Bus!” he shouts.
I sway and count the cars, noticing the raven flying overhead, a woman walking a black and white dog, the garden bed, its dark purple kale gone to seed. I put so much effort into avoiding illness that I forget how it creates lulls like this in busy routines, allowing me to slow down and be present. My son yawns and I tread softly to the bedroom and transfer him to his crib.
When he wakes from his nap, he’s mellow and cuddly, wanting to use my body as a pillow. I rest my cheek on his scratchy hair and inhale. His scalp normally smells like calendula and drool, but my nose isn’t working properly, so I make out only an animalic warmth, like sun-warmed hay. Lazily, he drives his toy bus along the couch. I ignore my scratchy throat and pull him in for one more hug.