Throughout the night, Jim was interrupted every hour by another child. Even Cece complained of a headache. Each time Jim would drag himself from his dreams and follow his child back across the dark hall, give them cold medicine and tuck them into bed, then fall back to sleep. By the time it was morning, Jim totaled about four hours of sleep. Pam slumbered straight through the alarm.
Pam lost count of how long she slept. She would wake up to full a glass of water and a cup full of pink, bubblegum flavored stomach medicine. She gave a smile each time. Jim really thought she was sick. And maybe she really was, but something else pulled at the back of her mind. A twinge of worry that she wasn’t sick. That this might be something else entirely.
The third time, Pam decided Jim had done enough for her, and she dragged herself into the living room. What she came upon was the second disaster of the week.
Cece and Philip were bundled in old quilts and splayed across the couch. Each clutched a plastic bowl full of vomit that Pam was fairly sure she had eaten from before. Jim was seated on the floor, his back leaned against the side of the arm chair, rocking Laura, whose nose seemed unnaturally red.
At the sight of Pam, Jim leaped up, rolling Laura into her baby swing.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, gathering her in his arms. Pam shook him off with a small laugh, wiping a sheen of sweat from her sickly face. Everything seemed blurred around the edges, all noises muffled. Pam’s mind was racing in irrational circles, she suddenly couldn’t remember if it was a school day, did the kids need to be fed? No, they were sick. Was she sick? How would she work like this? Did Jim realize she didn’t even have a fever?
She hardly protested when Jim tugged her over to the couch and nestled Philip on her lap. She found herself staring at the wall, which Jim had dubbed the art wall. Ever since Cece had proudly carried home her first finger paint project in preschool, every trinket, piece of artwork, and project the kids had concocted had been affixed to the wall. Now Pam let her mind swim into oblivion as her thoughts sunk into the mass of dripped paint and sparkly stickers.
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali
© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali