There was no greater sin in Ashwin’s world than breaking a clean plate, and he elbowed me aside imperiously to sweep up the mess. Even Sandeep yelled at me.
I crept away into the back to get ice, and to my embarrassment, leaked a few tears as I reached into the freezer.
“Get ahold of yourself, Sheridan,” I muttered into the frozen silence. It felt so good in there. So cool. I decided to go out and apologize to Sandeep. I couldn’t afford to lose my job over something as stupid as a couple of plates.
I pulled my head out to see Ashwin, staring at me.
“You’re talkin’ to yerself,” he said, shortly, but then his tone softened. “And your face is rare flushed.”
I wiped my eyes. “I’m okay. I just have a bit of a headache. I’m sorry about the plates, Ash.”
Holding the bag of ice in one hand, I turned to leave the kitchen, but Ashwin put his hand on my arm. “Ash …” I said, but he reached up and touched my cheek.
“Either yer just entering puberty, or ye’ve got the chickenpox,” he said. “Yer face is covered in spots.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I had chickenpox in fifth grade,” I said, and fainted dead away.
I have a vague memory of a conversation with a doctor, though I have no recollection of how I’d made it to his office.
“Young lady, I’m afraid you have indeed succumbed to chickenpox,” he said, washing his hands. I stared at the water sluicing across his long white fingers. “When were you exposed?”
“I have no idea. Maybe at work?”
He dried his hands on a paper towel. “Aye, perhaps. I’m surprised to see it, in truth. Most people get it over with as children.”
“I don’t have any children,” I mumbled. “I’m never around children.”
The doctor spoke to someone behind me. “The confusion is normal, I’m afraid. This’ll be no easy week,” he said, and I turned to see Morag sitting there. “It’s fair serious for an adult to go through.”
She nodded at him and smiled at me kindly, and then suddenly we were in her truck.
My glasses knocked against the side window as she drove.
“I’m sorry, Morag,” I whispered, so my head would not fall off my neck.
“Can’t be helped, pet,” she said.
The doctor was right.
I cannot remember ever having been so sick. I think I may have slept that first night curled around the toilet on my bathroom floor. All I know for sure is that the visit to the doctor began what I remember as my month of darkness.
It was a bad month. And it was not lost on me that it was pretty much the only warm month of the year in the Highlands.
July 12
Notes to self:
It’s Wednesday, possibly, or maybe Thursday. I have a vague memory of Morag bringing me a wet cloth sometime recently. I found it a few minutes ago, under my pillow.
I also made the mistake of looking at myself in the bathroom last night. My glands are swollen, so my face is completely round. Round and covered with red, oozing blisters. I’m hoping this thing just takes me. I can never go out in public again.
July 13, I think.
Dreamed of the water horse. The kid who hid behind me on the shores of Loch Ness was covered in scabs, wasn’t he? What had his auntie called him ...?
Oh yeah—the little shite.
She was right.
July 16
Woke up thinking of Hamish. I must have infected him. I pulled a t-shirt on over my pajama top and staggered out to get my bike. I nearly made it to the kissing gate before Morag caught me.
“What in the name of all that’s holy...?”
She seemed kinda out of breath. I think maybe she ran all the way from the kitchen.
So I told her that I needed to see Hamish. What if I’d made him sick?
She wrested the bike from my hands and told me I was delusional. And all the way back to my room, I tried to talk her into letting me go to him. As sick as I was – he would be so much worse for being so big.
But Morag was having none of it. She tucked me back into bed – literally jamming the sheets under the mattress so that I was trussed flat as a pack of cello-wrapped chicken.
I gave it one last shot. “What if he gets scars on his abs?”
This last thought made me burst into tears.
Morag looked alarmed, an she promised to call Hamish at Geordie’s before she turned out the light.
Sometime later that night, I remember her sticking her head into my room. “The great bastard’s had them,” she reported.
Relief washed over me. “Oh, that’s such good news,” I said into the darkness. “He’ll be safe, then.”
“Safe as houses, pet,” she said, and closed the door.