Page 73 of A Happy Catastrophe

And then, because I can’t stand hearing him say again that he loves me, but in this teeny tiny way that can’t exist except in some rarefied air that only Patrick can appreciate and cultivate, I hang up. I want love that you can see and feel and touch and eat dinner with and sleep in the bed next to. I want love that shines through everything—all the doubt and uncertainty. I want love that says, “So if we can’t make a baby together, what can we do to have a family?” And that is not something Patrick can ever even imagine.

CHAPTER FORTY

PATRICK

One morning, Patrick wakes up to find Fritzie standing beside his bed. Staring at him. She has her phone flashlight on and is beaming it—not at his eyes directly, but around and around in circles close to his eyes. It hits his chest, head, and the wall behind his bed. Close enough to his eyeballs that they fly open, ready to usher in a full-body freak-out mode, if that’s what’s needed here. And it seems to be.

“WHA—what?” he says and sits bolt upright in the bed.

“I threw up.”

“You threw up? Where?”

“In my bed.”

He turns on the light. Thinks of swearing, then doesn’t.

He’s heard of this kind of thing—vomit in the middle of the night—and he knows that outside of drug arrests, sharp sticks in the eye, or car crashes, this is the bane of parenting. It’s 3:22, according to the red numerals on his bedside clock, and he has no option but to get up. She smells horrible. Dealing with this situation cannot be put off.

“Okay,” he says. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. She’s standing there, looking decidedly unfresh. Perhaps even with a shade of green to her face, although that could simply be the bad lighting. He sees that she’ll need new pajamas.

Okay.

So . . . what he will need to do . . . go to the bed where the stuff is, strip the sheets off the bed, then throw them into the washing machine, find new sheets (oh please, oh please let them be washed and dried in the linen closet) and remake the bed. (Possibly he will have to keep himself from . . . also . . . hurling, due to the sight and the smell.) There will be a need for new pajamas, toothpaste, assurances, resettlement. He looks over at her, slumped now against the wall. Poor little kid. He knows that look. She looks like someone who is possibly going to have to have another go-round . . . or maybe twelve more go-rounds. Depends on which nightmare scenario they are in.

An indeterminate amount of time later—the sun has come up, gone away again, snow fell then turned to sleet and then rain, continents formed and were swallowed by the Earth’s oceans—he can report with some confidence that they have entered the dreaded “twelve more go-rounds” nightmare. Great. Every hour throughout the day it happens again. She has a fever, too, and when he looks into her sad little face, he thinks that her eyes are hollowed out, that she’s possibly a zombie, and that if it wouldn’t make her even sicker, she would probably be intent on eating his brains.

She sleeps in fits and starts, tossing back and forth in her bed, moaning, and then she lifts her head up, leans over the side of the bed for the trash can he’s provided for her deposits, makes terrible noises, and flops back down. Groans.

The doctor’s office says to give her small sips of sugar water. Or ginger ale. Popsicles. And no, they don’t wish to see her. It’s a virus. The flu. It’s going around. He should wash his hands a lot and drink plenty of fluids himself. And good luck to him. Call if her temperature goes over 105 or if she goes into convulsions.

Convulsions!

Thanks, he says. Thanks loads.

She is unwilling to take a sip of anything, which is bad. He decides she is baking from the inside out. If she drank water, it would probably boil inside her. She’s that hot. So he figures out ways to coax her.

“You know who would be so silly not to drink anything when she’s sick?” he says. “Ariel the Little Mermaid. Anybody who would give their voice away would think it was a great idea not to drink anything! Luckily you’re smarter than that.”

She looks at him through hollow eyes. Not going to buy it.

Bedford and Roy seem to be of the opinion that death is imminent. Bedford deals by staying close by the bed, watching intently, while Roy begs to be allowed to go back and live in the studio. They both look at Patrick with expressions of disgust. Are you just going to let this happen, man? Come to your senses and stop this! And also, I need to be fed.

It goes on like this for three miserable days, which he wouldn’t have thought even possible. She gets up for only minutes each day, leaning on him to hobble to the bathroom and then to hobble her way back. Her little arms feel like sticks to him, and when he helps her change her pajamas, he feels heartbroken at the sight of those sharp little shoulder blades. Did they always stick up so much? How do children make it through life when they have so little meat on their bones?

He should ask for help. Ariana, maybe. Or Emily Turner. Marnie might even know what to do. But the truth is: he knows what to do. He was the goddamned medical writer; he knows every symptom and what it means. Fluids, sleep, bites of food. Keep the fever down.

Be vigilant, says his brain.

He feeds her minuscule pieces of crackers and holds a cup of ginger ale to her lips and urges her to sip, only sip, don’t gulp. But drink the whole cupful. He sends out for popsicles and brings those to her like an offering. He and Bedford take their place beside her bed for hours at a time. After day two, Patrick brings in his laptop and stretches out next to her on the bed and shows her movies. They watch everything Pixar ever thought about. Then he shows her Forrest Gump, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Heidi, The Three Stooges. He cries when Forrest Gump’s mother dies. And when the Titanic sinks. When he even cries over Moe getting hit on the head, he has to go into the bathroom and splash water on his face and have a talk with himself.

He brings cloths for her head. He holds her hand. He sings, at her insistence, “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor,” and she gazes at him with those enormous, red-rimmed eyes, and she says, “Thank you, Patwick.” It breaks him.

He falls asleep on the floor beside her bed at night, after dragging in his comforter and pillow. Lying on the floor this way, he thinks he can hear the thumping of drums or the low thrum of a bass from downstairs. The hordes of teenagers are playing music. He concentrates on watching the moon through her window.

He’d forgotten about the moon and the sky. It seems he needs to keep track of them so he doesn’t forget them again.

And then, five days after it started, it’s over. One morning at five o’clock, he is startled awake by her voice. “Patrick! Patrick! Hey, Art Man! Ricky! Wake up! What the heck are you doing sleeping on the floor? Let’s go have some ice cream.”

Ice cream? Ice cream?

He looks at her through his bleary eyes. She’s perfectly fine, as if the last five days had been a figment of his imagination, as if she hadn’t looked for days like she might die. She has come roaring back to life. Wants to take a shower, go outside, walk to Paco’s. Can they go to Best Buds, see their old friends? What if they went in his studio and did an art project? Maybe he could make some more of those things he was making, the sculptures that everybody liked so much. She was dreaming of how to make them. She could probably make them, too. She’s bouncing on the bed. Her eyes are bright. He thinks that haircut, radical as it was, actually looks cute on her. Brings out her eyes.

hen, because I can’t stand hearing him say again that he loves me, but in this teeny tiny way that can’t exist except in some rarefied air that only Patrick can appreciate and cultivate, I hang up. I want love that you can see and feel and touch and eat dinner with and sleep in the bed next to. I want love that shines through everything—all the doubt and uncertainty. I want love that says, “So if we can’t make a baby together, what can we do to have a family?” And that is not something Patrick can ever even imagine.

CHAPTER FORTY

PATRICK

One morning, Patrick wakes up to find Fritzie standing beside his bed. Staring at him. She has her phone flashlight on and is beaming it—not at his eyes directly, but around and around in circles close to his eyes. It hits his chest, head, and the wall behind his bed. Close enough to his eyeballs that they fly open, ready to usher in a full-body freak-out mode, if that’s what’s needed here. And it seems to be.

“WHA—what?” he says and sits bolt upright in the bed.

“I threw up.”

“You threw up? Where?”

“In my bed.”

He turns on the light. Thinks of swearing, then doesn’t.

He’s heard of this kind of thing—vomit in the middle of the night—and he knows that outside of drug arrests, sharp sticks in the eye, or car crashes, this is the bane of parenting. It’s 3:22, according to the red numerals on his bedside clock, and he has no option but to get up. She smells horrible. Dealing with this situation cannot be put off.

“Okay,” he says. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. She’s standing there, looking decidedly unfresh. Perhaps even with a shade of green to her face, although that could simply be the bad lighting. He sees that she’ll need new pajamas.

Okay.

So . . . what he will need to do . . . go to the bed where the stuff is, strip the sheets off the bed, then throw them into the washing machine, find new sheets (oh please, oh please let them be washed and dried in the linen closet) and remake the bed. (Possibly he will have to keep himself from . . . also . . . hurling, due to the sight and the smell.) There will be a need for new pajamas, toothpaste, assurances, resettlement. He looks over at her, slumped now against the wall. Poor little kid. He knows that look. She looks like someone who is possibly going to have to have another go-round . . . or maybe twelve more go-rounds. Depends on which nightmare scenario they are in.

An indeterminate amount of time later—the sun has come up, gone away again, snow fell then turned to sleet and then rain, continents formed and were swallowed by the Earth’s oceans—he can report with some confidence that they have entered the dreaded “twelve more go-rounds” nightmare. Great. Every hour throughout the day it happens again. She has a fever, too, and when he looks into her sad little face, he thinks that her eyes are hollowed out, that she’s possibly a zombie, and that if it wouldn’t make her even sicker, she would probably be intent on eating his brains.

She sleeps in fits and starts, tossing back and forth in her bed, moaning, and then she lifts her head up, leans over the side of the bed for the trash can he’s provided for her deposits, makes terrible noises, and flops back down. Groans.

The doctor’s office says to give her small sips of sugar water. Or ginger ale. Popsicles. And no, they don’t wish to see her. It’s a virus. The flu. It’s going around. He should wash his hands a lot and drink plenty of fluids himself. And good luck to him. Call if her temperature goes over 105 or if she goes into convulsions.

Convulsions!

Thanks, he says. Thanks loads.

She is unwilling to take a sip of anything, which is bad. He decides she is baking from the inside out. If she drank water, it would probably boil inside her. She’s that hot. So he figures out ways to coax her.

“You know who would be so silly not to drink anything when she’s sick?” he says. “Ariel the Little Mermaid. Anybody who would give their voice away would think it was a great idea not to drink anything! Luckily you’re smarter than that.”

She looks at him through hollow eyes. Not going to buy it.

Bedford and Roy seem to be of the opinion that death is imminent. Bedford deals by staying close by the bed, watching intently, while Roy begs to be allowed to go back and live in the studio. They both look at Patrick with expressions of disgust. Are you just going to let this happen, man? Come to your senses and stop this! And also, I need to be fed.

It goes on like this for three miserable days, which he wouldn’t have thought even possible. She gets up for only minutes each day, leaning on him to hobble to the bathroom and then to hobble her way back. Her little arms feel like sticks to him, and when he helps her change her pajamas, he feels heartbroken at the sight of those sharp little shoulder blades. Did they always stick up so much? How do children make it through life when they have so little meat on their bones?

He should ask for help. Ariana, maybe. Or Emily Turner. Marnie might even know what to do. But the truth is: he knows what to do. He was the goddamned medical writer; he knows every symptom and what it means. Fluids, sleep, bites of food. Keep the fever down.

Be vigilant, says his brain.

He feeds her minuscule pieces of crackers and holds a cup of ginger ale to her lips and urges her to sip, only sip, don’t gulp. But drink the whole cupful. He sends out for popsicles and brings those to her like an offering. He and Bedford take their place beside her bed for hours at a time. After day two, Patrick brings in his laptop and stretches out next to her on the bed and shows her movies. They watch everything Pixar ever thought about. Then he shows her Forrest Gump, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Heidi, The Three Stooges. He cries when Forrest Gump’s mother dies. And when the Titanic sinks. When he even cries over Moe getting hit on the head, he has to go into the bathroom and splash water on his face and have a talk with himself.

He brings cloths for her head. He holds her hand. He sings, at her insistence, “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor,” and she gazes at him with those enormous, red-rimmed eyes, and she says, “Thank you, Patwick.” It breaks him.

He falls asleep on the floor beside her bed at night, after dragging in his comforter and pillow. Lying on the floor this way, he thinks he can hear the thumping of drums or the low thrum of a bass from downstairs. The hordes of teenagers are playing music. He concentrates on watching the moon through her window.

He’d forgotten about the moon and the sky. It seems he needs to keep track of them so he doesn’t forget them again.

And then, five days after it started, it’s over. One morning at five o’clock, he is startled awake by her voice. “Patrick! Patrick! Hey, Art Man! Ricky! Wake up! What the heck are you doing sleeping on the floor? Let’s go have some ice cream.”

Ice cream? Ice cream?

He looks at her through his bleary eyes. She’s perfectly fine, as if the last five days had been a figment of his imagination, as if she hadn’t looked for days like she might die. She has come roaring back to life. Wants to take a shower, go outside, walk to Paco’s. Can they go to Best Buds, see their old friends? What if they went in his studio and did an art project? Maybe he could make some more of those things he was making, the sculptures that everybody liked so much. She was dreaming of how to make them. She could probably make them, too. She’s bouncing on the bed. Her eyes are bright. He thinks that haircut, radical as it was, actually looks cute on her. Brings out her eyes.

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