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And while I’m a firm believer in keeping the romance alive, I’m not sure how I feel about that when it’s my parents.
I’m also doing my very best not to think about how my mother recently special ordered a book called Passion and Fire for the Middle-Aged Couple.
I’m up early, as usual, and hurry through my routine, aware that the house feels quiet and strange with only me in it. I’m halfway through my shower when out of nowhere, a wave of nausea rolls through my body, making my skin hurt.
It’s the kind of nausea that can only mean one thing: I’m getting sick.
Or maybe something I ate last night didn’t agree with me.
Or maybe this is food poisoning.
Or maybe this is how I die.
I hurry and finish in the shower, and as I’m getting dressed, another wave hits. This one brings me to my knees, right in front of the toilet.
I grip the cold porcelain sides and thank the Lord that my mom keeps the bathrooms clean.
Definitely not the way I wanted to spend the morning.
I stumble back into my room and pull on a pair of clean pajama pants, dropping back into bed with a thud. I pull out my phone and voice text Reagan, who is surprisingly, my steadiest employee.
“I’m really sick from food, period. Handle the market without me today, question mark.” My head is spinning, and there are beads of sweat gathering above my upper lip. It’s going to take all of my energy not to throw up all day, I can already tell. “Call someone cover, question mark.”
Seconds later, Reagan calls me.
I click the phone on and swallow a wave of nausea back down. “Blech. Hey.”
“Whoa. You sound awful.”
“I feel awful,” I say.
“Your text made no sense, so I needed to make sure you’re not delirious.”
I glance down at my phone and hit messages. Through squinted eyes I see that it didn’t automatically put the punctuation in there, so it reads like I got sick from a food period.
I respond with another groan.
“I know that math teacher didn’t give you anything, where’d you pick this up?”
“Might be food poisoning?” I moan. “And he teaches English.”
“What did you eat?” Reagan asks.
The thought of last night’s tilapia is accompanied by another wave of nausea. “I cannot think about food right now.”
“Sorry,” she says. “Do you need anything?”
“No, and I don’t want to leave you in a—”
“Emmy, it’s fine. I got this,” she says. “I’ll call Jenny. I’m sure she’ll come to the market with me.”
Jenny might be the nighttime baker, but she’s worked the market lots of times. Logically, I know they will, in fact, be fine. Reagan is competent. More than competent.
But I still feel like I’m shirking my responsibilities.
But then I feel the nausea coming back around, bubbling up from my gut and burning my throat. “I gotta—” I drop the phone and rush to the bathroom.
It’s going to be a very long day.
