Who did you have contact with today?
Yesterday?
Two days ago?
A week ago?
“I think I’m getting sick.”
“Well, fuck.”
“I have a phone appointment tomorrow.”
“Please don’t tell me you mean COVID because that means I have to self-isolate.”
“I don’t know. I have a fever-“
I lose focus beyond this sentence.
I saw this person for 20 minutes two days ago. We’re preparing to move, so purging our stuff and I dropped a couple of things off to them. I wore a mask most of the time and left abruptly when their neighbor, whom I have never met, came up right behind me, without a mask. I used hand sanitizer the minute I got into the car, but I read this sentence, “I have a fever-“ while I’m paying for my purchases at Target and my breath catches in my throat.
I keep it there.
I briefly touch my mask, making sure it’s covering my mouth and nose completely, and my eyes dart around the entire six-foot radius of where I’m standing. I hurriedly finish my transaction, grab my receipt and all but run to my car. I don’t breathe again until I’ve wiped down my purchases and the cart then close the car door behind me.
I squirt way too much hand sanitizer on my hands, rubbing it up my arms, too, as well as the area around my mouth and nose, just in case.
I start the car but don’t drive yet. As the air-conditioner blows on me I think of my immunocompromised 20-year-old, my sweet 12-year-old, my beautiful husband, as well as the clerk at the post office with whom I held an interaction about our brain-injured children before my trip to Target. I’d worn my mask and stood on the line indicated on the floor, but my bare hands on the keypad haunt me now.
I’d also purchased something from the electronics department at Target and am grateful the clerk there was behind the Plexiglas and wearing a mask.
I think of the unmasked children I passed with their unmasked mother in the aisles.
I think of my immunocompromised friends, one of whom is dropping a TV off to us this weekend, and one to whom I’m supposed to drop an item tomorrow. (I won’t now.)
I message my best friend in the medical field and tell her I am freaking out. She sends me testing site information. I schedule a test the minute I get home. I have to wait a day and a half for the test. Then two to five days for the results. Hopefully. It could be longer if the lab is backed up.
We’re in the middle of a Pandemic in which states are opening way too soon. Two hairstylists went to work, having tested positive, and exposed 140+ people to the virus, but a friend on my timeline REALLY needs her hair dyed.
Who have you come in contact with today?
Yesterday?
Two days ago?
A week ago?
By the time you test positive will you know how many people you have potentially exposed to the virus. How will the deaths you potentially cause sit on your soul because you needed to dine out… get a haircut… go to the beach?
“I don’t know. I don’t have a fever. Just a sore throat.”
Wait.
“I don’t have a fever.”
WAIT.
“Don’t.”
Tears stream down my face in relief. The person I visited two days ago DOESN’T have a fever. Just a sore throat.
I’m still going to my test in two days and I hope they do, too.
Who have you come in contact with today?
Yesterday?
Two days ago?
A week ago?