Page 10 of Wildflowers

“Okay.”

“The second you say anything that could put us in danger, I disconnect the call.”

I kneel down in front of the iron bars. “Understood.”

First comes the ringing. It goes on and on until the call rings out. He immediately tries again, and this time my mom picks up.

“Astrid? Sweetie?”

“Mom,” I say with relief.

“We’ve been trying you for days.”

“I am sorry. I got caught up with work and everything that’s been happening,” I say. “Didn’t mean to make you worry. Are you okay?”

She pauses to cough—and my stomach sinks through the floor. “Your dad and I are fine. Just a touch of that flu that’s going around. But we don’t have it bad like those other poor souls.”

“Oh. That’s, um, that’s good.”

“We probably caught it at pickleball on Friday. But we won the game, so it was worth it!”

“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to go to that.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she says. “If it was safe enough for you to pop out to buy groceries, it was safe enough for us to go get some exercise.”

And the compassion in Dean’s gaze just might wreck me.

Say he released me now, and I got in my car and drove. All of the ways out of the city are clogged with people who were trying to flee the virus. There’s been footage of the dead sitting in their cars, caught in traffic forever more.

But say I found a way around it all and got out of the city. San Francisco is a ten-hour drive. I don’t have enough gas in the car and no idea if the gas stations are still open. Though siphoning from the tanks of the recently deceased would work. So, say I managed to get all the way there and I’m in time. Miracle of miracles, Mom and Dad and my brother and his wife are all still alive. I nurse them through their last moments. I get to be there and hold their hands and tell them I love them to their faces.

Of course, I’ve then been exposed to the virus also and will soon be dead.

The end.

“Your brother and Emily were over last night to check on us,” says Mom. “They brought homemade soup. It seems like everyone has a touch of it. Don’t get me wrong, flu season is awful every year. But this time it’s just running wild.”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t sound congested,” she says. “That’s good.”

“I’ve managed to dodge it so far.”

“Wonderful. Make sure you wear your mask if you go out and keep washing your hands, won’t you?”

“Mm.” I try to smile so she can hear it in my voice. But I can’t stop the tears from falling down my face. “Tell me about your pickleball win.”

I don’t know what to do with myself. I am sad and hurt and angry. Both at Dean and myself and at the world at large. What I should have done is push to call Mom sooner. But it’s not like I took the virus seriously until now. They had supplies; there was no need for my parents to go out. She’d given me her word they’d stay safely at home. Pickleball, of all fucking things. Though it’s not like I was any better—leaving the safety of my apartment in search of cake. Would I be dead now had I gone shopping?

Probably.

Mom and I talked for half an hour. That’s when she began to worry something was wrong. Guess I sounded maudlin, going over old memories and so on. Like my captor said, my personality is generally sunshine. Something proving hard to maintain under current conditions. Mom cut up carrots, apples, and ginger for a juice while we spoke. It’s her fix for the virus. How I wish it were so easy.

I told her I loved her, and I told my dad, too. There’s not much else I can do. And I hate being so helpless.

By the time we say our goodbyes, my eyes are swollen and red. I can only hide out in the bathroom for so long without it being obvious. For some reason, I care what my captor thinks of me, apparently. So I take a shower and wash my hair and have a cry. Just get it all out. Then I wash my panties and bra with soap and water in the sink and hang them over a towel rail to dry. Next, I braid my hair into a crown to keep my fingers busy for a while. The world is ending, so I am doing my hair. How ridiculous.

But what are you supposed to feel when everyone you know is dead or dying? When society is taking its last gasping breaths? Feeling like shit seems a reasonable answer, to be honest.

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