casserole or doing a little tidying up for someone under the weather, either emotional or physical, and was never happier than when she was caring for her own sick child. “You are my very own,” she’d murmur, “my wee girl.” And it was tempting to just lie beneath the milky kindness of those words, even if Alice did sometimes feel hurt when it seemed her mother was disappointed at her eventual recovery.
Her mother had gone off during a commercial break to consult the family medical encyclopaedia on Alice’s present condition. When she returned, she held the book out in front of her, open as an offertory, and she walked with the solemnity of a celebrant. Her face was serious, the eyes slightly wider than normal, the lips firm with courage and determination.
“What?” asked her father.
“I think it could be serious,” said her mother and she transferred the weight of the book to one hand while the other went to her mouth.
“It’s the flu,” said her father.
“Look how red her face is. Alice,” said her mother, coming toward her slowly, careful, as though she might bolt at any moment. “I need to see if you have a rash. It’s all right. I just need to look.”
Alice pulled down the blanket and, with slightly trembling fingers, her mother unbuttoned her pyjama top.
“Oh,” said her mother. “Oh, Andrew.”
There on Alice’s chest was indeed a rash. It looked like sunburn. Her mother lifted her arm. In the crease, there were darker streaks. “Pastia’s lines,” said Cynthia, with something like awe in her voice. “I know what it is,” she said.
“You’re scaring the girl,” said her father. “Stop it.”
In fact, Alice was a little scared, but she was also excited, even through the haze of fever, where everything looked a little further away than it was.
“Look for yourself,” said Cynthia. “Come and see.” She sat beside Alice with her hands clasped and a look of suffering resignation on her face.
Slowly, with accompanying grunting protest, her father approached and looked. He frowned. “Let me see that book,” he said, and then, when he had read what was on the page, “That can’t be right. She’s been inoculated, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it. Such things happen.
“I don’t think so.”
Cynthia’s hands, still clasped, rose to just under her chin. “Scarlet fever,” she whispered.
“I’m sure it isn’t,” said her father, and shut the book, rather more forcefully than necessary.
Andrew, however, was wrong. It was indeed scarlet fever. The next day Dr. Baldwin confirmed the diagnosis, adding that because Alice had indeed been inoculated, it wasn’t as serious as it might otherwise have been. He prescribed antibiotics and bed rest.
“How long?” said Alice’s mother.
“Oh, I’d say about a week before the infection’s dealt with,” said Dr. Baldwin. He sat down behind his tidy desk and polished his perfectly round shiny head. “Probably a few weeks before the tonsils and glands go completely down.”
“A few weeks,” repeated Cynthia.
And so Alice was kept home from school, and fed milkshakes with a raw egg in them to keep up her strength and home made soups and toast and ice cream and chamomile tea. She took aspirin and antibiotics and throat lozenges. These medicines she kept beside her bed on the turntable of her portable blue record player, like a Lazy-Susan cupboard. She twirled the bottles around and around, the orange aspirins in their brown bottle, the bright yellow lozenges, the mentholated rub in the lovely blue jar to soothe her chest, even though she didn’t have a cough, and the bottle of mauve-ish liquid antibiotic that tasted so foul. Her mother gave her a green grape after each swallow of antibiotic, to wash the taste away. Alice read books like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and an assortment of Nancy Drew novels. She watched Andy of Mayberry in the mornings and in the afternoons, she and her mother watched the matinee movie on channel twelve. She dozed while her mother watched Another World.
It was so nice, just her and her mother, passing the days like this. In the evenings, when her father came home from work and came to see her, she liked the way the visit felt formal. She imagined she was a little girl from Victorian times, like the pale heroine of a novel, or like little Colin from The Secret Garden. Her father sat by her bed and asked her how she was feeling. The first few days she said she was feeling pretty good and he said that was wonderful and gave her something he’d brought for her – a chocolate bar, or pack of gum, or a necklace made from candy. If she was allowed to go downstairs and watch television in the evening for an hour or two, cuddled up under the blankets, her father gave her a piggyback to bed, even though she was rather too old for such a thing. Sickness made it possible, her frailty, as her mother called it.
On the fifth day, he asked how she was feeling, she said, “not very much better, I’m afraid.”
“Oh?” said her father. “What’s the matter?”
“Well, I’m sick.”
“I know that. But why is it worse?” He looked annoyed, which is how he often looked if he was worried.
“I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll have a relapse,” she said.
“You heard that from your mother,” her father said. “Did your teacher send you homework so you don’t fall behind?”
“I don’t think so,” Alice said, and she hoped not, because she would much rather read A Wrinkle in Time than study arithmetic any day.
“We’ll see about that,” said her father.
Later, she heard her parents arguing and she knew it was about her, but that didn’t seem like such a bad thing, to be at the centre like this.
The one disappointment was that no one came to visit her, but her mother assured her they would have if they could, but she was simply far too contagious and they didn’t want to put other children at risk, now did they?
“But did anyone deliver homework?” she said.
“You’re such a silly girl. Why would you want to work when you should be working on nothing more than getting better? Besides, you’re so smart, you’ll catch up in no time, when you go back to school.”
That made sense, for she was smart. Alice decided it was perfectly all right to give her energies over to getting better. That should be her focus, as her mother said. So, in between reading and television and snacks, she took naps and lay in bed watching the golden flutter of autumn leaves from the giant oak outside her window. She imagined she was in a glass snow-flake globe, floating in a thick, glossy sea, with gold flakes falling around her.
One night, when he father had carried her up to bed and tucked her in, he said, “Really, Peaches, how are you feeling?”
“Well, I don’t have much strength,” she said.
Her father sighed. He took her hand and held it firmly, patting it over and over. “Listen to me,” he said. “You have to fight, do you understand? You have to fight this thing.”
“It takes weeks,” said Alice.
“Punch it in the nose, kiddo,” said her father, and then he left, closing the door softly behind him.
Alice lay in the dark, wondering what he was talking about. She thought he should be more sympathetic, really.
It was more than three weeks by the end of the illness. Nearly a month, she thought when she woke one morning. I have been a true invalid. Then she thought, well, maybe just a little longer, and called her mother for some toast and tea.
At last, the day came when all the medicine was finished and her glands were down to normal and she was, to tell the truth, just a tiny bit restless. It was a Saturday afternoon