I didn’t give her a straight answer and she didn’t press me. Enough time passed that we both stood up and went back into the kitchen where everyone else was. My mother was sitting by the island with her hot water and phone, a cloud of steam around her. Fang had just come downstairs, hair wet from a shower, and started the coffee. My nephews had found some pool toys in the closet and were whacking one another with foam noodles.
* * *
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ON MARCH 1, A woman traveling back from Iran became New York State’s first reported case. A French health official advised against cheek kissing, or la bise, and handshakes. The U.S. surgeon general tweeted, Seriously, people—STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching #Coronavirus. A Washington State man was the first American to die from it.
When I checked my inbox that week, a deluge of messages from the board of directors at both West Side Hospital and our sister East Side branch laid out the changes to come. Intensive care units would be expanding, some to entire floors, and in worst-case scenarios to lobbies, atriums, meaning that in worst-case scenarios atrium cafés would have to close.
I wasn’t shocked that something like this was happening but that it was, in fact, happening as predicted was somewhat more of a shock. When I told Fang and my mother that I had to return to the city for work, my mother said oh okay, and that was it. She was in a better mood than usual ever since Air China had reached out to her with a spot on an April flight and with the virus in China now handled, her sisters were sending animal videos again, of house pets doing funny, acrobatic things. As our mother chuckled to herself, then went into the living room to scroll through her phone, Fang and I glanced at each other, knowing there was no way that plane was taking off. My brother then asked if I wanted to go back to work, given that I still had two weeks of leave. I said they were officially calling back everyone, even nurse and physician retirees, it was all hands on deck for what would probably be a monthlong service, at the very least. Since deaths followed cases by a month, hospital capacity in April would probably hit surge level 1, then level 2, then level very, very bad.
My brother asked if I was worried about getting sick.
I said I’d take all the necessary precautions.
You can stay here as long as you like, he said and I thanked him and he said no need to say thanks.
Thanks, I said and he said no need to say thanks.
I could guess what Fang was going to bring up next since it was already on everyone’s mind. America still has a lot of problems, doesn’t it, my mother had said the other day, maybe yesterday, while we were channel surfing and a snippet of domestic news came through. Problems that weren’t hers to fix but she looked expectantly at me, as if they were mine.
Had I heard what they’d been calling the virus? Fang asked me now and everyone had.
On February 11, the WHO, careful to keep the name scientific, settled on COVID-19, CO for corona, VI for virus, and D for disease, 19 for the year that the disease appeared. Some Americans took the word corona to mean something else, and Google searches for the beer virus, or a virus that you could get from simply drinking beer, surged. But some government officials also believed that it was important to keep the American people informed and reminded of where the virus really came from. So, the China virus, the Chinese virus, the kung flu.
Videos had started circulating online, most I couldn’t even watch through. Clips of Asian people being attacked in the street and on the subways. Being kicked, pushed, and spat on for wearing masks and being accused of having brought nothing else into the country except disease. The harassed were usually women or the elderly, the easiest target was both. The worst part was that few people around the harassed did anything. No one stopped the crazy white lady from swinging her umbrella at an older woman’s covered face or from pointing the umbrella at the woman like a gun. Proud to be an American. Go back to China. Neither Fang nor I mentioned these events to our mother but it seemed she already knew given how often her friends in China asked if she now felt in perpetual danger. Who wanted to go to America anymore was also their sentiment, when the other side of the world was doing much better and had none of this type of unrest? Every country has its problems, doesn’t it? was my mother’s only reply, and that she was trying her best to return. What of her two children then? they’d asked. Was she worried about them living in that country all on their own? No mother doesn’t worry, but my children are grown adults, and have been for a long time. They can take care of themselves.