Last week we put up the Christmas tree. I was insistent it would happen on the first day of the month, as it always has done. It’s the one tradition I gleaned from my short time with my mother. Christmas starts when the tree goes up on December 1. Anthony and I heaved boxes of plastic fir branches and dusty ornaments down from the attic. Phoebe was always horrified by our fake tree, but when you’re an orphan, you become sensitive to news stories of other orphans. Christmas trees going up in flames and turning family homes into charred skeletons of smoke and ash, killing almost everyone and leaving a few unfortunate children behind, are uncomfortably common.
Usually Anthony assembles the tree and then leaves me to the decoration. He’ll grab a beer or a glass of red wine and sit comfortably on the sofa as I potter around considering red tinsel or silver. Is a gold theme what I want? Not this year. This year, he stood by my side and methodically placed ornaments and tinsel and Christmas lights over branches, transforming this squat, dense piece of plastic into a glowing, sparkling thing of festive wonder. He smiled as I hung the ornament Libby had made for us with a photo from our wedding on a beautiful white bauble. In the photo I’m looking up at Anthony, bliss personified. He’s tucking one of my dark, bridal curls behind my ear, and I remembered the moment as clearly as if it were yesterday. My heart plummeted in my chest with fear and longing. Anthony carefully placed the angel Theodore made at nursery last year at the top of the tree, forehead creased in concentration to avoid it being wonky. He looked up at the tree and then down at me, a soft smile on his face. We were both thinking the same thing and he knew it and I knew it but we didn’t say it because what’s the point in breaking someone’s heart when it won’t change anything? The words hung in the air, illuminated with worry. Will this be our last Christmas together?
Theodore was entranced by the tree for a grand total of four minutes before returning to the much more exciting task of “building a boat,” which seemed to involve sitting in the empty ornament box and yelling, “Boat, boat, boat.” It’s as fine a way as any to build a boat.
Anthony hasn’t gone to work all week. I wouldn’t let him. I told him in all seriousness that I would rather we lived on my income and he never worked another day in his life than have him leave the house one more time. Most of the time I work remotely, and I’m not teaching classes this term, so it’s not a problem for me. I work. Anthony cares for Theodore. I go out to get food, briefly and carefully as late as possible in the quiet of nighttime, touching no one, standing near no one. I watch my two loves with beady eyes, interpreting the smallest cough as a sign that it is here. My tall, strong husband and small son, now equally vulnerable.
The news started off so casually. There had been an outbreak of a form of flu in Glasgow. Thirty dead, many more infected. It sounded so quotidian; the flu. Glasgow seemed so far away. I assumed the powers that be would find a solution. It would be yet another scary news story and nothing more. We’re used to scary diseases starting in faraway places and being brought here. Maybe that’s why we underestimated it. Scotland? we all thought. Surely a dangerous disease can’t start there.
But it’s only gotten worse. Every day the newscasters’ tones have become graver and graver. First it was thirty cases, then fifty, then one hundred, then it jumped suddenly to thousands and tens of thousands and what’s next? Millions? Billions? Everyone dead? Tonight, I realized the man who usually does the News at 10 wasn’t on. It was a woman. I burst into tears and Anthony asked me what was wrong, the news hadn’t even started yet, what could be wrong?
I didn’t say anything, just bawled. What if the newsreader is sick? They film it in London, don’t they? What if he has it? What if you have it but you’re just not showing symptoms yet, I wanted to cry. I haven’t talked about any of this with my friends, not properly. I don’t know how. Most of us have kids so it’s not like we’re popping around to each other’s houses on a moment’s notice anyway, but I don’t know what to say even to my best friends. Libby lives in Madrid and is desperately trying to figure out how to get to London and what to do for work once she gets here. I don’t want to burden her and I don’t know what I’d say. Phoebe has two daughters so it’s different for her. I can’t quite bring myself to talk to her and hear her comfort me about the risk of my son dying when the reality is, I’m nauseous with jealousy that she has two girls. Her husband is at stake but her children aren’t. It’s not the same. No, I’m staying quiet for now. I stopped taking Theodore to nursery weeks ago. The idea of it made me shiver; putting him in a big room with thirty other children and adults who could have been anywhere, touched anything, be carrying it but not know. Anyone could have it.