I start running and don’t stop for anything. The two miles to the airport are a blur with occasional flashes of violence. The car crash on the highway and the way the car spun three times before another car crashed into it. The man who threw himself off the bridge as I was crossing it. Heat and noise and horror, but I have to keep going. Once I get to the other side of the freeway it isn’t so bad. I’ve been to Changi Airport before to bring Angelica and Rupert to meet Mr. Tai. I walk through the entrance—no one is there, every desk eerily empty—find the hangar, tell the girl on duty that I am Mrs. Tai and demand to get on the plane before she asks any more questions.
She’s sweating, picking up phones every few seconds and telling people to hold. She just points me toward the plane—it is a mess. There are four different planes preparing to leave and two helicopters arriving. I guess every rich person in Singapore who can still think straight is getting out of Singapore.
I run up the steps of the plane and the flight attendant suddenly looms in front of me at the door to the plane. He looks exhausted, his face pinched and drawn.
“I’m Mrs. Tai,” I say, motioning for him to move so I can get on the plane.
He narrows his eyes and gives me a look that makes me want to throw up.
“I’ve flown with Mrs. Tai many times before,” he says, eyes cold with suspicion. He’s breathing rapidly, his face aflame with hostility. I can see him thinking, do I let her on the plane? How much does this matter to me? My breath catches in my throat, panic rising through me so strongly it’s as though a hand is gripping my neck. The seconds stretch out. Please let me survive this. Please take mercy on me. Please let me on the plane.
DESPAIR
CATHERINE
Devon, United Kingdom
Day 69
This is a golden day, even though, if I think about it too hard, this is one of the worst days of my life. We play in the garden, me watching Theodore running around gaily as I sip tea made with long-lasting milk. I tell him stories about bears and witches and dragons because we don’t have any books here, and I allow myself to cuddle him occasionally. We are safe maybe, surely, please, in this house untouched by the Plague.
The loss of Anthony becomes harder, not easier, now that we are in this place of safety. My mind assumes he must be away for a business trip and he’ll walk in any moment. But he doesn’t and he never will. Maybe it would be more bearable if I had seen him grow sick and die. Instead it feels as though we said good-bye, and he walked up the stairs and he must, surely, be alive and well somewhere in the world. My brain can’t compute that the end has happened. I try not to cry in front of Theodore and then I realize I’m trying so hard to keep it together because I don’t want my son’s last days—if these are his last days—to include the sight of his mother crying. I miss Anthony so much and no one else understands. After so many years, the loss of my parents winds me, again and again. Having accepted their deaths, now it feels like the cruelest injustice that the world is leaving me so unbelievably alone. Phoebe messaged me the other day asking how we are. She said that they think her husband is immune. He works as an accountant and has probably been exposed to it countless times because most of his office has died of it, but he hasn’t gotten ill. I nearly smashed my phone against the window. She has two parents, a husband and two daughters. She has an abundance so vast I want to scream, “Why not me?” I didn’t reply. I have a precious son whom I’m clinging to like Circe on her island, praying I can stay here unseen from the eyes of death. And I’m all on my own in this fight. No mother to come and help. No father to reassure. Anthony was my family and now he’s gone and so I try to eke out all the pleasure I can from the beautiful boy we made.
I want to settle into a rhythm, a new normal. Today we woke up at six and Theodore napped in the afternoon as the cat purred contentedly on the sofa next to me. Then a calm bath time and bed with games and stories and as many cuddles as possible. Every moment that goes by without a fever or a cough or unusual lethargy gives me the luxury of thinking we might be safe. This place feels like a historical artifact, untouched by death and fear.