"I gave them aspirin," I said. "And an alcohol rub. Was that the right thing to do?"
"Honey, listen to us," Maggie said. "It doesn't matter. Maybe you'll be lucky. Maybe your family's stronger. Aspirin won't hurt. Alcohol rubs won't hurt. Pray if it'll make you feel better. But whatever's going to happen is going to happen. And it'll happen fast."
"You can try fluids," Linda said. "If you have any food, try to make them eat. They'll need all the strength they can get."
Maggie shook her head. "Save the food for yourself, hon," she said. "You look healthy enough. Maybe you're like us and you're resistant to this strain. Your folks would want you to live. Take care of yourself. Your family's going to live or die no matter what you do."
"No!" I said. "No. I don't believe you. There has to be something."
"There were how many people here last week?" Maggie asked. "A hundred, maybe more. We lost half of them the first day. Go home and be with your folks. Give them whatever comfort you can."
"Sorry," Linda said. "I know it's a tough break. Sorry to tell you about Dr. Elliott. He was a nice man. He worked until the end, then he just collapsed and died. We've lost a lot of staff that way, working until their last breath. But maybe your family will make it through. Some people do."
There was no point staying. I thanked them and started the journey home.
The wind had picked up and was blowing against me for much of the walk. I stumbled as much as I skied, and it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears. Peter was dead. For all I knew Mom and Jon were, also. Matt might die, too.
I remembered how Jon had asked me what he would do if he were the only one of us to survive and how flippant I'd been. And now I was facing the same thing.
Yesterday everything was fine. By tonight I could be completely alone.
I told myself over and over again that I wouldn't let that happen. We were strong. We ate, we had heat, and shelter. We'd been lucky so far. We'd stay lucky. We'd stay alive.
The sky was darkening when I finally made it home, but it looked like a snow sky, and I was sure it was still daytime. It took all the courage I had to open the door. But when I got to the sunroom I saw things were pretty much as I'd left them. Mom was so quiet I had to kneel by her side to make sure she was still breathing, but she was. Jonny was delirious, but he was covered and not flailing around so much. Matt was lying on his mattress, but his eyes were open, and he turned around when he saw I'd come in.
"Peter," he said.
I shook my head. "We're on our own," I said. "It's just the flu. We'll be fine."
"Okay," he said, and closed his eyes. For the most horrible moment of my life, I thought he'd died, that he had stayed alive until I got back and then felt he could die. But he'd just fallen asleep. His breathing was shallow, but he was definitely alive.
I put some wood in the stove and collapsed onto my mattress. That's where I am now. I don't even know why I'm writing this down, except that I feel fine and maybe tomorrow I'll be dead. And if that happens, and someone should find my journal, I want them to know what happened.
We are a family. We love each other. We've been scared together and brave together. If this is how it ends, so be it.
Only, please, don't let me be the last one to die.
January 11
We've made it through the night.
Mom and Jonny don't seem any better. It was harder getting the aspirin down Mom's throat. She coughed a lot and threw the pills back up, so I dissolved them in tea.
Jonny alternates between delirium and stupor. I don't know which is scarier.
Matt is the least sick of the three, and I really think he'll survive. He sleeps most of the day, but when he's awake he's Matt.
I gave all of them aspirin and cold remedies every 4 hours and sponge bathed them and gave them alcohol rubs. It's hard keeping the blankets on Jonny.
I heated beef broth and spoon-fed all of them. I had to hold up Mom's and Jonny's heads when I did. Matt was able to stay awake long enough to take a few swallows on his own.
That's got to be a good sign.
When I went out this morning to clean the bedpan, I discovered it was snowing again. It probably started right after I got in yesterday. It was obviously dying down by this morning, but we probably got another 6 inches. Not that it matters.
I don't have a fever. I'm tired from staying up and it's hard to remember to eat, but I'm definitely not sick. Maybe I'm crazy, but I keep thinking if Mom and Jonny and Matt have made it this long, they're not going to die. Linda and Maggie made it sound like everyone at the hospital died the day they got sick.
Mom's moaning. I think I'd better check on her.
January 12
No change.
Matt's a little weaker. Jon's a little quieter. It's getting harder for Mom to swallow.
There was an ice storm last night. The tree branches are all covered in gray-tinged ice.
January 13
Horton woke me up. He was yowling. I didn't even realize I was asleep. I remember putting logs in the woodstove and lying down for a few minutes, and I must have fallen asleep.
Horton was yowling and I was coughing. Gut-wrenching coughing.
Then I realized the room was filled with smoke and we were all coughing.
I thought, The house can't be on fire because that would just be too funny. I managed to turn my flashlight on, like I needed it to see if the house was on fire, but I didn't see any flames.
I moved the flashlight around and saw the smoke was pouring out of the woodstove. It had backfired and was filling the room with smoke.
Smoke inhalation can kill you.
My first thought was to get the hell out of there, run outside, and breathe some real air. But everyone else was coughing, which meant they were all still alive and I had to get them out of there.
Mom and Jonny were far too weak to get up on their own. I didn't dare take them outside. The kitchen floor was going to have to do.
I took my blankets and grabbed one off of Matt's bed, waking him up in the process. I was half blind from the smoke, but I managed to get the blankets onto the kitchen floor. It took every ounce of courage I had to go back into the sunroom, but I did. Thank goodness Matt had enough strength left to help me pull Jonny first and then Mom into the kitchen. I told Matt to stay there, and I ran back in and got everyone's pillows and blankets. Matt helped get them in place. He was gasping so badly I was afraid he'd have a heart attack, but he waved me off.
Next I went to the thermostat to turn on the furnace, but I didn't hear anything go on. I remembered that Dad and Matt had jerry-rigged a battery cell to the furnace, and I would have to go to the cellar to turn it on. I went back to the kitchen where Mom, Matt, and Jonny were all still racked with coughing, and I opened the cellar door. At least the air was clear down there, but the temperature was probably close to zero and I regretted not having put my shoes on. I held on to the flashlight, and with it I raced to the furnace, took a moment to figure out what to do, and pulled the right switch. The furnace turned on almost immediately. We still had oil. I went back upstairs as fast as I could and put the thermostat at 65 degrees.
Horton had followed everyone into the kitchen so I didn't have to worry about him. I went to the bathroom and found the cough medicine with codeine that we'd taken from Mrs. Nesbitt's medicine cabinet. I gave Matt his first and his cough subsided enough that he was able to help me give the medicine to Jonny and Mom. I was afraid to take it myself in case the codeine put me to sleep. Instead I grabbed a washcloth and threw it into a water pot. Once it was thoroughly wet, I covered my mouth with it and went back into the sunroom.
Panic overwhelmed me. The room was filled with smoke and breathing was close to impossible. I couldn't think what to do next. We were all going to die and it would be all my fault. I got really mad then and that pushed me into action. The first thing I did was open the back door to air the room out. There was one piece of good luck: The wind was blowing in the right direction.
/> I stayed outside long enough to get some air back into my lungs. Good thing I've been sleeping with my coat on, but even so I couldn't manage more than a minute since I didn't have any shoes on. Still that was enough air to get me back into the sunroom.
I tried opening the skylights but there was too much snow on top of them. I cursed myself for not having gotten on the ladder to clear them off when the snow had started, but it was too late now. I pulled the plywood off one of the windows opposite the door and opened the window. The crosswind worked and I started to see the smoke lessening.
I knew what I had to do next and that was get rid of the piece of wood that had caused the backfire. I went to the door, took a few deep breaths, then came back in and opened the woodstove.
The smoke was overwhelming. I raced back outside and grabbed a handful of snow to rub against my burning eyes. I swallowed some of the snow. Mom'll kill me, I thought, drinking unboiled snow.
The thought made me laugh, and that got me coughing again. I laughed and cried and coughed and choked. But in spite of it all, I was damned if I was going to die and I was double damned if I was going to leave Matt and Jon and Mom like that. So I went back into the sunroom. The smoke was still incredibly thick and I thought I'd cough my lungs up. I crawled over to the stove and put on the mitts. I reached in and pulled out the smoking log.
Even through the mitt, I could tell the log was wet. Hot and wet and steaming and smoking. I juggled it between the mitts, crawled to the door, and threw it out.
The log shouldn't have been wet. We hadn't had that problem with any of the wood Matt and Jonny have cut up until now. I realized the stove had to be wet. Snow or ice must have fallen through the chimney and made the entire stove damp. I had to make sure the stove was dry or else the same thing would happen again. And that meant I had to get another fire going just to dry out the stove, and that meant more smoke. My whole body began to shake. It was stupid, but I kept thinking how unfair it was. Why did I have to be the one? Why couldn't I be sick and Matt take care of me? Or Jon? He's the one who gets to eat. Why did he have to get sick? He should be healthy. He should be the one choking to death and I should be in the nice warm kitchen, all drugged with codeine.
Well, it was useless to dream. I looked around the sunroom to see what I could burn. A log wouldn't do. It would just get wet and start the whole business over again. I needed to burn lots and lots of paper.
My first thought was the textbooks, but I knew Mom would kill me. If we all got well and she found we couldn't keep studying, she would kill me. But I felt like if I had to go through all this, I should be rewarded by burning a textbook.
I left the sunroom and made my way through the kitchen. Everyone was still coughing, but not the way they had been. Matt looked feverish, but he waved me away when I tried to hover.
"I'm okay," he whispered.
I didn't have much choice but to believe him. I went upstairs and got a couple of the textbooks I'd taken home my one day at school. While I was up there, I changed into dry clothes and put on shoes. Just doing that helped.
I went back to the kitchen and freshened the washcloth. Then I crawled back into the sunroom. The smoke had lessened but once I reopened the woodstove, it poured out again.
I tore page after page from the textbook. With a shaking hand I lit a match and threw the burning paper into the stove. The smoke grew stronger and I wasn't sure I'd be able to bear it. But I shoved as many pieces of paper as I could in there, and when I was sure the fire would last at least a minute, I let myself go to the back door and gulp in some air. Then I went back, tore more sheets out, and burned them.
I don't know how long I burned paper, but I know I killed one and a half textbooks. If the school wants them back, they can just sue me.
Finally the stove stopped smoking. I tore some more textbook then piled on some of my kindling. When the fire was going good and strong, I put a couple of logs in and everything was fine.
I took a pot and filled it with snow and put it on the top of the stove to get some moisture back in the room. I waited about half an hour and then I closed the window. I waited another half hour after that, watching the fire and making sure it was burning clean before I closed the door.
I wanted more than anything to curl up on the kitchen floor and go to sleep. But I didn't dare leave the woodstove untended. So I stayed awake and only left the sunroom to go into the kitchen a couple of times to check on Mom and Matt and ]onny.
The window I took the plywood off of has an eastern exposure. I can see the sky lightening, so I guess it's dawn. It really isn't January 13 anymore.
I'm going to leave everyone in the kitchen for the time being. I'll give them their aspirin and let them go back to sleep. It's taken hours for the house to get from below freezing to 65 degrees and they might as well enjoy it. Besides, the sunroom still stinks of smoke, and I really should open the window and the door and air things out. We'll be sleeping on smoky mattresses for weeks to come.
Because if this didn't kill us, nothing will. It's January 14 and I can see the dawn and we're all going to survive.
January 14
We're all still alive.
I'm scared to leave everyone in the kitchen and I'm scared to move them back. What scares me most is I don't think Matt has the strength to help me get them into the sunroom.
I'm just going to hope we have enough heating oil to make it through the night.
I stink of smoke and it hurts to breathe.
January 15
After I gave Mom her morning aspirin, I bent over her and kissed her forehead. It was just like Sleeping Beauty. Mom opened her eyes, stared straight at me, and said, "Not until you finish your homework."
I burst out laughing.
"Don't laugh at me, young lady," Mom said. Yes, ma'am," I said, trying with all my strength not to.
"Very well," she said. "I'll make supper now." She struggled to get up.
"No, that's okay," I said. "I'm not hungry."
"Nonsense," she said, but she fell back asleep. Her breathing was steady and I could tell her fever had broken.
She woke up a few hours later and seemed puzzled to be in the kitchen. "Is everyone all right?" she asked.
"We're fine," I told her.
She looked over and saw Jon and Matt sleeping on the floor. "What are we doing here?" she asked. "What's going on?"
"There was a problem with the woodstove," I said. "So I turned the furnace on and you've been sleeping in here."
"You look terrible," she said. "Are you eating properly?"
"No," I said.
Mom nodded. "Well, none of us are," she said, and went back to sleep.
When she woke up this evening she was just about normal.
She managed to sit up, and she asked how each of us was doing. I gave her the rundown.
"How long have we been sick?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I've lost track. A few days."
"And you took care of us all that time?" she asked. "By yourself?"
"Matt helped," I said. I wanted to collapse by her side and weep and have her hold me and comfort me. None of which, of course, could I do. "The real problem was the woodstove, but that's okay now. Maybe tomorrow you'll move back to the sunroom."
"When did you eat last?" she asked.
"I haven't been hungry," I said. "I'm okay."
"You need to eat," she said. "We can't have you getting sick. Get yourself a can of mixed vegetables and eat all of it."
"Mom," I said.
"That's an order," she said.
So I did. And when I finished the can of vegetables I realized I was famished. I went back to the pantry and made myself a can of carrots and ate all of that. I probably haven't eaten in a couple of days, so I guess I'm entitled.
Then I realized Mom was well enough to eat, so I heated up a can of soup and gave her some. Matt woke up and he ate along with her.
"I'm worried about Jonny," Mom said when she finished her soup. "D
o you think you should get Peter and have him check him out?"
"I've already been to the hospital," I said. "I went the first day you all got sick. It's the flu and the only thing we can do is wait it out."
"I'd still feel better if Peter could see him," Mom said. "I know you've been doing everything you can, but Peter's a doctor."
"It's too late for me to go anyplace today," I said. "Let's see how Jonny is tomorrow, okay? Now go back to sleep."
Thank goodness, Mom did. With everything that's happened, I haven't even thought how to tell her Peter died.
January 16
Jonny woke me this morning. I was sleeping in the doorway, head in the sunroom, feet in the kitchen.
"I'm hungry," he said.
He was weak but he was Jonny.
"I'll get you some soup," I said. I got up, went to the pantry, pulled out a can of soup, and heated it on the woodstove.
He was able to sit up and eat most of it. While he was eating, Mom and Matt both woke up. I heated more soup for them and soon they were all sitting up, eating, and even talking.
"Shouldn't we move back to the sunroom?" Mom asked.
"Later," I said. "Let me change the sheets on your mattresses first."
I went upstairs and got fresh sheets. I would have liked to flip all the mattresses over, but I didn't have the strength, so I told myself it wouldn't matter.
Once I got the clean sheets on the mattresses, I helped everyone get up. First Matt, then Mom, and finally Jonny. They all collapsed onto their mattresses. The walk from the kitchen to the sunroom took a lot out of them.
But after they'd napped, they woke up and I could see the difference in all of them. I heated up some vegetables and they all ate.
I gave everyone sponge baths, and then I took all their dirty sheets and pillowcases and spent the afternoon washing them.
Since the house was still warm, I hung them all up in the kitchen and the living room. When the laundry felt damp, I turned the heat off. I probably shouldn't have kept it on as long as I did, but it was so luxurious doing the wash in a warm kitchen. Mom didn't ask about Peter.