I’ve been reading Little House on the Prairie to Hattie at night. We just read the “Fever ‘n Ague” chapter, about the whole house falling gravely ill from what they didn’t know then was malaria.
We’ve got some serious fever ‘n’ ague still going down here, with poor Sophie. I’m fighting the chills, trying to hold it together for a few more days. But tonight H was complaining of pain in her body when she tried to roll over. Does not bode well.
After they fall asleep, it’s just the dogs and I, making sense of another dark night. I often think of Caroline Ingalls, sitting by the fire with a pistol on her lap. Waiting with Jack, their dog, for Charles to come home.
Not so simple here. I’m trying to learn to unwait.
I give Eli his medicine, I head upstairs with the dogs at my hips. I climb into bed, check Facebook, email. I shut off the lights, and close my eyes.
We’re as much of a ‘we’ as we can be. Waiting for anything else is its own kind of fever.
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