Black Locust
Your fever comes on quickly, 102 within the hour. You shiver beneath the sheets of my bed, teeth clacking. “Snuggle,” you mumble, reaching a hand for me. I strip down to my bra and undies and you tuck yourself so tightly against me sweat forms at our seam. I rake my fingers through your hair until your breathing slows, then unstick you from my body. Crack a window. Fresh air will cool things off, I hope. But mid-evening, your fever spikes to 104, and I’m back in bed with you. Under a dim light I stare at the page of a book I’m too worried to read, listening to you breathe.
At 3am, you bolt upright and yelp, your eyes rolled white. Esmé, I say loudly, and you respond with a garble of grunts and half-words before your vision flicks into focus. The sight of me drains the blood from your face. Eyes wide, you swing for my head, then throw yourself from bed, rushing for the door. I hook your elbow, reel you in. In the cage of my arms you kick my shins before collapsing in one great sob. Tears splash against my chest and the fever dream spills forth: You've murdered me and can't bear the sight of my ghost. Girrrl, I whisper, scooping wet hair from your neck. I offer mundane details. You are in my bed. The window is open. The air smells like rain. It’s 3am on Friday, and surprise, I’m alive. I hold a saltine to your lips and assure you a ghost would care nothing for electrolytes, only spooking, and you nibble the edge. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” you confess, and wrap your burning arms around my neck before rolling onto your belly. Within minutes, you return to the choppy waters of fever-sleep, heat rising from your back.
I wonder if I should call your doctor, ask to add nightmares and sleep walking to your medical chart. Wonder if this is just another symptom of the diagnosis you’ve been given, which feels too vague. A best guess, the doctor said. The vocal tics, the outbursts to the sound of chewing, the way you can look without looking. The music looping through your head.
Sands of sleep collect in drifts behind my eyes. Around 5am, a city truck brakes, compressed air hissing through the open window, and I'm rudely exhumed. But you’re resting quietly, the top sheet unthrashed. I wriggle an index finger into your armpit. Your fever is down. I fall back asleep, palm on your belly.
On the third day, your fever evaporates and mine begins. When I stop on the stairs halved by a thorny cough, you’re feeling well enough to scowl from the couch where you sit with the tv remote and a bowl of frozen berries. "I'm thirsty," I croak. "I'm thirsty," you mock by repeating. Your screentime disappears and you howl, slamming doors. In my bed, I shiver under damp sheets, swallow Tylenol. Wonder if misophonia justifies this behavior - no, it can’t, the therapist warned - and sink into bitter sleep.
A few hours later, I shuffle to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I hear your door open, and you’re standing outside the bathroom, frowning at the toothpaste foaming in my mouth. Ugh, you grunt, disgusting, then scurry back to your room, slamming the door again. My neck blotches red. I can feel my fever spike. Relaxing my grip on the sink, I sweep my hair into a ponytail. Grab a scarf and head outside.
The plod along the trail behind my house is as dense as the wet spring day. Cold sweat blooms beneath my sweater, and I wonder what would happen if I died on this trail. A double pneumothorax, or a widowmaker. Who would find me? I wonder if I could figure out how to stiffen into rigor mortis while giving the finger. The thought makes me laugh - a deep, wet sound that scares a blush of robins into flight. Indulging the details of my death is a reminder that I’m slightly nuts. Makes me wonder if your crazy is a genetic variation of mine. It certainly can’t come from your dad, who’s so stable it’s annoying. Fresh guilt needles my lungs, and I’m halved by a fit of coughing. Crouched on the trail, catching my breath, I see her. A young sapling I’ve never noticed before, the wood of her trunk pale and smooth, with long black thorns ready to stick something soft. A black locust. Her beauty is piercing and bitter, like the tincture I swallowed for fever.
I admire her, then continue down the trail. Cut the walk short by a few miles, lungs burning. On the way home, I pass her again, pausing to take a picture. Still bald from winter, her bones show - she can’t hide her spikes. If the city leaves her unpruned, a few of her limbs will stretch into the trail by mid-summer. Covered in unremarkable leaves, someone might brush against her, feel her bite. I wonder if I’d warn them, or watch.
Back home, I can hear you punching the keys of the typewriter I bought you for your birthday a few years back, before you were given the diagnosis I can’t quite accept. You used to type out hilarious ransom notes, love letters to your dad, plot summaries of books you wanted to write. Now, I imagine you’re logging details of how awful I am, how I cough when I am sick and piss you off. I make a mental note to read it once you’re sleeping, then collapse on the couch to read more about the black locust. Her thorns are most impressive in youth, I learn. As she grows, you may not - without careful attention - even notice them.