Jacqueline Druga - The Flu

“Mick?”

Three slow nods and Mick turned back around.

“Mick? You’re sad?”

“Actually, Chris… sad… sad is a…” Mick looked to the ceiling and swallowed. “Sad is pretty small word to describe what I’m feeling right now.” He walked back over and sat on the bed. “I have always been honest with you boys, right? Straightforward. So I’m not gonna change that now.”

“Tigger’s sick, isn’t he?” Chris asked, worried.

“No,” Mick shook his head. “Dustin is.”

“Mick,” Chris smiled, “I knew that.” He reached out as if to give comfort to Mick and he rested his hand on Mick’s. “Bet you thought you had to tell me something I don’t know. Yeah, I knew. Mom took him yesterday.”

“He’s… he’s home, Chris.”

“Already?” Chris asked. “Wow, he’s lucky. I was there two days. Did he get better already? He always gets better fast.”

“Chris… you know how they hooked you up to the medicine that would beat the poison that comes with the flu?” Mick waited for the nod of understanding. “Well, they hooked up Dustin. But… but the medicine didn’t work. Dustin is very, very sick.”

Chris shook his head. “He’s gonna get better, though, right?”

“No, Chris,” Mick’s head dropped. “Not this time.”

“Mick?” Emotionally and confused, Chris stared at him. “Mick? What do you mean? He has to get better. Don’t tell me my brother’s gonna die.”

Mick only raised his eyes.

Pain. His young soul had felt pain when he lost his father, but what he felt over learning about Dustin’s impending death through Mick’s eyes was incomprehensible to him. Chris reacted as if he’d been struck; the pain emerged as a long, loud, uncontrollable scream.

Mick felt himself slipping over the edge, and the only thing he could do to stop it was to grab on to Chris and hold him and take in, even if only briefly, the pain that the young man was feeling.

Dylan not only heard but also felt the pain of her middle son. She knew. Mick had told him. Wiping the tears from her face, she began to stand to go to Chris but stopped when she saw Dustin open his eyes.

The scream had awakened him. Confusion covered Dustin’s face as he looked around Tigger’s bedroom. He opened his mouth to call for his mother and his throat burned. He took a breath that barely made it into his air passages. “Mom?” The word rumbled out.

Dylan fell to his side again. “Dustin.” She grabbed a cool rag from the stand and wiped off his face and around his lips. “Shh.”

“I can’t…” Dustin coughed then coughed again. He felt the blockage move up some, but it stopped. “Why… why am I home, Mom?”

Dylan closed her eyes.

“How come I feel worse?” Dustin coughed again, turning his head from his mother as he did. “Mick?”

Dylan quickly looked to see Mick walking in the room.

It was a visualization that, in the brightness of daylight, became abundantly clear. Dustin’s dark eyes, pale face, and neck had begun to swell to the width of his cheeks. Mick saw how sick Dustin had become in the course of twenty-four hours.

“Mick?” Dustin questioned.

Dylan took a moment. She heard the fear in her son, could sense it, and right then she realized that he didn’t need to sense it from her. She laid her hand on Dustin’s hot skin and turned his face so his eyes met hers.

“You were crying.” Dustin looked from his mother’s eyes, to Mick, and around the room; then with shock in his eyes, he sank back into his pillow. “It didn’t work. It didn’t work on me.”

“I haven’t told your mother,” Tom said in Dylan’s kitchen.

Dylan leaned against the stove sipping a cup of coffee.

“She’s not conscious yet, Dylan.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Dylan stated.

“Nope.” Tom shook his head. “But I’m sure she’s just stealing a rest that she needs after forty-two years of marriage to me.” He winked gently. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

“I am, too,” Dylan said softly. “I keep waiting for Lars to rush into the house with good news, that he made a mistake. That he can help Dustin. Should I not be doing that, Daddy? Should I just face it?”

“Nope.” Tom shook his head. “Why in God’s name would you give up hope? You hold on to hope. Hope is a strong lifeline. Stronger than you can imagine. You hold on, you never know where it’s gonna pull you.”

Dylan grunted out her answer and rubbed her eyes.

“When did you sleep last?” Tom questioned.

“I catch a nap here and there.” She shrugged. “I’m fine. I have to keep checking Tigger.” She gave an emotional chuckle. “Isn’t it funny? The tiniest, the weakest of my crew ends up surprising us. With Mick, you see him, you expect it. Big, strong…”

“Mick’s not that strong, Dylan. Not right now,” Tom said.

“Who, Mick?” Dylan smiled. “He’s a tower of strength.”

“No, he’s not. Look at him. Michael Owens never had a poker face. He’s the most emotionally-charged man I know. He’s not that strong right now.”

“He has to be, I need him to be.”

“And so does the entire goddamn town of Lodi. But… Dylan,” Tom laid his hand on her shoulder, “don’t put that pressure on him. Be your own strength. He can stand there and hold you. I can stand here and hold you. But nothing will take away what you’re feeling, nothing will make you stronger, but you.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” Dylan kissed her father on the cheek. “You always know the right thing to say.”

“No I don’t. Because if I did, I certainly would be saying the right thing right now to take this all away for you.”

Dylan immediately threw arms around Tom and embraced him, burying her head against him. More than he realized, she wished he could take it all away for her. But unlike the skinned knees that healed with a kiss, a trip to the store on a bad day, nothing could or would be able to take it from her. Nothing except a miracle, and Dylan, though she wished for one with all her heart, knew the reality of a miracle occurring was slim.

It was the first time since Lars’ first experience with the flu many years earlier that he had done so. He didn’t know what caused him to reach that breaking point, to act so unprofessionally, but he did. Hands to his ears, like a child, he blocked out the horrendous scream of agony that blasted across the gym from the cafeteria.

The final scream of death made by so many. But the one that sent him over the edge, the one cry that no amount of morphine subdued, cut straight through him. It wasn’t one of a child, a woman, or anyone he was personally close to. It just was the final straw.

It ceased and Lars lowered his hands and looked at Kurt and Henry. “My apologies.”

Henry shook his head. “I found myself doing that twice last night. Plus, something totally unforgivable, I find myself saying, ‘please just die. Let go, let go’.”

“That’s not unforgivable,” Kurt intervened. “It’s compassionate.”

Lars chuckled with a hint of defense and anger. “Euthanasia is compassionate right now. If that was me out there, my wife, my child, parent, I would choose euthanasia over that agony.”

“You’re knowledgeable,” Henry stated.

“I am very straightforward with these people,” Lars rebutted. “They aren’t listening.”

“They aren’t doctors,” Henry argued. “They are people. These are the ones they love that are dying. Of course they aren’t gonna say, hey, just put them out of their misery. They are gonna hold on to the hope that things might turn around at any second.”