He met my parents in November, when they came for their once-a-year obligatory campus visit. On Valentine’s Day, when his fraternity brother got married, I was his plus-one tothe wedding. We made plans, three weeks, three months ahead, like a real couple. He cleared out half a drawer in his apartment for my clothes. I started looking for teaching jobs in Chicago.
And then, two years ago, the world changed.
When the first stories about Covid filtered into my news feed, I barely paid attention. Some virus in China, an outbreak in Italy.
“Nowhere near us. Nothing to worry about,” my housemate Daniel said.
Mei-Ling elbowed him. “Speak for yourself. They’re calling it the Chinese flu.”
By March, the rumors and ripples had spread outward and inward into the academic community, lapping at the walls of my ivory tower, shaking the foundations of my comfortable life. The dance marathon, canceled. Study abroad, canceled. The university extended spring break by a week and then moved all classes online. Everyone who left campus was told to stay home.
I called Chris from my parents’ house. “It’s only for a few weeks,” I told him.
“You don’t know that,” he said. “Nobody knows.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you. But we have to prepare for the worst.”
Fear clutched my chest. By then, Chris and the other residents were working ninety-hour weeks, putting their training on hold trying to save the patients flooding the emergency department. There were no vaccines yet. No antivirals. There weren’t enough beds or portable oxygen tanks or personal protective equipment.
While I was gone, one of my housemates moved out, backto Ohio. Another one’s boyfriend moved in. Mei-Ling and Daniel called to tell me they were getting their own apartment.
“Our own pod,” Mei-Ling explained.
It seemed everybody I knew was coupling up, fast-tracking their relationships, taking the leap to cope with the enforced isolation of the pandemic.
“I think we should move in together,” I told Chris when we FaceTimed that night.
My boyfriend was a hero. The least I could do was be there to support him, to make sure he ate in the rare snatches between his shifts. I had fantasies of doing his laundry. Ordering his groceries. Learning to cook.
There was a silence, like the quiet of an exam room after a doctor has delivered bad news.
“Absolutely not,” Chris said. Through his plexiglass shield, I could see the lines carved by exhaustion, the purple bruises left by his tight-fitting N95. “If we lived together, I’d have to worry about you all the time.”
I squelched a squiggle of fear. “I’ll be fine.” Sure, the news out of the big cities—New York, London—was scary. But according to CNN, the virus mostly killed the elderly, right? I was young and healthy. “I’m more worried about you.”
“This is my job. My duty. I won’t risk bringing this home to you.” Sirens blared in the background. “If I even come home,” he added.
“Don’t say that. It’s bad luck.”
“I’m sorry.” He glanced offscreen. “I have to go.”
“Chris…”
“Don’t make this any harder,” he said. “On either one of us.”
Guilt sandbagged me into silence.
After graduation (live streamed), I spent the next two months surfing on my phone, watching Netflix from my parents’ couch, and making desultory stabs at my novel. Several novels.
Nothing held my attention.
The chatter of talking heads on TV, broadcasting from their makeshift home studios, trickled into my bedroom. At night, I doomscrolled, clicking obsessively on every new guideline and breaking news story. Writing had always been my escape, the place I could go when I was bored or lonely, where I could revise reality to suit myself. But compared to the worldwide trauma of the pandemic, anything I had to say seemed so unimportant. The imaginary woes of my fictional characters couldn’t hold a candle to the real-life suffering Chris was witnessing every day.
I felt us growing apart, separated by more than distance. On Mackinac, the islanders’ main concern was the effect of the shutdown on the tourist season. Mom was short-tempered. Worried about money, I guessed. Dad was off all day doing projects for the big hotels that would normally have waited until the slow winter months. Daanis was sequestered in her house with newborn Rose, lost to a world of breastfeeding and diapers.
I was lonely. Adrift. Useless.
