They're All Going in the Same Bed

Before you ask, I’ll answer. I’ll gladly answer you, Charles. Yes, Katie is now in the same bed with the rest of the children. Would you like to know why? Don’t even touch that newspaper until you ask me why I, a person who seems to be in her right mind, would put a perfectly healthy child in the same bed with four sickly, pale, infectious children. Ask me, Charles, ask me. (A beat, then she explodes as if him asking her wasn’t her suggestion.) I’ll tell you why, you son-of-a-bitch! Because I cannot—I cannot!—wait for Katie to get sick like the others. I can’t. It will destroy me if the day comes when Charles Jr., and Meghan, and Persia, and Liam are all healthy and going to school and I have the house to myself again, and I think I’m home free and then little Katie walks up to me and vomits all over my feet. You’ll have to come home from work, Charles. You’ll have to handle it, because I won’t be able to. Because I will be in the looney bin with the loonies, Charles! The loonies! Yesterday Charles Jr. had a fever of 112. Don’t tell me that’s impossible; I know how to read a thermometer! Well, then I suppose I gave birth to a mutant nine years ago, Charles. That must be it. It wouldn’t surprise me since yesterday Meghan coughed up something that I’m fairly certain was radioactive. It ate threw the Kleenex box and men in yellow Hazmat suits had to come and get it. This was while Persia was complaining that there isn’t enough sex on the soap operas that are on during the day. What did you expect? You want to name a child Persia, of course she’s going to grow up to be demented. I’m hoping I won’t have to put her on the pill before she stops believing in Santa Clause. Oh, and Liam, poor Liam yesterday developed bright blue spots all over his body. Blue, Charles, blue. Navy blue, if you want to get specific. And every time he touched one of them he peed the bed, and I had to get all four of them out of the bed, into our bed—which is now probably filled with bacteria and will probably render you sterile—God willing—while I cleaned the filthy, urine-soaked sheets that for some reason smelled like vegetable potstickers—Yes, our son’s urine smells like an appetizer at TGIFridays—and wept, I wept Charles, for the woman I could have been had I not allowed you to talk me into giving birth to your immune-deficient children. Don’t you accuse me of not loving them! No one could never do the things I’ve done over the past week if they didn’t love their children, Charles. Mother Teresa would have balked and run back for the open sores of Bombay if she saw what I’ve seen this week. At one point all I could do was read the Bible over and over again out loud and hope that whatever was causing Persia to pinch her nipples and belch loudly in Liam’s face would be pushed out by the power of the Lord. (A beat.) So now, Katie is in bed with all of them. If she’s going to get sick, she’s going to get sick now and get it over with, and I don’t care if her hair falls out and she starts speaking in tongues; she’s staying in that bed until they’re all healthy and able to go back to school so that I can resume my ironing and my vacuuming and my prescription pill-taking, Charles. And I’ll tell you something else, I’m going back to work. Because for everything I did this week, in ten years, those kids won’t remember it. They won’t remember it, they won’t be grateful for it, and they certainly won’t pay me for it. So I’m going back to work, where having someone sneeze in your mouth can actually has a monetary value. We can get a baby-sitter, if you like, or you can stay home with the children, Charles, but I should probably warn you—flu season begins next month, and Persia’s already started asking where babies come from. Think about it. Oh, and by the way, you’ll be sleeping with the children tonight. They miss their Daddy.T