>Just What I Was Afraid Of

It is two days after Christmas at four in the afternoon and, as I type these words, my two youngest are flushed with fever and sleeping in their beds.

I hear the occasional cough from their bedroom. It is a cough that sounds oddly familiar, since I heard it three days earlier from their little friend Ella, whose mother dropped her off here, feverish and congested, so that she could go to a church meeting.

I could tell you about Bruiser waking up nearly every hour on Christmas Eve night, coughing and crying as he struggled to understand why he was having so much trouble breathing. I could tell you how the coughing led to him throwing up in his crib at about 3:45am, forcing me to change his clothes and put him in his sister’s bed for a moment while I changed his bedding, and she, at that point, wide awake, patted him and told him it was going to be okay.

I could tell you about Bruiser’s high fever on Christmas morning and how he had to be either in his father’s lap or mine all day long, clinging to us as if we were the only things in his little world that made any sense at all.

I could tell you how Punky began coughing that same congested cough late Christmas afternoon, and how she and Bruiser made up a chorus of coughing all night long, with Bruiser continuing to wake and cry “Mama!” every hour or so.

I could tell you how I caught a glimpse of Ella’s mother on her way home today, arms laden with shopping bags, while I remained housebound, unshowered and in my pajamas, caring for two sick kids.

I could tell you all the choice words that my husband and I muttered under our breath every time we felt Bruiser’s white-hot forehead yesterday or held him as he sobbed or heard Punky begin to cough as she played the Barbie horse game that Santa brought her.

I could tell you about all these things. But I won’t. Because that’s what we do when these sorts of things happen, right? We leave them unspoken, unsaid, so that the people who did them continue on, smirking and unscathed, doing the very same thing to someone else the very next chance they get…

…without any idea that their last victim is now telling all their mutual friends that Ella’s poor mommy has Herpes.

Only kidding, of course.

Right?

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.