Run Down

Last week, time pooled around my ankles. When you’re sick, more than your-usual-sick, the water rises slowly and you blink with indifference.

My children knocked on the bathroom door. By Wednesday, they’d had it with my absences. I called back,

“Busy.”

“Come back later.”

“Privacy.”

While they were at school, I draped over the arm of the sofa. Thanked God I’m self-employed.  Got good at the remote. I scrolled through menus, and settled on Documentaries. Watched “Happy,” “Vegucated,” and “Food, Inc.” Maybe there was a clue about what was making me sick.

In the past I’ve just slept in the bathroom. Now my children are a little older, and sometimes they wake early in the dark mornings. I didn’t want them finding their mother in a heap on the floor.

“I promise, God, I will never, ever drink again.” Between labor-like cramps, I smiled at the memory of my old college bargains. What would my bargain say now?  “I will never, ever eat dumplings again.” Except the labs said it wasn’t the dumplings. “I will never draw floor plans, pack lunches, do taxes, refinance the house, drive for the field trip, change health insurers, and call my father on his birthday ever, ever again.”

The morphine at the E.R. unhinged a memory from middle school. The tall walnut pole with the brass fitting at the end, the little hook. The teacher raised it to lower the window shades in the south-facing classroom.

And then a theory: the man on the train in The Green Glass Sea, Jimmy Kerrigan. He was the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. But this time, he had a brain.

“Brother, don’t touch the doughnut,” I said to my son when I crossed our threshold. At six, he still likes to lay his head on my bare, soft stomach. I pulled back the covers on my bed and followed the trail of bread crumbs:

If you’ve set up the ironing board in the bathroom to support you, it’s time to get help.

And,

There’s no place like home.

1. Stay warm all day and night without changing your clothes in our lightweight Aviator Jacket. 2. Okinawan elders from “Happy” have seen it all and will take care of you.  3. & 4. Itty Bitty Toe Light. Exclusive to Run Down.â„¢ Waterproof for all applications. 5. Adjustable ironing board for daytime support and nighttime sleeping.