hurts too much for me to get up and go check on them, not to mention that I don’t want to infect either one of them with this creepy crud that has taken over my whole body. I reach over and grab a tissue to blow my nose, and I wish that I had some pain relievers in the house. There’s nothing, because no one ever gets a headache at the lake unless you’ve drank too much.
I pick up my phone and dial Gran. She answers on the fourth ring, which probably means that she forgot where she left her phone.
“Gran,” I say, my voice sounding as weak as I feel.
“Abigail?” she says, and I can almost see her stand up to her full height in my mind.
“I don’t feel well, Gran.”
“Is it your tummy? Sometimes if I don’t poop for a few days—”
“It’s not my poop, Gran,” I say as I roll over, cough a few times, and close my eyes. Even the sunlight that’s coming through the open window hurts. “I think I’ve caught a cold or the flu or something.”
“You’ve got that kissing disease,” she says.
“I do not have mono,” I retort.
“You want me to come and take care of you?”
The good thing is that if I said yes, she’d be here in an hour. She wouldn’t wait. She’d come in, she’d bathe my forehead with cool water, rub my temples, and feed me purple juice and chicken soup with little pasta stars in it. She’d do all that and more without complaining because she loves me.
“I’ll be okay,” I say. I roll over again, my whole body aching so much that I can’t find a comfortable position to lie in. “Do you have any pain relievers hidden in the cabin?”
“No, I packed them up with everything that was in the medicine cabinet when we closed the cabin at the end of the season.”
“Oh.” I heave out a heavy breath, which makes me cough. “I felt fine yesterday.” I rest my palm on my forehead, wishing like crazy that I had someone to rub it for me. The vise keeps getting tighter and tighter.
“Were you around anyone with a cold?” she asks.
Come to think of it, the day I arrived at the lake, when I’d stopped at the tackle shop to buy some shirts, there had been a woman in there walking around carrying a damp handkerchief, and she’d been coughing up a storm. “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe someone at the store.”
“I’m telling you, it’s that kissing disease.” She laughs.
“I told you it’s not mono. And I haven’t been doing that much kissing.” I add the last more as an afterthought.
She cackles. “So there has been some kissing going on. Okay. Go Abigail,” she sings quietly. “Go Abigail, it’s your birthday.”
I frown. “It’s not my birthday.”
“Well, I know that, dummy,” she says. “It’s a song.”
“You couldn’t carry a tune to save your life.”
“Boy, you do feel bad,” she says. “You’re cranky. Always were kind of sour when you got sick. Your daddy was the same way.”
“I’m going back to sleep, Gran.”
“Wait,” she calls out, and I hear her even though I’ve already dropped the phone on the bed.
I pick it back up. “What?”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come? I will. I’ll get right in the car, right now.”
I don’t like for Gran to drive long distances by herself. And I don’t want her near me if I’m contagious, either. “No, I’m fine. Seriously. I’m just going to sleep it off.”
“Love you, Abigail. I’ll call you later to check on you.”
“Love you too, Gran.” I let the phone fall to the bed again as I pull the covers up under my chin, my teeth chattering.
As the sun sets, I wake up to the sound of someone knocking on the front door. I’ve been in and out of consciousness all day, getting up only long enough to go pee and to force myself to drink something. But I haven’t done anything more than that. Once, I’d gotten up and pulled Gran’s old heating pad from the closet and plugged it in because I couldn’t get warm enough.
But now I’m sweaty. My clothes are damp, the sheets are damp. I must have been sweating beneath the covers. I feel gross.
The knock sounds again, and I hear the lock turn, meaning someone has a key, as the front door opens. “Abigail,” a deep voice calls out. “Are you here?”
The footsteps stop in the front room. “No,” I call