Fever Dream: A Novel(22)

“I need water, Mommy,” she says, and crosses her legs on the seat.

And I think yes, of course, that’s all we need now. It’s been many hours and we haven’t had a thing to drink, and poisoning is cured by drinking a lot of water. We’re going to buy some bottles in town, I think. I’m thirsty too. The pills for sunstroke were on the kitchen table and I wonder if it wouldn’t have been good to take another dose before getting out on the road. Nina is looking at me, her forehead wrinkled in a frown.

“Are you okay, Nina? Sweetie?”

Her eyes fill with tears but I don’t ask again. We are very strong, Nina and I, that’s what I tell myself as I leave the gravel behind and the car finally bites the town’s asphalt. I don’t know what time it is, but there is still no one in the street. Where do you buy water in a town where everyone is asleep? I rub my eyes.

Because you don’t see well.

It’s like I need to rinse them out. There’s a lot of light for it to be so early.

But there isn’t a lot of light. It’s your eyes.

There’s something that’s bothering my eyes. The shine from the asphalt and the pipes along the boulevard. I lower the visor and look for my sunglasses in the glove compartment. Every movement requires a huge effort. The light makes me squint, and it’s hard to drive in these conditions. And my body, David. My body stings, a lot. Is it the worms?

It feels like worms, minuscule worms all over your body. In a few minutes, Nina will be left alone in the car.

No, David. That can’t happen, what’s Nina going to do alone in the car? No, please. This is it, isn’t it? It’s now. This is the last time I see Nina. There’s something up ahead in the street, just before the corner. I’m going more slowly now, and I squint my eyes more. It’s hard, David. It hurts a lot.

Is it us?

Who?

The people crossing the street.

It’s a group of people. I see them and I put the brakes on, they’re passing just inches away from the car. What are so many people doing together at this hour? They’re children, almost all of them are children. What are they all doing crossing the street together, at that hour?

They’re taking us to the waiting room. That’s where they leave us before the day starts. If we have a bad day they take us home early, but in general we don’t go home until night.

A woman stands at each corner to be sure the crosswalk is safe.

It’s difficult to care for us at home. Some parents don’t even know how.

The women wear the same apron as the woman from the emergency room.

They’re the nurses.

There are children of all ages. It’s very hard to see. I hunch down over the steering wheel. Are there healthy children too, in the town?

There are some, yes.

Do they go to school?

Yes. But around here there aren’t many children who are born right.

“Mommy?” asks Nina.

There are no doctors, and the woman in the green house does what she can.

My eyes are watering, and I press them with both hands.

“Mommy, it’s the girl with the giant head.”

I open my eyes for a second and look forward. The girl from House & Home is standing stock-still in front of our car, looking at us.

But I push her.

Yes, it’s true, you’re the one who pushes her.

She always needs a push.

There are a lot of children.

There are thirty-three of us, but the number changes.

They are strange children. They’re, I don’t know, my eyes are burning. Deformed children. They don’t have eyelashes, or eyebrows. Their skin is pink, very pink, and scaly too. Only a few are like you.

How am I, Amanda?

I don’t know, David, more normal? Now the last one goes by. The last woman also passes, and before she follows the children she stands looking at me for a moment. I open the car door. Everything starts to go white. I can’t stop rubbing my eyes because it feels like I have something in them.

It feels like worms.

Yes. If I had water I could wash my face. I get out and lean against the car. I think about the women.

The nurses.

“Mommy . . .” Nina is crying.

Maybe if they could give me a little water, but it’s so hard to think, David. I’m so dazed and I’m so thirsty and so anxious and Nina calls to me nonstop, and I can’t look at her, now I can’t see practically anything. There is white on all sides, and now I’m the one calling Nina. I feel my way along the car and I try to get back in.

“Nina. Nina,” I cry out.

Everything is white. Nina’s hands touch my face and I push them away harshly.

“Nina,” I say. “Ring the doorbell of a house. Ring the bell and tell them to call Daddy.”

Nina, I say over and over, many times. But where is Nina now, David? How could I be without Nina all this time? David, where is she?

Carla came to see you as soon as she found out they’d brought you back to the emergency clinic. Seven hours passed between when you fainted and when Carla came to visit, and over a day since the moment you were poisoned. Carla thinks it is all related to the children in the waiting room, to the death of the horses, the dog, and the ducks, and to the son who is no longer her son but who goes on living in her house. Carla believes it is all her fault, that changing me that afternoon from one body to another body has changed something else. Something small and invisible that has ruined everything.