Black Locust

Your fever came quickly, 102 within the hour. Vigilant blanket adjustments and a thermometer in your pit help quell my mom-anxiety, but in the evening, your fever reaches 104, and I don’t sleep. At 2am, you bolt upright from bed, eyes rolled to sclera. I repeat your name until your vision focuses, the sight of me draining color from your face. You swat at me, then leap from the bed and rush for the door. In undies, I catch you, hold you to my chest until out spills the fever dream - you’ve murdered me and can not bear the sight of my ghost. After an explosion of tears, we shuffle back to the bed, your breath infernal. Holding a Saltine to your lips, I assure you a ghost would care nothing for electrolytes, only spooking.

Mid-afternoon, on the third day, your fever lifts and mine begins, and when I collapse on the stairs halved by a cough you look up from the couch where you sit with a snacks and fresh blankets, call me disgusting. Your screens disappear for the day and you howl, slamming doors, my head squeezed by the vice of your theatrics. Shivering under cotton sheets, I wonder where I went wrong, swallow Tylenol, and succumb to a bitter sleep.

Three hours later, shuffling to the bathroom, I catch you glaring. Feeling I might dissolve into a puddle of snot and misery, I grab a scarf and head outside for a slow plod along a local trail, my foul mood interrupted by an encounter with a black locust. Long thorns protruding from her trunk are easy to make out in contrast with the steel sky of early spring, her feral beauty like a medicinal slap. A coughing fit loosens phlegm in my chest as well as something else, darker, deeper, hawked to the side of the trail.

Back home, you’re punching keys at the typewriter I bought you for your birthday. I know you’re venting about how unfair it is that I am your mother, how awful it is that I do not let you act with impudence, and after making a mental note to read it with discretion once you’re asleep, I collapse on the couch to learn about the black locust, how its thorns are most imposing in youth, how as it matures, you may not, without careful attention, even notice them.