Monument by Howard Owen

Author:Howard Owen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781579626495
Publisher: The Permanent Press
Published: 2021-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tuesday, June 8

To quarantine or not to quarantine.

We’re pretty sure we don’t have the virus, but who the hell knows? We have been told that we could know for sure as early as this afternoon whether we’re positive. Abe, R.P., and Andy all assure me they’ve been swabbed as well.

Wheelie and Sarah are fine with me keeping my ass out of the office. Hell, they’re more than fine.

“If you try to enter the building,” Wheelie says, “I’ll have the guard shoot you.”

I’m pretty sure he is kidding, but just in case, I’ll do what work I can at home. Maybe, I tell my bosses, I’ll be able to come in for night cops.

It’s not like I’m the only one working remotely. Word is that the powers that be soon will tell all the reporters to vacate the newsroom, either for safety’s sake or to save electricity. It won’t be much different than it is now, with everyone forced to take unpaid furlough for a couple of weeks (pick a week, any week) between now and the end of next month.

Two of the great pleasures of newspapering that made it easier to abide shitty hours and the knowledge that you were never going to get rich: newsroom camaraderie and after-work bar society. We are 0-for-2 these days.

I call Peachy to see if she has any word on how the little girl, Aurora, is doing. Might make a good story, I’m thinking.

“She’s fine,” Peachy says. “She was here yesterday.”

It turns out that Peachy, who also is working from home part of the time, somehow arranged to keep Aurora for a while until the state figures out what to do with her.

“Do you know anything about, like, changing diapers? Do you know how to feed her?”

She calls me an asshole and reminds me that she is the oldest in a family of six kids.

“I was changing diapers when I was seven.”

She says the baby might wonder about why she doesn’t have a mommy and daddy anymore “but kids are resilient. At least, I hope so.”

It’s the second time she’s been orphaned, Peachy says. Her birth mother let her go not long after she was born.

“Have they tried to get in touch with the mother?” I ask.

Peachy snorts.

“She gave her away once. Why the hell would they see if she wanted a second chance?”

I drive over to Peggy’s. Andi is leaving as I park.

“How are they doing?”

“Not too good,” my daughter says. “I wish I knew what to do. How do you know when they’re sick enough to take them to the hospital?”

Nobody seems to know the answer to that one, although just about everybody appears to think that a hospital is about the worst damn place you could be if you’ve got the virus, to be avoided as long as you can breathe.

Andi says she’s been tested, that she went as soon as she realized Peggy and Awesome were sick.

“I had to get William tested, too, because he was with me.”

Peggy comes to the door.

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