She called it 'the new normal'

Distracted thinking saw me contemplating book titles like The Virus Season and invented colloquialisms like 'the 19 in 20.' Working from home has been jarring, also feeling a little trapped. This morning I woke up with a story in my head, so, without a great deal of fanfare, I wrote it down.

I don't like the ending.

So, there we were, standing on opposite sides of the lot with an audience of parked cars ordered neatly into their spaces, watching us do a little dance. One dog and walker went left, while another went right, one back, another forward. All the while holding tight to the leashes of our family pets who didn’t know a thing about social distance. In the beginning, Dad took Yorker out mostly. I think he needed something to do, wanted anything to control. He never said if he was taking time off, or if he’d have a job to go back to, if he was working, or if he was looking for work. Then, some time later, I guess Mom wanted in on the activity. She was working from home, but something different was keeping her from stillness. Maybe it was us. Then, after it became mundane, I started walking. That’s how I ended up outside, around the same time, just about every day; that’s how I met her. But this was the 19 in ’20, so, meeting wasn’t like meeting. I saw her, and I saw her see me, and we exchanged a wave, and from a distance acknowledged our mutual humanity. She had a variety of colorful workout pants and retro graphic t-shirts. She wore very bright sneakers and liked her hair up in a ponytail. She had a really easy smile, too, but what captured me was her walk. Where I could set my feet in place to restrain our Jack Russel, she fought every other step not to be dragged by her Great Dane. Ultimately, she would lose, but she still fought every day. Her animal loped and charged and she carefully fought against the power, thoughtful not to hurt it, but did so with a certain dignity. The fourth time I saw her, I thought about shouting along with my wave. But then I thought that maybe if I yelled hello, all the fantasies I had would also spill out, ricochet and echo off the apartment siding and through the urban tree line. So instead I opted for a kind of full body sign language. I didn’t realize it then, but everyone had the same questions, and so were waiting with the answers in case anyone got close enough to ask. On the 17^th day, it was her ingenious idea to wait until her animal was doing its business, until she confirmed my staring, to bend down and write something on the pavement. The chalk rock she had apparently just found one day, and she never confirmed how long she’d been holding onto it. Yorker was happy enough to commit to my curiosity and when I got close enough, I could see that she had written a telephone number onto the blacktop. I looked up and we made eye contact and the smile made my face feel strange. Yorker was obliged to race me back to the apartment building. The bubbles in the messenger app were like air at the bottom of the ocean. The message that popped up was like sunlight at the bottom of the ocean. We talked for hours that strung together into days. A new context was given to the daily smiles and waves. I found myself dressing more nicely, and she noticed with chiding remarks. We compared our dogs and our parents and our lives. It never occurred to me, but of course we went to the same high school. It always occurred to me, later, that we never would’ve met without the 19 in ’20. Thinking back now, I can’t quite remember how it exactly happened, but she waited for two days to tell me that she had the symptoms. I had even seen her that day, being pulled along by Shadow. She was just as careful as always, just as loving. I had the numbers, though. People our age didn’t succumb. Or, we did, but it was a fraction of a percent. That didn’t even seem like a whole person. So I told her I would love whatever part of her was left. Plus the vaccine was on the way. My mom said it was viable, and my dad said there was a distribution plan being put into place. I couldn’t get all the reassurance into the phone fast enough. She didn’t text any more quickly though. If I had thought about it, I might have noticed that they had been slowing for days. I remember when I saw her mother from behind. I remember the moment when I realized she wasn’t coming back outside. So, there we were, standing on opposite sides of the lot with an audience of parked cars ordered neatly into their spaces, watching us do a little dance. I had gotten pretty good at it, the silent communication. Her mother couldn’t yell it, and I didn’t want to hear it at all. But Terra had gone in the night. And that was about it. Her mother knew the questions; I just wasn’t close enough to ask.