New From Here, page 24
“What’s an essential worker?” we ask Mr. Brady.
“I think it’s someone whose job is absolutely critical in order for society to function, like healthcare workers, emergency services, food and grocery store staff.…”
I suddenly panic, worried we’ll have to stop delivering food!
“Food delivery employees should count too,” Mr. Brady says, reading my mind. “But do you guys really need to be doing this? You heard the newscasters—we’re up to a thousand cases now.”
“We have to! Before it’s too late and they stop all the flights!” Lea says, desperately explaining how hard we’ve worked and how far we’ve come to try to get Dad here. We’re so close!
“Well, I’d call that pretty essential work you kids are doing,” Mr. Brady says as Bowen walks out of the den and announces to Mr. Brady that his Zoom is all installed.
Mr. Brady’s face lights up.
“You mean I can see my grandkids again?” he asks.
“Yup!”
“Thank you kids so, so much,” Mr. Brady says, getting a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet.
Our eyes boggle at the cash. More than the money, though, the knowledge that we’ve helped a neighbor fills me up inside.
Walking back outside, Bowen, Lea, and I high-paw as Lea takes the hundred dollars and adds it to our stash of tips. I help my little sister count it all up.
“Just six hundred seventy-eight dollars more to go!” I squeal. Lea gazes up at the vast blue sky overhead, pointing with her claw. “I can almost see Daddy’s plane.…”
Chapter 92
Mom’s just getting off her last Zoom call of the day by the time we get home and finish setting the table. Bowen puts his phone down. He and Jackson have been trading Usain Bolt videos ever since we got back.
Mom’s eyes widen when she sees the dining table, all wiped and shined, with plates of scrumptious sweet-and-sour chicken. Christopher’s dad gave us a humongous bag of takeout to thank us for delivering all the food.
“Surprise!” we say, pulling out a chair for Mom.
“This is… amazing!” she says. “Thank you guys so much!”
“Christopher gave us all the food.” I beam.
“And some toilet paper!” Lea giggles, holding up a roll.
“Awww, well, tell Christopher we appreciate it!” As she reaches for her first piece of sweet-and-sour chicken, Mom asks me about my day. “Did you get all your homework done, Knox? Want me to work on it with you after dinner?”
“Actually I finished everything,” I reveal, glancing at my brother. “Bowen helped me.”
“Really?” Mom asks, shocked. She turns to Bowen, who pours her a glass of Fresca in her UC Berkeley glass. “Watch out, you’ll be getting this glass soon!”
Bowen smiles.
“Tell us again how you got it from the chancellor. Did he give it to you at graduation for having the best grades?” my brother asks.
Mom chuckles, admiring her glass. “He did give it to me at graduation,” she says. “But it wasn’t for having the best grades.”
“It wasn’t??” Bowen asks.
Mom shakes her head, peering at the glass. “It was for my public service. I started an advocacy group for immigrant students and students who are the first in their family to go to college. To help them combat professor bias.”
I form an O with my mouth.
“That’s why the chancellor recognized me. It was for my efforts to help others,” Mom says. “That’s the true marker of success.”
I smile, thinking back to the warm feeling of helping Mr. Brady today. And helping save a small family restaurant. Mom’s right. It really is the true marker of success.
As Mom passes her glass around, we all take turns holding it and admiring it.
I look over at Bowen, who seems the most surprised. But then again, he shouldn’t be. If we’ve learned one thing this year, it’s that we’re all connected to each other. We all breathe the same air into our lungs. None of us are immune to each other’s problems. That’s why we have to care about each other.
Chapter 93
Fueled by Mom’s words, Bowen, Lea, and I deliver takeout every afternoon for the rest of the week, racking up tips. As we get closer and closer to hitting a thousand dollars, I picture Dad’s face when we tell him the good news.
The glow of Bowen’s phone wakes me up on Friday. “Jackson just invited me to run at the track—with masks on. You wanna go and kick some balls around?”
“Sure,” I mutter. It comes out a low murmur.
I try to get up but my body is slow and sluggish. I put my hand up to my neck. Why does my throat suddenly feel so painful and dry? And my hand so cold?
I start coughing.
“Oh no…,” Bowen cries. “MOM!!!!”
Mom runs into our room.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
Before I can respond, she puts her hand to my scorching hot forehead. As she dashes into the bathroom for a thermometer, I shiver in my blanket. My sister walks in. She sees my face and the stuffed bunny drops from her hand.
“You think it’s…,” Bowen starts to say.
“No!” Mom exclaims. “You guys haven’t been going out, except to have picnics up the hill. We haven’t been exposed.…”
“Um.” Bowen swallows hard.
As the thermometer in Mom’s hand takes my temperature, Bowen tells her what we’ve been doing. The blood drains from her face.
“You’ve been running around town doing what ?!?” Mom asks.
“We wore dino suits! We were fully protected!” Bowen insists.
Mom picks up Bowen’s deflated rubber suit in the corner of our room. “You call this fully protected?”
“We didn’t just deliver takeout! We also helped Mr. Brady install Zoom!” Lea tells Mom.
But Mom doesn’t care. She scolds Bowen for letting us go out and taking such reckless risks. Their argument is interrupted by the loud beeping of the thermometer: 100.7 degrees.
“You definitely have a fever,” Mom declares as I huddle in my blanket, coughing in the direction of the wall so I don’t get my siblings sick.
She asks me if I have any difficulty breathing. I shake my head. I don’t think so, although now that she mentions it, it does hurt a little in my chest every time I move. Like a baby T-rex foot is lightly stepping on me.
“No, no!” Mom says. “We have to get you to a hospital.” She chews her lip. “But going to the hospital right now, with everything going on…”
“To the hospital?” I gasp.
Mom weighs the risks in her head. “I don’t want to take any chances,” she finally says.
I plead with her. “I’m fine !” I tell her. I start getting out of bed to show her, only to fall off the bunk. I land on the floor with a thud.
Lea screams. “Are you okay??”
Mom scoops me up and takes me to her bed. While she calls the doctor we went to a few summers ago when Bowen had an ear infection, my brother sits by my side, putting blankets on me.
“You should sit farther away,” I tell him. “Just in case.”
Bowen shakes his head. “I’m fine where I am,” he insists.
I close my eyes. I should have listened to Mom; I should have stayed inside. A whimper builds in me as I think of Dad. All I wanted was for him to come home to us. Tears trickle down from the corners of my eyes. For once, I don’t bother hiding them from Bowen.
Chapter 94
Mom presses on the gas, zipping down the streets toward Alta Bates in Berkeley. The doctor told us that based on my symptoms, he can’t see us at his clinic. We need to go to the hospital. When we arrive, three doctors in hazmat suits greet us by the entrance. I’m relieved the hospital is still open—according to the radio, the whole county will start sheltering in place on Monday. The doctors help get me into a wheelchair.
“Where are you taking him?” Mom asks.
“To an isolation room,” one of the doctors tells her. “All our suspected COVID-19 cases have to be put in isolation rooms to avoid possible contamination and spread, until the tests come back.”
“Isolation room??” I glance over at Mom, panicking. “NO!!” I don’t want to be separated from my family!
“Can I go with him?” Mom pleads with the doctor. “Please. I understand the risk of getting COVID and I’m willing to take the risk.”
“I’m sorry, it’s our hospital policy,” the doctor says. “We’re going to do everything we can to help your son, but you have to let us do our job.”
“Mom… I don’t want to go,” I whimper, coughing in between words.
Mom nods and kneels down to look into my eyes. “Bao bao,” she says. “I know you’re scared. But it’s going to be okay. The doctors are going to make sure you get all better. And we’ll be right here in the waiting room the entire time.”
“It could be a while,” another doctor says. “We’re currently low on tests.”
I turn to Bowen. “Will you let Christopher know what happened and that I’m so sorry we can’t help him today?”
Bowen tells me not to worry about Christopher, he’ll take care of it. He hands me his cell phone. “Here,” he says. “So you can FaceTime us. And Dad.”
At the thought of Dad, I start bawling uncontrollably. If something happens to me, I won’t even get to see him. I’ll be stuck in the isolation room. I won’t even get to say goodbye. Lea wraps her arms around me, despite the doctor’s warning not to touch me. She puts her beloved Bugsy the stuffed bunny into my hands. “Don’t die, gege,” she whispers into my ear. And I promise her, for her sake and for Dad’s, “I won’t.”
As the doctors push me through the double doors, Mom crumples onto the floor. I hold one arm out to her and flex my other arm up high, trying to stay strong.
Chapter 95
It’s cold and noisy inside the isolation room. There are all sorts of machines beeping and buzzing as the doctors put long wires and tubes in me. Down the hall, I can hear the oooooof of oxygen machines. I gulp, hoping I don’t need one.
“Hey, buddy, I’m going to stick this swab up your nose to do some tests. I need you to hold real still, okay?” the doctor asks.
I muster a brave nod, even though I’m really scared. The swab he’s holding is as long as a pencil.
“Here we go,” he says, holding my face back with his gloved hand. On the count of three, he sticks the swab way in. I imagine it coming out of the other side of my skull. It kind of feels… like I’ve eaten too much wasabi. It makes my eyes water slightly.
When he’s done, he puts it in a container and shows me my name on the sticker to make sure it’s accurate.
“Knox Wei-Evans,” he says. “Like the beach?”
I nod, wondering if I’ll ever get to see it again.
“Now tell me where it hurts in your chest,” the doctor says to me. I point to the spot where it aches if I hold my breath for too long, and he puts his stethoscope over it. He tells me to inhale and exhale. I try and do it without coughing.
“Your air passageways seem clear when I listen to them,” he says. “But I’m going to schedule a CT scan just in case.” He walks out of the isolation room as my phone rings.
I smile when I see Dad’s face on FaceTime.
“Hey, Dad,” I say to him, coughing. I reach out and touch the screen with my finger.
“How do you feel?” he says. “Are you okay? Did they give you anything?”
I tell Dad the doctors gave me some medicine for my fever. But just seeing him, I feel my toes warming up. Softly, I whisper, “I’m so sorry, Dad.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dad says.
“But it is.” Tears drip down onto my hospital bed. Amid all the beeping machines in the isolation room, I finally tell Dad what the last few weeks have been like for me. About the Taradippin brothers. The dinosaur suits. The takeout. Goose bumps of regret spider up my arms as I think about how careless we were.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to get sick. All I wanted was to get you over here.”
Dad wipes at his own wet eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have listened sooner when you said you wanted me over. I should have found a way. But I’m going to figure it out now. You just hang in there, buddy.”
I shake my head. I’m done putting my family in danger. “No. They won’t let you see me even if you come,” I tell him. I close my eyes, thinking back to that fateful airplane trip and how I thought we were getting on the lifeboat to safety. And now…
“I don’t want you to get sick, Dad,” I whimper.
My eyelids grow heavy from the fever. I whisper “I love you, Dad” one last time and fall asleep.
Chapter 96
It’s the middle of the night when I finally wake up. I’m in another room. Did they move me? I gaze up at the monitor, shocked to see it’s Monday, March 16. I’ve been in the hospital three days. The fever must have knocked me out cold. I watch my heartbeat on the monitor, relieved to see it is still pumping strong.
I reach for my phone, but there’s no more battery. Bowen gave me his phone but he forgot to give me a charger.
The hospital hallways are quiet. I try to call out for a doctor, but no one responds. Did they get the results back from my test? Do I have COVID? I feel my nose with my finger, at the place where they probed me. It still hurts a little when I touch it.
Wide awake and with no phone or iPad, I decide to compose recordings for my brother and sister in my head—in case I have COVID.
Dear mei mei,
I know I don’t always tell you this, but you’re pretty cool. Thanks for always making me feel better even when you didn’t have to. I hope you always remember the soccer moves I taught you… and that you have a gege who loves you very, very much.
Love,
Knox
And for my brother, Bowen…
Dear gege,
In case anything happens to me, I want you to know that the combination to my lockbox is 1-4-6. It’s the months of our three birthdays. I want you to have my stamps and give Lea my soccer match cards (you’ll have to teach her how to collect them and trade them).
Okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but you’ll also find a bunch of your old certificates for “Best at Reading” and “Best at Chinese” from elementary school in my lockbox. You might be wondering what they’re doing in my lockbox. You didn’t want them, but I kept them for you.
I always thought that if something happened to you, it sort of happened to me, too. But now something has happened to me that I hope never happens to you. I know you’ll be blaming yourself as the oldest for “letting it happen”—please don’t. You couldn’t have stopped me even if you wanted to, because when I put my mind to something, I hyper-focus. And you know what? I wouldn’t trade the memories of us running around town in our dino suits for anything else in the world. We finally bonded, which is all I ever wanted.
Love,
Knox
When I’m done, I press send in my head and hope my siblings get my messages telepathically. I gaze out the window at the silvery moon, hoping they’re looking at it too… and thinking of me.
Chapter 97
Knox… Knox…?”
The sound of my brother’s voice wakes me up the next morning. I open my eyes and see my brother sitting on my bed. Is he really here, or am I dreaming it? I look around, not recognizing the room I’m in.
“Bowen?” I ask.
“Guess what??” He smiles at me. “The test came back. It’s negative! You’re not in the isolation room anymore! You don’t have the coronavirus!”
I sit up. Is he messing with me?
“I’m serious. Mom just talked to the doctor. She’s signing your discharge papers right now. You just have the flu.”
“The flu—that’s it?” I ask. Bowen nods. I punch the air with my arms in my hospital bed. A nurse comes in and checks on my pulse and temperature.
“Ninety-eight degrees, all normal,” she says. I exhale a sigh of relief.
Bowen waits until after the nurse leaves before getting something off his chest. “I was so worried these past few days.… I really thought I was going to lose my best friend.”
I stare at him. Is he feeling okay? Does he have a fever?
But Bowen doesn’t just stop there. “I’m sorry for not always being nice to you the last few years.”
“It’s okay…,” I start saying.
“No,” Bowen says, his eyes full of determination. “I’m sorry for calling you Knot. It was mean. The truth is… I have impulsivity issues too. And I just… sometimes…” He clutches my hospital bedsheet, unable to describe it.
“Lose control?”
“Yeah.”
I get that.
“It felt so weird looking up at our bunk and not having you there,” Bowen confesses.
“Same here…,” I tell him. “I kept waiting for you to yell, ‘Stop tossing and turning!’ ”
Bowen chuckles at my imitation of him. “Seriously, though, I’m sorry for being so hard on you. I just wanted to be ‘the man’ and step up because Dad wasn’t around.”
I prop myself up with a pillow. Gently, I remind Bowen, “Being the man doesn’t mean being harsh. It means you’re kind to those you love.”
As he reaches to give me a hug, a familiar voice echoes my statement.
“Knox is right. Being the man means you’re there for the ones you love.”
My brother and I spin around.
“DAD!!!!!” we exclaim.
Chapter 98
I leap off my hospital bed and run toward our dad, the wires and monitors on my body beeping and flying every which way. But I don’t care! Dad’s here! I hug him in the flesh, never wanting to let go of him again.
“How did you get here?” I ask, breathing him in. Dad smells like disinfectant wipes and granola bars.
