(no subject)
Isabel and I are marvelous phlegm machines. We sit around all day, drinking milk and water and weak tea and converting it all into phlegm. I serve mine up in crumpled tissues that overflow the wastebaskets, drift around on the floors, and burrow into the couch cushions. Isabel can't be bothered with such artifice and simply lets hers flow down her face in broad shiny sheets. Sometimes I try to coax it into tissues but she fights me off, shaking her head No, no. She refuses to push it out. Instead, she lets it find its own way, into her shirt and her hair, across her cheeks, onto my chest and shirt sleeves. We soak it all off in long hot baths.
My method is noisy and fills the apartment with tissues, but Isabel's clogs her nose and throat and thickens in her chest. I lie next to her in the dark and listen to her breath bubbling in her nose, and when it fills all the way up she coughs and thrashes in her sleep. She lands her cold little feet deep into my soft belly. Last night I tried to sleep sitting forward because sleeping on my shoulder seemed to slow her cough.
Erik has no talent for this. He blew his nose maybe twice in the four days he was sick.
My method is noisy and fills the apartment with tissues, but Isabel's clogs her nose and throat and thickens in her chest. I lie next to her in the dark and listen to her breath bubbling in her nose, and when it fills all the way up she coughs and thrashes in her sleep. She lands her cold little feet deep into my soft belly. Last night I tried to sleep sitting forward because sleeping on my shoulder seemed to slow her cough.
Erik has no talent for this. He blew his nose maybe twice in the four days he was sick.