Man Flu

by Shari J. Ryan

  “It’s not your fault,” he says, looking over at me. His eyes are glassy and bloodshot, and his nose is running a little, yet the green hue of his cheeks brings out the blue in his eyes. Bastard. That’s not fair. No one looks good while puking. No one!

  He begins to shiver, so I get up and run to the bedroom for a blanket to wrap around him.

  I return quickly and place it around his shoulders. “Here, is that better?”

  “Thanks,” he mutters while sliding back on his knees to push himself away from the toilet. I guess that position isn’t comfortable, since he immediately lies down on the tiled floor.

  “I know how awful this feels,” I tell him. He looks up at me with puppy dog eyes, and I quickly assume he had his mother wrapped around his little finger with that look. “I’m sorry, Logan.” I run my fingers through his silky hair that somehow still looks perfect after a night’s sleep and vomiting. “Can I do anything?”

  “Just sit here with me,” he says in a whisper.

  I look down at my wet towel. “Okay, sure.” I sit down, leaning my back against the wall beside the toilet paper roll, and Logan scoots forward a couple of inches, placing his head on my lap.

  I’m not sure why, but I’m looking around the bathroom, sort of wondering if anyone is watching this happen. While it wasn’t evident last night when he was making me moan louder than I’ve ever moaned, right now with his head on my lap, I’m realizing how little we know about each other.

  With his back in view, I notice a tattoo—two lines of text written in what looks to be Greek.

  “What’s this mean?” I ask, running my finger along the puckered skin.

  Logan sucks in a short breath of air, and his hands tighten around my thighs. “It—” he swallows and pauses. “It means, ‘We cannot learn without pain.’ It’s about something I lost, and it’s a quote from Aristotle.”

  “Wow, how philosophical of you,” I tell him, smiling a touch at the thought. I’ve had my assumptions about this man, but I may have had him all wrong. “So, what pain have you learned?” I know he was injured in baseball, but I think there’s more.

  Logan curls his legs into his stomach, and I watch the waistband of his jeans dig into his stomach. That can’t feel good, but before I can suggest something else, he’s pressing against me, reaching for the toilet.

  It smells like the devil’s feet in here, and I’m trying my hardest to breathe through my mouth rather than my nose.

  “I think I’m dying,” Logan grumbles.

  “It’s just the flu,” I remind him gently, while running my hand up and down his bare back, which is burning up. “Come on, let me help you to bed.”

  I grab a face cloth and run it under the faucet before he stands up. “Here.” I dab it over his face and flush the toilet. “It’ll be okay.”

  He’s staring up at me as if he just figured something out, but I can’t imagine what could be going through his head right now. “Cora is a lucky girl,” he utters.

  I toss the washcloth into the sink and loop my arm under his. “Come on.” He uses the toilet as leverage to get up to his feet but leans a lot of his weight on me too. Logan is not a small man—lean, yes, but those muscles weigh a ton. I manage to get him to the bed and help him under the covers. “I’ll get you some water.”

  Logan grabs my wrist with a weak grip. “Thank you, Hannah.” The bridge between superior and employee has been broken. We’ve taken a completely different path, and we’ll need to figure out how to navigate through this one, but I’m willing to go that way because something feels different right now. Something feels good, despite the situation at hand.

  I slip into a pair of leggings and a baggy t-shirt and jog down the steps toward the kitchen, just as the doorbell rings. It’s way too early in the goddamn morning for company. Come on.

  “Coming,” I shout to whoever is rude enough to ring the bell before nine on a holiday or weekend.

  I open the door, finding Rick, Tiana, and Cora standing on the front step. What the hell? “What’s the matter?”

  “I need you to take them,” Tiana says. “I—I have plans today, and I can’t deal with him when he’s sick. Plus, I can’t afford to get sick right now. I’ll come back for him tomorrow night. Okay?”

  My mouth falls open. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on just a minute. You don’t really think this is how things are going to work, do you? He’s your problem now. You take care of him. I’ll keep my daughter, though.”

  “No, no, no, I can’t.” She opens the screen door between us and shoves Rick inside.

  “Titi, come on, babe. Why are you doing this?”

  “Yeah, Titi, why are you doing this? Oh, that’s right, you’re not doing this,” I tell her.

  The sudden movement makes Rick fall to his knees, and of course, vomit. Cora is shrieking, holding her nose, and jumping around, making a scene. By the time I return my attention to the doorway, I see that Tiana is gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Friday—it’s the new Monday, with a side of Man-Child

  CORA IS CIRCLING AROUND RICK like a bird ready to peck at a dead carcass on the side of the road. She’s scratching her chin, and her forehead is creased with concern. “Daddy looks like he should be in a hospital maybe,” she says. I contain my laughter while gazing at the adorable analysis she’s conducting in her unicorn fleece PJs and piglet slippers. And the perfect braid in her hair. Tiana knows she hates braids.

  “Cora, did Tiana do your hair before dragging your father over here?”

  Cora runs her fingers down the length of her braid. “Yeah,” she shrugs. “She said I couldn’t leave the house with a bird’s nest on my head. She’s crazy. I don’t have a bird’s nest on my head. Do I?” She bends forward to show me the top of her head.

  “No, sweetie, you do not have a bird’s nest on your head. Tiana is just a little confused about her priorities.”

  “Priorities?”

  “Your father should not be lying on my floor right now. He should be at his house, with Tiana taking care of him.”

  “But he’s sick, and you’re the mommy, so …” Cora still doesn’t completely understand how this works. Apparently, she thinks I’m still responsible for taking care of Rick, just like I take care of her, which makes me wonder what she thinks about Tiana. For all I know, she probably thinks Tiana’s Rick’s shitty babysitter. Might as well be.

  “Hannah?” Logan croaks from upstairs. “Are you still getting some water?” Shit! How can all this be happening?

  Rick lifts his head two inches from the ground and looks up at me. “He slept over?”

  “Really? That’s what you’re concerned about right now?” I respond in a pitched howl.

  “He is out of your league, sweetie,” Rick manages to sputter.

  “Out of my league? You’re living with a beautiful woman who is, oddly enough, attracted to a meathead. Except, it isn’t odd at all when you think about how much longer she can stay in the U.S. without getting married, right? You think it’s cute that she’s a little ditzy sometimes. She’s a freaking genius, Rick. You’re the dumbass. And since you’re lying on my floor in a puddle of vomit, I really don’t think you should be insulting me right now. Not a smart choice.”

  Without another thought, the anger rages through my body, and my foot instinctively comes out from beneath me and splashes him with his own vomit. “Mommy!” Cora scolds.

  “It’s just a form of affection, sweetie,” I assure her.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s what Daddy says to Tiana every night when I’m falling asleep.”

  “Well then, Daddy deserves a taste of his own medicine, don’t you think?” My teeth grit, and this time instinct isn’t fast enough to keep up with my desire. I kick more of the puddle into him, coating his face this time.

  “Come on, Hannah, what the hell? I’m sick.”

  “You should have thought it through before you let your Barbie doll deliver you here in your current condition. This is not a shelter for way
ward, sick, jackass ex-husbands. In fact, if you expected me to take care of you when you were sick, there is a whole list of different choices you should have made in the past.”

  “Uh oh,” Cora says.

  “What’s uh oh?” I say, my head snapping over to Cora as I finish my rant.

  “He’s turning green like The Hulk again. This is what happened earlier. Mommy, do something! Daddy feels sick!”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not puking on my freshly cleaned floors. Get up, now.”

  “I can’t move,” he groans.

  “Cora, help me.” I grab his arm, and she grabs the other. I know she won’t be pulling much weight, but the downstairs bathroom is just a few feet away. I pull as hard as I can, happy that there are no obstructions between the hardwoods and the bathroom’s tiled floor. Just as I manage to get him into the bathroom, he starts bucking like a cat with a fur ball. Ugh. I will care for someone I like, but to watch someone I despise puking, no thank you. “Do it in the toilet,” I tell him.

  He pulls himself up with his arms, leaving his legs limp and flat on the ground behind him. “Give me a break, Rick. Man up.”

  As I walk out, I hear the splash in the toilet, followed by more groaning. Karma, asshole.

  Off to the kitchen I go to get a glass of water for the other patient. Was I this bad yesterday? I guess I was.

  “Cora, stay with Dad and keep an eye on him. Or just wait outside the bathroom in case he needs anything.”

  “Okay, mommy, I’m on duty. Get it?” she laughs.

  “I got ya,” I tell her with a snicker.

  I retrieve a glass from the cupboard and fill it with water before jogging back up the stairs. As I make my way into the bedroom, I find Logan hanging half out of the bed, one foot on the floor and the other under the covers. “That doesn’t look comfortable.”

  “I can’t move,” he moans.

  “Well, I brought you some water,” I say, trying to sound more composed than I feel. “You should drink some, so you stay hydrated.”

  He looks at the glass for a long second. “Hannah?” He squints one eye as he glances up at me. “Do you have a straw maybe?”

  “A straw?” I question.

  “Yeah, so I don’t—I can’t move.”

  I almost want to give him a second to tell me he’s kidding, but by the pathetic look on his face, I don’t think that’s the case. “Um, yeah, sure, I should have a straw. I’ll be right back.” I set the glass of water down on the nightstand and head back downstairs to the kitchen.

  Rick is still groaning or moaning—I can’t tell the difference between the two sounds. Funny, how I always found that to be quite a turn on … err … definitely not so much now. At least he’s still in the bathroom, though. Cora is leaning against the wall outside the hall bathroom, holding her head as if she has a headache. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  “This is exhausting,” she says. “Do you know that Dad sounded like a crying dog in the middle of the night last night? I wanted to tell him to grow up, but I figured I’d get in trouble.”

  This child is one hundred percent me. “I shouldn’t be saying this, but you’re right,” I tell her. “Daddy probably caught the flu you had, but he’s acting much worse than you did when you were sick. You see, when a man gets sick, it’s kind of like the world is coming to an end. They don’t handle it very well, at all.”

  Cora looks utterly confused by my brief explanation about the male species. “I thought men were stronger than women, though?”

  Oh dear, I thought I taught her better than that. “Physically, like their muscles … yes, a lot of them are stronger than women. However, women can handle more pain and discomfort than men. That’s why women have babies and men don’t.” This isn’t a great lesson to be teaching her, especially with a lot of my opinion thrown in right now, but she needs to be aware of what the male brain considers to be true. Plus, I’m still mad, and I need to lash out at Rick and his entire gender right now. I’m not exactly objective about this situation.

  “I wondered why women were the only people to have babies. Daddy said it was because women need something to do when the men work.”

  If my eyes could pop out of their sockets, they would have by now. Cora is unaffected by the look Rick causes my face to contort into. It’s nothing new to her, but right now, I’d like to kick him in the nuts, then the stomach again. He deserves that and more.

  It takes everything I have not to say anything to Cora in response to what she said. Instead, I place my hands on her shoulders and offer a smile through gritted teeth. “Can you find a straw for me, sweetie. I’ll be right back.”

  I huff and inhale a few times before making it to the downstairs bathroom where Rick has made himself comfortable. “Women have babies so they have something to do while the men work?” I snarl, hardly moving my lips enough to enunciate.

  “What?” he chokes out.

  “You heard me.”

  “Ugh, Hannah, I was kidding.”

  “Cora didn’t think you were kidding. What the hell is wrong with you? She’s a girl who will eventually be a woman, and that’s what you want her to think? You want her to end up with a womanizer like you?” I realize I’m being louder than I should, considering Cora is in the next room, and Logan is upstairs, but this man has crossed yet another line, and I am totally losing my cool.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah, okay?” He drops his head back into the toilet bowl.

  “No! It’s not okay! While you were at work, I sat on this floor alone for twenty weeks straight, puking my brains out. It wasn’t because I needed something to do while you were flirting with your secretary. Every doctor’s appointment you missed was another opportunity you lost out on, the experience of seeing your daughter grow from a tiny seed into a full-size baby. I watched life grow within me while you watched every woman’s ass at your office. If you want to call that a woman’s job, that’s fine, but just realize, you have dug yourself even further into the pig pen. You are so dirty and vile, there’s no chance any woman would want to live with you forever, no matter how many smoothies she feeds you.”

  Wow, that felt good. “Geez, Hannah, take it easy, will you? I’m dying here.”

  “Good, get the hell out of my house because I have a man upstairs I’d like to tend to.”

  “You can’t be serious,” he argues.

  “I’m as serious as you were the day I called to tell you I had food poisoning at thirty weeks pregnant. I needed you, but you said you were too busy to come home. What were you doing until eleven that night?”

  “I’ll go,” he concedes.

  “Now.”

  I turn to find Cora with the straw, standing directly behind me. I close my eyes and instantly regret everything I just said. Not because it wasn’t true, but because despite everything I want to say to Rick, the motherly instinct inside of me still wants to preserve Cora’s innocence. I want her to look up to her dad, even if he is a dick.

  “Why were you so mean to Mommy?” Cora says with tears in her eyes. Her words trail off as she runs up the stairs with the straw in hand.

  “Thanks a lot, Hannah,” Rick says while pushing himself up to his knees.

  “For telling our daughter the truth?”

  “She wasn’t the mistake. You were,” he says.

  Really? This dirtbag has the nerve to say that when he’s totally imposing on me and at my mercy right now? It’s the last thing I need to hear before I can’t bear another moment in such a close proximity to him. “A mistake? Finding someone whose life revolves around you for ten freaking years was a mistake? Rick, you don’t know a good thing when you have it. Your girlfriend just kicked you out of your own house for being sick. Go ahead and tell me again that I was the mistake.”

  He pulls himself up to his feet and drags his limp body to the front door. How does this man still make my chest ache, even when he makes my blood boil? Why do I have to be a good person and have feelings for all people, good and bad?

&
nbsp; Rick nearly falls against the door and presses his head against the finished wood. The back of his neck is dark red, and I can tell he has a fever. He always turns red like that when he’s sick.

  “Oh, for goodness sake, let’s go.” I take his arm and pull him along through the kitchen and into the family room—a room I haven’t spent any time in since I was part of a family. It has felt off limits. Cora plays in her bedroom or mine, and that’s where we spend our time. There doesn’t seem to be a purpose to feeling alone in this big, empty room, but at least there’s a pull-out sofa for unexpected guests.

  I prop Rick up against the wall and pull the bed out. Cora reappears, looking forlorn, but nevertheless, wanting to help, as usual. She knows the drill with company since Mom and Dad drop by once every couple months, so she goes to the closet and pulls out the bed in a bag. She drags the plastic bag along the floor until she reaches the side of the couch. “Thanks, sweetie.”

  I make up the bed without much care and help Rick over, with even less concern. “Thank you,” he mutters.

  I close my eyes and shake my head. How does someone walk away from their significant other when they’re sick? I want to ask myself, but karma kind of answers my question. He’s basically getting what he asked for with the choices he’s made. However, if it is karma having her way with Rick, how did I become the helping hand once again?

  I suddenly remember I came down here for a straw, and I have no clue where it ended up in the last few minutes, so I grab another on my way back upstairs.

  One day after dealing with my own flu, I’m somehow running an infirmary. I’ve barely recovered myself. I’m not ready to take care of not one, but two full-grown, sick men. I hike back up the stairs and find Logan peacefully asleep.

  “The world works in mysterious ways.” Mom has always repeated this old quote to me, thinking it would solve my world’s problems. Nothing has ever felt like much of a mystery until now, though. None of this makes sense.

  I scoot down against my nightstand, keeping my gaze set on Logan and his peaceful, man-tasizingly beautiful features that belong on Prince Charming, though I’ll bet Prince Charming never came down with the man-flu. If he had, they could never have lived happily ever after. In any case, with the out-of-control disaster Logan and I have unfortunately found in common these last few days, I haven’t given myself the chance to analyze this man who I was so eager to get into bed with last night.