Flu, 1962

Shadows lengthened while we sat stuck in traffic just beyond San Rafael. Headlights had begun to flare in the cool dusk. The hum of the car's engine lulled me, and I put my forehead against the glass, looking out over a darkening landscape. We were headed to the Bishop's Ranch, a weekend retreat for Episcopal Young Churchmen in hilly country that would someday produce superlative wines with garnet hues that stain the inside of a glass. I was queasy from the lurching of the car, the stops and starts, the smell of exhaust. Though trembling with cold, I was too shy to ask the lady, the mother of one of the other girls, to turn on the heater. I imagined pale pink blossoms on the Japanese plum, apple trees laden with white flowers, and north of Sebastapol the vibrant yellow of daffodils on slender, pleated stems. That night I slept in a single bunk made up with thin sheets and blankets.
 
A warm sun the next day restored me, but in the evening, seated by the fire that crackled in the fireplace of the big lodge, I felt flushed. Our recently ordained curate (we were not to know he was gay till some years later) had asked me to bring my guitar, and now he wanted me to sing about the girl who decides to sleep next to her mother her whole life long instead of falling for an unfaithful suitor. I sang; we all sang together. Young Father W. had a wonderful tenor voice. His smile reassured me, but now I was tired and, earlier than the others, I decided to return to the dorm.
 
In that clear March night, the sky gleamed like black ink and stars blazed, bright and alive. Walking downhill, guitar in hand, I suddenly stumbled with dizziness, and the slope swam before me. “Hold on, hold on,” I told myself as I nearly fell onto the dew-slick lawn. For a moment I could sense myself floating away from my body. Back in the dorm, I crawled into bed and lay shuddering with cold, bones aching. The room seemed to spin. I wanted to be home, but the thought of facing my mother filled me with terrible dismay. I knew the blue failure notice mailed by the school would have arrived.
 
Sure enough, it lay open on the dining table when I got home the following afternoon. A Sunday fog, hardly a mist, had blown in from the bay and was gathering in the eucalyptus across the ravine. The house was steamy. A basket of clean laundry occupied a chair atop a stack of San Francisco Chronicles. Mom sat at the table sewing, but I knew she was scowling. I thought it wise to look industrious, so I began to fold towels and pillowcases. “What I want to know,” began my mother, “is whether you have any ambition? Obviously, you will never get to college. What do you expect to do with your life?” She paused, and I shrugged. “Go ahead and shrug. Do you think your girlfriend is going to take care of you? That won’t last long. And why is it you only fall in love with girls? Well, I suppose you want to be a boy.” What an unutterable failure I am. I retreated, burned by her ferocious, upright anger. “Oh, yes, I’m sure you’re sick! But you will go to school tomorrow!”
 
That night, wracked again with cold, unable to stop my trembling, I sought my parents’ bed, stood moaning till Mom woke and let me under the covers, where she tried to warm me with her body. Weeks later we learned that one of my classmates, a robust girl who shot baskets as well as any boy, had succumbed to the illness and died. That night, my mother placed her hand on my forehead–her smooth palm, her touch, gentle–and said to my barely awake dad, “Our daughter has a raging fever.” Like a miracle, I was still her child. Comforted, I slept.