It’s not helping matters that there is yet another hurricane, this one named Sally, taking aim at the Gulf Coast.  This season they are going to run out of names, I tell you. I feel it in my bones.

This surety settles into my emotions with all the other crud of 2020.  I thought once we got through the summer, we’d be nearing the end of the troubles: the virus, election turmoil, protests, storms.

But no, nothing ended, and it seems our trials are just warming up.  COVID cases are predicted to surge.  The hurricanes keep churning across the ocean.  The country seems more divided than ever over presidents and protests. And the media will not let us forget any of this.  It’s a constant buzz of agony anywhere you look or listen, inequity and privilege coming into sharp focus for the first time, it seems.

But all of that, I could have handled with something approaching aplomb.  I can survive, sustain, surf atop the wave of the outside world as long as I have a secure inner world.  Job, relationships, Chum.

Two of the three have taken a big hit in the past week or so.

First, I learned in the most convoluted, backward way possible that I may be out of a job soon.  I cannot tell you how astonished I was to receive an email from a long-time member of NFMS, congratulating me on my plans to move on from my job as Director of Meetings.  At the beginning of our four or five message exchange, I thought she’d confused me with someone else—the Director of Online Education.  Cara had just given notice—she was going to work for Medscape, and I was thrilled for her.  Better pay and 100% remote, so Mr. Capper could never pop into her office unannounced and grill her about funding support.

“No,” Dr. Patel had written me back, “not Cara. You.” She had specifically heard my name mentioned as someone who would be leaving soon.  I still thought she was mistaken, until I made myself sit down to think about this news with a rational mind. (And maybe a paranoid one too, I admit.)  Sera Patel was letting me know something she probably shouldn’t—the “powers that be” were discussing my exit.  I should be grateful to her for risking her position on the Board by sharing this information with me.  But, then again, Dr. Patel was no stranger to shaking up the status quo.  She was the sole female member in that boy’s club, so she tended to be plenty open when she thought something wasn’t getting a fair deal—a committee, a disease, an idea.  A person.

So, I ruminated on what I should do next.  Email HR?  Call Capper? Text Cara to see what she knew?  She was leaving anyway, so it was likely she wouldn’t mind sharing any workplace rumors, no matter how sensitive.

It was at times like these that I missed Martha with a chest-deep pang.  My former co-worker, was contentedly living in Marco Island with her husband, son, and grandchild.  She’d texted me recently about how glad she was to be out of the meetings business, to be absent from the workplace entirely, especially during a pandemic.

But, oh how Martha used to gather up office gossip like treasure!  She spilled all the news to me behind closed doors, so I could ferret out the gold from the fool’s variety.  Yes, Martha would have been able to advise me whether or not I needed to pursue this rumor and, if so, how.

But she is gone, and it’s just me in my department.  My lonely, virtual department. Maybe I should just accept Dr. Patel’s intel as evidence of a fait accompli and start job searching.

But this morning, I said the hell with passivity, be bold.  I decided to call Mr. Capper, tell him I’d heard a rumor about myself, declining to say where I’d heard it.  So, I did.  I sat on my unmade bed and clicked on the green phone icon, placing a call to R. Capper.  I shivered like a child about to get immunized, scared of the needle but resigned to the injection.

But the boss didn’t answer.  And I didn’t leave a message.  Because I started thinking about something that had been festering in the back of my mind.

I had never received an invitation to the rescheduled Annual Meeting Program Committee conference call, and I should have.  It had been postponed twice due to two members catching COVID.  Capper’s secretary was supposed to be in touch about a new date, yet I never saw correspondence of any kind.  It was an important meeting too, since half the committee wanted to meet face-to-face in May 2021, and the other half wanted to go virtual.  It had promised to be a knock-down drag out type “discussion” among the big NFMS personalities.

That was a clear sign right there, being left off the Program Committee list.  I know it.  I’m headed for pink slip city.

The truth is I’m not sorry to have been left off that Committee call list.  And by “call,” I do mean one of the old-fashioned variety. They’re still using a plain Jane conference call service, not video technology like Zoom or WebEx or Teams. That would be too “new-fangled” for most of them, technophobic physicians, clinging to analog ‘til they die.

But what does it say about me that I would just accept (and even appreciate) being marginalized in a job I’ve held for so many years?  Shouldn’t I want to fight for myself? Push back against the powers that be?

I take a deep breath and recline on my (now made) bed.  I’m so tired of thinking about work.  And as bad as things are with my job, that situation is not nearly as upsetting as the other big hole in my life.

Adam.

I’m ashamed to say I haven’t seen him in person since the pandemic started.  Sometimes I can’t believe it’s true.

I occasionally count the months on my fingers, one of them distinctly ring-less now.  1-2-3-4-5-6. Six months since we postponed the wedding.  Half a year.

If not for COVID-19, I would be married and living either in Jacksonville or Atlanta with my husband.  We never decided for sure which city.  If it had been Georgia, I was hoping to transition to virtual work for the medical society.  I had been excited about that possibility.

Well, the virtual part came true at least, working from home.  But not the marriage part.  The cherish and honor, the companionship, partnership, “someone next to me in bed every night” deal.  Having a person who would listen, share stories and ideas, laugh with me. Love me, love my dog.  Be my safe place.  A steady eye in the storm of the world.

If not for a worldwide pandemic, I would have a totally different life now.

I close my eyes, making a tight seal against the sunshine.  The whole idea that any of that could happen—marriage to a soulmate, living in another city—seems so alien to me now. I can’t believe I ever considered going through with it.

And my current knee-jerk reaction of nope, no way, thank God, you didn’t do it, is shameful.  That is the only word for it.  How could I have loved someone, accepted his proposal of marriage, committed to him when he told me I was the reason he stayed healthy—only to feel relief now that I’m not legally bound to him?  And worse than that, not to have seen him face-to-face, gone to Atlanta, risked a little virus exposure to do so?

Of course, we did video calls at first, but they started to become perfunctory, quick check-ins with each other.  And I noticed the shadows under Adam’s eyes seemed to get deeper with each conversation.  I asked him about his meds, was he taking them?  Yes, he always answered, of course.  I considered calling his father to find out what he knew, but I couldn’t bear to hear any news that was bad.  Jeremiah might say, “I told you so.”

Eventually, Adam’s and my face-timing turned to daily texts, then weekly.  And now?

We I barely communicate at all.

I can’t help but think I’m some kind of monster, that I turned out to be an a-hole after all.  Surely, it’s sociopathic that I’ve let us grow apart. That I don’t take action, that I’ve let things just amble along however they will in 2020.  So much so that Adam is hardly a real presence in my life now.   He’s a shadow.

How can a person go from soulmate to stranger within a few months?

I want to blame the virus for how things have turned out.  A pandemic plays with reason—”it’s dangerous to visit others outside your bubble,” you hear.  “You could infect them!”  But really? Would I have endangered Adam that much by showing up at his house?  I know he is part of an at-risk population, but come on.  I could have gotten a negative COVID test before traveling, ensured he did the same.  Could have stopped for gas only once, totally Purelled myself afterwards, showered upon arrival in his bathroom, worn a mask just to be safe.

It would have probably been okay, common sense tells me, so I can’t blame the virus for me being MIA.

It’s me. I’m to blame.  Because the thought of all that effort, the care and concern, the meticulous sanitizing wearied me.  I kept picturing Meryl Streep in Silkwood, the scene where she gets scoured in the shower.  So much effort and energy focused on cleaning away a dangerous substance that you’re left a damp remnant of yourself.  I was exhausted before I’d even packed a sock. I couldn’t summon any enthusiasm, not even the least spark of desire to hit the road with Adam as the destination.

Because, even more dispiriting, I couldn’t reclaim that deep-down hum, that push to be with Adam, which had powered me through many a long trek to Atlanta and nourished wedding discussions in the beginning.  That glued-together feeling—re-forged by his vow to me, placing a gorgeous ring on my finger—had worn down to a residue of nearly nothing.

I think of the engagement ring, now resting in the original jeweler’s box, tucked beneath my underwear in a drawer.  It’s no longer a symbol of union with Adam.  Now, I associate the elaborate gem with chaos and bad choices.  Its wild Memorial Day ride on Beth Anne’s pinkie, her tossing it to me over a dusky lawn.  Me catching it, but just barely, as we fled the party.  I could have lost my grandmother’s ring that evening.  Carelessness in the chaos.

Total disregard for keeping a keepsake safe.

To be fair, and not beat myself up about everything, this estrangement with Adam isn’t all my fault.  Jeremiah may be a little to blame too.  In my opinion, he was a smidgen too pleased in April when we postponed the wedding.  He said, and I quote, “It’s for the best—it will give you two more time to get strong.”

I’m not sure if he meant that the relationship needed to be stronger, or that Adam and I each needed to be stronger, or both.  The bottom line is that my erstwhile father-in-law didn’t think our marrying was a good idea.  It irked me at the time, but now I see that maybe he was right.

Because look at what happened to the relationship—not stronger but weaker.  The opposite.  We didn’t have enough oomph to make it through an epidemic.  The glue between us rubbed off, splitting apart a pair perhaps best left singletons.

There is a canine grumble coming from the foot of the bed, and I skootch down to take a look.  Chum’s head is sticking out from underneath the dust ruffle.  He’s been hanging out down there more lately, rather than on top of the mattress with me.  Maybe my separation impulse is catching, just like the virus.

At least the other close relationships in my life are thriving.  Dad and I talk weekly, sometimes daily now; I’m not heading down to Vilano Beach for occasional visits like I used to, since he’s in his seventies, Blanche in her eighties.  I really don’t want to do damage to that particular at-risk population either, the elderly.  I find I’m grateful now that she lives near Dad in their retirement community.  It pays to have a good friend in your bubble, I guess.

Like Fairfax is in mine.

A few weeks ago, Mike texted me, wanting to talk about his wife. He had noticed that she was more isolated, hard to engage in conversation, staring off into space. A “sad kind of estrangement,” he called it.  He had tried to talk to her about it, but Fairfax got snippy with him, replied that she was “fine.”

Mike tried to play it cool with me, acted like it was a quick check-in with a friend about his wife. Just like we’d done in the past when we discussed her post-cancer progress, but I could tell he was scared for her. Much more so than he’s been about recurring lumps or weird blood cancers.  Mike’s voice on the phone had trembled, and he cleared his throat a lot.

I don’t fault him his reaction. It is terrifying when it happens—a dark shadow eclipsing the one you love.  At least that lesson I learned from my mother’s illness, and Adam’s, has not been rubbed away.

“I get it,” I said to him gently, to ease his worry.  “I totally understand what she’s going through. It’s this damn epidemic.  It’s wreaked havoc in our heads.”

And think of those who were already living in a topsy-turvy world…this would be a tipping point.

Adam.

“Here’s another way to explain it,” I continued, pushing through my conversation with Mike to our shared experience.  I needed to focus on my friend’s husband at the moment, not revisit my fiancé guilt.  “Let’s just say something is seriously wrong with the ficus. In fact, with all the ficuses.”

I went on to tell him my theory about the pandemic playing with reason, leading to depressing thoughts.  I mean it’s hard to keep your spirits up when there is no end in sight to this thing. Some die-hard habits, activities, impulses can now be deadly.  What used to be de facto good (Fairfax’s favorites, hugs, parties) are de facto bad. I mean, someone unthinkingly hugs you in Target, and you nearly faint.  Or you reflexively pat someone on the hand at the park, and they recoil in disgust.  Then, to make matters worse, post on Facebook about how “thoughtless certain people are.”

And from there, you can start reasoning that maybe a shoulder pat, a hug will always be bad.  Maybe we’ll never get back to normal socializing, normal hugs hello or goodbye.  It becomes a knee-jerk reaction to keep away from people.  Other humans equal danger and derision. And once you start thinking like that, well…you’re on that slippery slope called “the blues.”

How do you like that for irony?  You may dodge the virus, but it will still make you sick.

Lock you inside gloom, with no hope of escape.  You know you shouldn’t feel that way but not be able to do a darn thing about it.  Except take your medicine.  And wait this thing out. 

Because the only way to survive the pandemic is to abide with it.

The day after I spoke with Mike, Fairfax and I met up for an old-school walk around the neighborhood.  Not too strenuous, of course, because it was still hot in Florida in September.  Neither one of us wore masks, but then again, she’s had several negative tests, and I had been holed up for weeks, with little in-person contact with anyone, except Publix employees and Chum’s veterinarian.  Besides, Fairfax, no matter where or when or how I see her, will always be in my “bubble.”

After our stroll, we sat at the edge of her pool, feet submerged in the cold water.  It was refreshing, normal.  The lizard population was out in full force, slinking in and out of the leaves lining the bushes.  I noticed a salamander slide beneath a scrap of fabric lying there.

I pointed to it.  “Is that a mask?”

Fairfax squinted, her gaze following my finger.  For a few seconds, there was silence, then she responded with a deep sigh.  “Yes.  It’s Angela’s.”

“From the party?”

She nodded.

I knew better than to pursue that line of conversation.  I had defended Fairfax on Facebook when some judgmental Janice shamed her for being a “super spreader.”  Fairfax couldn’t seem to get past the ridiculous post and the Sykes’ family catching COVID, though they were right as rain now.  For weeks, she flagellated herself with the same questions.

“Who did I think I was? God? Like I could control things by perfect organization and rules?  And Angela, her family history of illness, I didn’t think of anyone but myself.” Fairfax had scoffed, shaken her white head with vigor.  “I was so stupid!”

Mike and I had resolved to throw cooling words on his wife’s hot shame.  Counter Fairfax’s negativity with positivity every time she spewed.  So, there in her backyard, I restated my mantra.  Repetition of a message, as the humidity forced us both to drip cool water down our bare arms.  Repeating something makes it stick.  Creates a residue of meaning.

“You know why you did it—you wanted to be with friends, have that connection.  It was a good impulse but the wrong choice at the time. We all accept that, so it’s time to forgive yourself. It’s been four months.” I counted out the months on my fingers, held them up to her.

Fairfax looked at me. A droplet of water rolled down her wrist to her hand.  I relaxed my fingers, wiped the water from her bird-like hand, and gave her a grin.

She smiled back, finally, patted my hand.  “Not going to put the ring back on?”

Her words stung my heart, but it was okay.  Fairfax is the one person I could talk to about the whole mess.  And my shame about Adam.  The relationship, the postponed-most likely-canceled wedding. Never have I had a friend who could provide so much clarity, shine a light into my darkest places.  A steady, longitudinal friend.

“I can’t bear it, Fair.” My voice was trembling then, I remember.  It’s all too much, I wanted to say.   The virus, quarantining, Adam’s illness, his father.  My job. Politics, protests.  Storms literal and figurative.  “I just want to hole up and escape all of it. And I know I’m a terrible person for feeling this way.” I sniffled.  “For abandoning him.”

Fairfax slung an arm around my shoulder. “No, you’re not a terrible person, Plumb.  It’s just a little too much for your heart to take right now. I understand.”

“You do?” I asked, but I needn’t have.  I knew she understood me.

Fairfax nodded, side-hugging me tightly.  Then she proceeded to share her story of late, the boil of shame which would not heal and instead was festering in the new silence of the house, boys and brother-in-law gone. Worry about her own health and Mike’s, and everyone she’s ever been in contact with swelling with the sun of each new day.

She curled forward, her concave chest as hollow as I’d ever seen it. “It’s like, well, like…I’m a kettle and I think and think and pretty soon all these thoughts just boil over and burn me out.”

My heart’s a kettle… An old song or nursery rhyme popped into my mind then, something my mother had taught me, maybe.  From a deep memory pocket, early childhood.  That has been happening more during the pandemic.  My mind seems to be recovering old memories.  Maybe to compensate for the newer ones I am trying to block out. Adam, of course, and other odd, pesky craziness that this virus-time seems to breed.

Like the fact that Max kissed me before he left for Miami.  Really kissed me, not playing around.  And I let him do it.  I think I even liked it.  Who am I?

I really have no idea right now.

My phone buzzes now, syncing perfectly with another groan from Chum, who has crawled out from underneath the bed.  He’s wagging his tail.  Well, it is time to feed him.  Past time, actually.  Maybe hunger can account for his moodiness.

“One second, bud,” I say to him, leaning over to nuzzle him nose to nose.  “Gotta check my phone.” I glance at my phone and my heart starts percolating.  Capper has texted me.

Call me please. At your earliest convenience.

Here we go, I think.  This is it.  My finger hovers over the green call icon but does nothing.  I raise my phone and touch my lips, thinking.  I need to prepare myself.  I need intel.  And then a plan. Because I realize with a surge of feeling that I don’t want to be marginalized, much less kicked out of, a job I cared about—a lot—once upon a time.

And just like that, my heart stops its perco-beat and settles into a calm rhythm.  Because I know the perfect person to help me out.  Someone with intel.

He called me last month, inviting on a dog walk, but I hadn’t been able to go, I can’t remember why.  I think Chum was due for a bath at the vet.  In any case, Peter Redmond seems to want to be friends.  He’s over me, so I can surely be over what I did to him.  No more guilt.

After all, that whole mess was almost two years ago.  I wasn’t the best-behaved person, I realize that.   I think everyone involved has accepted that. And it’s time I forgave myself for my bad behavior.

For that relationship, at least.