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She looked so sad. My girl. My wife. The woman I had promised to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, amen. And I couldn’t make myself go to her. I tried—no one will ever know how hard I tried—but the muscles in my legs refused to work, and the air in my lungs refused to circulate until I was stepping backward into the doorway, away from the dry, dusty smell of mold growing on human flesh.
“I’ll call the hospital,” I said, and fled for the hall.
• • • •
Nikki woke when the ambulance pulled to a stop in front of our house, flashing lights painting everything they touched bloody red. “Mom?” She appeared on the stairs, holding her robe shut with one hand and squinting through the curtain of her hair. “What’s going on?”
I forced myself to smile at her. The EMTs already had Rachel outside. They’d taken one look at her and swung into action with a speed that impressed even me, producing gloves and sterile masks and anything else they could use to keep themselves from coming into contact with her skin. Even then they’d touched her as little as possible, guiding her with words, not hands, casting anxious looks at each other and then back at me as they moved. I understood their concern, but there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t even force myself to follow them. The dry mold smell filled our bedroom, almost solid in its presence. I wanted to bleach the whole place,
would
have bleached the whole place, except that I knew Rachel’s treatment might depend on being able to examine the spot where she’d been infected.
“Rachel’s not feeling so well,” I said. “I’m going to follow her to the hospital as soon as they call and tell me it’s all right. I was going to come up and make sure that you were awake before I went.”
Nikki’s eyes got very wide and round. “You’re going to leave me here?”
“No, I’m going to ask Mrs. Levine from next door to keep an eye on you.” I didn’t want to leave her alone in the house, but even more, I didn’t want to take her to the hospital. Not until we knew what the
thing
on Rachel’s arm was, and whether it was contagious.
It had to be contagious. It had been on the fruit, and then it had been on the table, and Rachel had touched the residue on the table; just touched it, nothing more than that. If this stuff wasn’t contagious, she had been exposed at the same time as the fruit, and Nikki—
Sudden terror seized me. “Honey,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level, “are you feeling all right?”
Nikki’s eyes got even wider. “Why? Is it food poisoning? My stomach feels fine.”
“No, it’s not food poisoning. Hold on.” I flicked on the light, illuminating the hall and stairs in a harsh white glow. Nikki squinted at me, looking affronted. I would worry about her sensibilities later. “Show me your hands.”
“What? Mom—”
“
Show me your hands
.” I was using the tone Rachel always called “OCD voice”—and she wasn’t kidding, exactly, even if she used the label to soften my admittedly violent reactions, turning them into something that wouldn’t frighten people who weren’t as used to me as she was.
Nikki had grown up with my quirks and issues. She stopped arguing and held her hands out for me to inspect. They were spotlessly clean, with short, close-clipped fingernails that had been manicured with a simple clear coat. Most importantly, there was no mold on them. I swallowed the urge to tell her to disrobe, to prove that she wasn’t infected. Things weren’t that bad. Things weren’t going to
get
that bad. I wouldn’t let them. I couldn’t help her if I let them. I had to hold onto control with both hands, because if I lost it—
If I lost it, I was going to lose everything. For the first time in my life, the sense of impending doom that followed me around might actually have weight.
“Mom, what’s going on?” Her voice shook a little as she pulled her robe tight around herself once more. “Where are they taking Rachel?”
“I told you. To the hospital.” I turned to look at the front door, and then at the open door to our bedroom. “Go upstairs. You can get online if you want, but I don’t want you down here until I’ve cleaned up a little.” Any mold that was in our bedroom could stay; I could sleep on the couch. But the kitchen? The dining room? My fingers itched, and I rubbed them together to reassure myself that it was just the urge to clean, and not a sign of contamination.
“Okay,” said Nikki meekly, and turned and fled back to her room, where she could barricade the door against me and my insatiable need to scrub the world.
Rachel’s hand. Rachel’s beautiful, delicate hand. Completely obscured by clinging gray.
I turned and walked straight for the closet where we kept the bleach.
• • • •
The hospital called a little after five a.m., four hours after they had loaded Rachel into the back of an ambulance and left me alone with a contaminated house and a teenage daughter who refused to come out of her room. The gray mold had been growing on Rachel’s latest picture, almost obscured by the pastel loops and swirls. I’d stopped when I found it, standing and staring transfixed at the delicate swirls it cut through the color. There was something strangely beautiful about it. It was hardy, and alive, and finding sustenance wherever it could. Even in pastels.
It was eating the last thing my wife had touched before she came to bed and woke me up pleading for help. I had thrown the picture in the trash and was in the process of bleaching the studio walls when the phone rang. My gloves were covered in bleach. I answered anyway. I didn’t trust the receiver. “Hello?”
“May I speak to Megan Riley?”
“Speaking.” It felt like my insides had been bleached along with the walls.
Please don’t be calling to tell me that she’s gone
, I prayed.
Please, please, don’t be calling to tell me that she’s gone
.
“Your wife, Rachel Riley, was admitted shortly after one o’clock this morning. She’s resting comfortably, but I have some questions for you about her condition.”
Relief washed the bleach away. “So she’s all right?”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “I don’t want to mislead you, Ms. Riley. Her condition is very serious. Anything you can tell us would be a great help.”
I closed my eyes. “She came into contact with a strange gray mold that was growing on some fruit in our kitchen around five o’clock yesterday afternoon. She woke me up shortly after one with the same mold growing on her hand and eye. Judging by how advanced it was, I would estimate that it had been growing since the afternoon, and had only reached a visible stage after she went to bed. She said that it itched.”
“Have you, or has anyone else in your home, come into contact with this mold?”
Yes. I’ve been chasing it through my house, murdering as much of it as I can find
. “No, although I’ve poured a lot of bleach on it,” I said. “My teenage daughter is here with me. She hasn’t touched any of the mold, and she’s clean. I didn’t sterilize our bedroom. I thought you might need to examine some of the stuff growing in a relatively natural way.”
There was a pause before the doctor asked, “Do you have anyone who can look after your daughter for a short time, Ms. Riley? You may want to come to the hospital.”
“Is Rachel all right?”
“Her condition is stable for the moment.”
We exchanged pleasantries after that, but I didn’t really hear or understand them. When the doctor ended the call I hung up, opening my eyes and leaning against the counter with all my weight on the heels of my hands. My gaze fell on the sink, and on the fruit bowl, which I had scrubbed until my hands were raw before going to bed the night before.