“There were trucks out back filled with frozen bodies that couldn’t fit in the morgue.” Mama takes a bite as if she’s just updating us about the never-ending construction on Route 1.
My family eats dinner together regularly now because of quarantine. My sister’s nursing school and my medical school have moved virtually until further notice. Papa is an IT specialist for the Swiss equivalent of Dunder Mifflin. No one leaves the house but Mama, a registered nurse at two hospitals and one clinic, now for six days a week.
To save a trip, Mama picked up groceries after work. She went out of her way to go to Edison, our favorite town for errands. H Mart and 99 Ranch have more than one brand of ready-to-steam frozen dumplings, and none of them claim to be “authentic” (they are) or “organic” (they aren’t). Asian groceries stayed well-stocked long after Target and Costco shelves emptied. Now that Edison has the second-most COVID-19 cases in our county, Mama surrendered her right to choose her bok choy and assented to curbside pickup, ordering ahead in brisk Mandarin.
Tonight, Papa has prepared thin glass noodles in probably-expired boxed broth with frozen salmon steaks seasoned with too little garlic and too much lemon. For Papa, it is a rare opportunity to nudge us toward his militant keto diet, which he insists will protect him from disease despite his immunodeficiency. For me, it is a rare opportunity to see my father cook something that doesn’t come out of a can. I am grateful he cooks when my sister and I have exams and Mama is working, because no one can do it but him.
“The trucks were full of patients?” asks Papa innocently. My future-nurse sister looks at me and we wince in synchrony.
Mama is unfazed. “They were.” Barely a beat passes. “Your papa is getting better at cooking!” she exults, beaming at us.
On Holy Thursday, the day we remember Jesus Christ’s betrayal and condemnation, Papa’s aunt died of COVID-19. She was on a ventilator, her kidneys were failing, and she was almost eighty years old. She was an immigrant and a single mother, and other socioeconomic determinants of health were not in her favor. She died in New York, where currently there are more cases of COVID-19 than any single country outside the U.S.
People around the world had prayed for her: that she would pull through one more night, one more day, and so on. And for a few more nights and days, she did. She seemed to improve slightly but suddenly declined and then died. We cannot pay our last respects. Her body will be cremated, and her daughter has no choice; there will be no memorial service, no wake.
I did not know her enough to mourn her person fully. I mourn Papa’s loss, but mostly I mourn how death is advancing toward my immediate family by degrees.
The morgue is full. Was Auntie loaded onto a similar truck? Are the bodies padded at all, even with crumpled newspapers? Or do they rattle, jostling each other when the driver hits one of many potholes on the highway? Did her daughter, also a nurse, know where they might take her mother’s body? Woman, why are you weeping? Why do you seek the living among the dead? Because no one can do it but her.
Dinner proceeds uneventfully with Mama asking my sister about her grades and not asking me about mine. I try not to stare as Mama wolfs down the salmon-topped noodle broth that my sister and I can barely finish. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s eaten or even sat down. I check on the boiled water steeping Chinese herbs for Mama to soak her swollen feet.
Mama is not an ICU nurse, but all nurses are being floated wherever they are needed. She is the most senior in her unit and when the 22-year-old nurse calls her crying because their patient’s test has come back positive, her voice is even, soft, and firm. “You were wearing your N95 and gown, right? Take a shower and go to sleep. Your job is to stay healthy so you can help your patients. Because no one can do it but us.”
Just an hour ago when Mama came home, she stripped down to her underwear in the hallway by the washer and dryer. I ran the wastefully small load of laundry on the hottest setting while my sister ran a rag soaked in vinegar water across the surface of Mama’s belongings. Mama ran upstairs to the shower I shared with my sister, careful to avoid contact with Papa. She was pale, thin, and soft like she has been my entire life. A proud and modest woman, she tried to cover her body with her arms and hunched as she scurried, scrunching together loose, stretch-marked flesh on her midriff. Her C-section scar looked sore and angry although it had been made to deliver my sister, wearing her umbilical cord like a pageant queen’s sash, almost 23 years ago. I look up from my bowl now and notice the indents and faint bruising on Mama’s face, tattoo outlines of her goggles and N95.
“Thanks for dinner,” I rise to clear my spot at the island. I feel strange, embarrassed that none of us seem very sad. I am waiting for some emotion to rise out of someone, anyone, even myself. But all of us are fine, at least for now, with this reality. “I have to study now. Exam coming up.”
“Did you like the salmon?” Papa asks brightly. “I can give you the recipe.”
“Sure,” I smile, providing the lie he needs.
I carry upstairs the pot of steeped herbs, so full and so heavy. So Mama can stay healthy. So she can help her patients. So I can help her. Because no one can do it but me.
Amara Prato is an MS1 at the Perelman School of Medicine. Amara can be reached by email at [email protected].
