Self-Isolation, Day One

“You think I’m going to get you sick,” she said. “I’m going to get you sick and you’re going to die.”

“No,” I said, calmly. “No. That’s not it at all. We are simply taking no unnecessary risks.”

“Okay,” she said. “Fine.” And pouty — angry — confused — exhausted — and maybe sick with the virus, my daughter went into the guesthouse.

How lucky we are to have a guest house, I thought. I’d tried to make it homey, outfitted it with fresh toothbrush, shampoo, comfy PJ’s, the fancy mixed nuts she liked from Costco, her childhood stuffed animal — Ottie the Otter from the Long Beach Aquarium. But I stood at a distance. There was no hug.

It was self-isolation, day one. My daughter, a junior in college, had just gotten home from her study abroad program in London. Less than forty-eight hours earlier she’d woken up to an emergency email from her school. Your program is now cancelled. Return immediately. So she’d packed up her stuff. She’d also gone to the bakery and picked up a cake. It was her 21st birthday in two weeks, and she’d pre-ordered a cake from a fancy bakery — Violet it was called. They made cakes for ‘The Royals’ and they wouldn’t refund her money. So on her last night in London, she’d braved the tube — the tube! — and got a damn cake. They didn’t have what she’d ordered, vanilla with raspberry, so she’d had to take the chocolate with salted caramel, a flavor she didn’t even like.

The next morning she’d taken an Uber to the airport. The flight was eleven hours, eleven hours with her mask firmly in place. I’m going to take Tylenol a half hour before we land, she’d texted before boarding. To make sure I don’t have a fever.

Yes, good plan, I wrote her. I love you! See you soon!!

We decided to hire a car service to pick her up at LAX. My husband takes a drug that lowers his immune system, so I worried he was vulnerable. Why take chances? Waiting for that plane to cross the Atlantic, the pond as they call it, then the entire U.S. of A. was nerve-wracking. “She’s been on a plane for such a long time,” I said to my husband over and over. When we got an alert her flight had landed, I finally felt like I could breathe.

Minutes passed and then an hour, but there was no word from her. “It’s probably her British phone. It doesn’t work here, so she can’t text us,” we told each other. Visions of what was happening ran through my brain. They’re stopping all the passengers. Interrogating them. Taking their temperature, herding the ones who are feverish off to some room like an animal, making them take some kind of test: a nose swab, a throat scrape, blood? Who knew??

We texted the driver: Any sign of her? It was a while before he texted back. No. Not yet.

I asked my ten-year-old nephew if he could see her location as he tracked her phone on a “Find My Friend” app. The app can’t find her, he texted me. Ok. Thanks for checking, I texted back.

“She’s fine.” “Fine.” My husband I assured each other. But was she? How could we know for sure? We couldn’t.

Finally — finally — the driver texted. She’s with me. Do you want to talk to her? he wrote.

We did. But I didn’t think it was right for her to use his phone. “What if she is contagious?” I told my husband. “Isn’t that why we didn’t pick her up ourselves?” So we texted the driver: No. Just get her home.

Now she stood in the backyard. In the dark. “Aren’t you going to bring my bags in?” my daughter asked, utterly perplexed. “I don’t get it. You’re really not going to come close to me?”

“Take a shower,” I told her across the lawn. Leave your stuff. I’m so happy you’re home! I love you so much!”

“Whatever,” she said. And she went in. That was self-isolation, day one.