Not Covid

My middle and I have covid.

Okay. Nope. Turns out we don’t.

But the tests we bought showed two lines. My heart started to race. All the places we’d just gone. All the people we’d seen. Sometimes masked, sometimes not. I thought of my middle’s teacher who is highly susceptible to illness.

I sent him to school!!

But we tested, and we tested, and I checked temperatures. When is a cold just a cold and when is a cold allergies? Or when is a cold the scary lock’Em down Covid?

This was a new test. One we hadn’t done before. I scrambled for the directions. Yelled to my husband to help me!

He raced in from the wings and fumbled with his phone as I flipped the directions.

“Put on a mask!” He said.

“It’s a new test,” I said, “I think you have to read it differently.”

Did I have symptoms? I didn’t feel sick. Maybe I was one of those asymptomatic people I worried has been walking around spreading Covid unbeknownst to them?

Am I a superspreader!!??

“Negative,” My husband said.

“Scuse me?”

“We’re supposed to scan it in and that’s how we found out if you’re positive or negative. Two lines just means the test works,” he said.

Not Covid. Not Covid this time.

I called my self-isolating middle child back down.

“Take off your mask,” I said, “not Covid.”

I looked at my husband, he looked at me.

“Guess we can get back out there,” I said.

Everyone, back to your places.