Heart failure

I was home with a sick kid today. It all started around 1am the night before when Sassy came into the office and heaved up her dinner and her socks. That went on for hours. At one point, when I’m certain I saw her feet come up, she turned to me and said, “Am I gonna be alright?”

Poor little pumpkin. I let her stay home from school, of course, and I was exhausted from being up all night with her, too. We never got out of our pajamas – not even when I took The Bandit to school. We watched HBO all day. And I was pleased when she kept down toast and mac & cheese. Then I made her take a nap after lunch even though she insisted she didn’t need one. Well I did, so I folded us into my big bed and we slept for another five hours.

There was one thing that happened that almost caused me to have a heart attack. I received an email out of the blue from one of the NYC editors who is reading my manuscript. She has a very distinctive name which I recognized immediately. She has my email because I met her at the Tucson Festival of Books earlier this year. We correspond several times so I am obviously still in her contact list.

I took a deep breath and clicked on the email. I was absolutely certain that the only reason she was emailing me was because she read my manuscript and loved it. What else could she possibly want?

Her email made no sense. It was theater notes about a play she’s in. I didn’t read very far because it was clearly not for me. It turns out her email when haywire and her message went out to her entire contact list.

Honestly, I don’t know if my heart could take another close call like that. It was torturous.