My children went on a trip without me. One had a cold when she left; she decided this was a once-in-a-lifetime trip to see her cousin graduate, so she went. She was sick, wearing a mask, for three days, and then came home. The two teens who went with her came home sick. At least one of the people they visited got sick after they came home. I got sick the day after they left and have been ill for a week now.

We were scheduled to meet up with my older son and his wife, visiting Indiana from Oregon, this week. The day before they were to arrive I called to tell them we were sick. His wife works in elder care, so wants to avoid any serious contagion. It’s been three years since lockdown began and two years since lockdown ended; I knew Covid was going around because I had a friend come down with it two weeks ago; I taught her class in Sunday School. My friend was out of commission for a week and then was back in the saddle. I figured we’d go through something similar. But my son asked for a Covid test, just in case.

By that time I was definitely on the upward swing, though too sick to go to events. It felt like a particularly nasty long-lasting cold: sore throat, tired, dragging, brain fog, head aching, not wanting to eat much, thirsty, coughing, blowing my nose when I wasn’t spraying into it to get enough moisture to stop hurting. My period had piled on and I felt doubly fatigued.

Still, he asked, so I looked online for Covid tests near me. Some pharmacies with a drive-through said they’d do Covid testing free, so I booked one online. I combed my hair and drove to the pharmacy. I even grabbed a mask to wear, though I’ve avoided wearing a mask for anything since lockdown ended. We still have a stack of cloth masks and a package of disposable masks, for those days when someone feels the need to protect somebody.

The pharmacist said they’d have to reschedule, since “our machine is down.” He said he’d call another pharmacy to let them know I’m coming, and told me which pharmacy in the chain to drive to. I drove to the one he said; they didn’t have a drive-thru and were genuinely puzzled that someone thought they tested for Covid. They offered to sell me a home test kit, and when I asked, referred me to another location that had a drive-thru and might do testing. I drove to the third location. At the window, wearing a mask over my lower face, I asked for a Covid test. The pharmacist handed me a home test kit and asked for ten dollars. I paid.

In the car I read the directions, set up the test tube, swabbed my own nose, dipped and swirled it in solution, then dripped solution on the test strip. I set my phone to ring in fifteen minutes, then drove home. By the time I got home the results were in. I was sick. I took a picture of the test stick, in case anyone ever asks for evidence. The whole thing felt like a sham, evidence worth exactly nothing, except that my son and his wife and my older daughters and my younger children took it very seriously.

We ended up talking with my son and his wife in a city park pavilion, with masks on all our faces, at two tables fifteen feet apart. The sickies sat at one table and the healthy at the other. We threw each other high fives and air hugs; at one point we communicated by interpretive dance. My daughter brought a book of MadLibs; we exchanged meme pictures on our phones. We talked and talked. It was great, except that we couldn’t touch each other and couldn’t see each other’s expressions.

When I tell my co-teacher that I won’t be teaching Sunday School this Sunday she’s going to take it seriously, not because I got the positive test result but because she was sick, herself. It hurts a lot.