The Struggle Of Our Lives

Chapter 6: Fever

'What if he's sick?' I thought.

I quickly pushed the thought away, hoping it's nothing to worry about.

After I set Theodore into the cart, I placed all our other belongings around him in the cart. I turned to Charlotte and asked her if she wanted to go in the cart too, but she declined.

And so, we began yet another long walk. Char kept me company, and we talked for a bit.

"Hey, Terry?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"Why do we keep walking?"

I gulped, wishing we could just keep talking about her barbie's boyfriend problems.

"We're.. on a vacation." I lied through my teeth.
When I could, I really tried not to lie to the kids, since I had to decipher Mom's lies as a kid.

It's not fun.

"Oh.. So why isn't John with us?"

I really hoped she wouldn't ask. I fought back tears and lied, yet again.

"He can't come with us, because he has work."

"Oh."

I prayed she'd leave it at that. We stopped walking at a busy intersection, and I pressed the walk button. We waited for a bit before the light turned on, and we kept walking.

There was a CVS across the street, and I figured we could pick up a few things while we were nearby.

I contemplated leaving the cart outside, but quickly dismissed the idea, and pushed it inside.

We walked through, aisle by aisle, and grabbed the cheapest versions of things we needed.

I ended up getting a box of tampons, two bottles of a kid's cold and flu medicine, some canned foods and soups, and an umbrella.

I checked out, avoiding eye contact with the cashier, and paid for my things with the $20 bill I earned earlier.

God, that was awkward.

We walked for a while longer, but soon enough, I had to stop again to help Lotte into the shopping cart with our brother. She fell asleep pretty quickly, but refused to go under the blankets Theo was under.

Weird.

After a few miles of walking, the bustling city slowly turned into a semi-rural countryside. 

Theodore didn't wake up that entire time.

I stopped walking and walked around the cart to place my hand on Teddy's head. As I expected, he was burning up.

Damn it all.

He was sweating profusely, but was shivering under the blankets. I had wrapped one of my hoodies around my waist when we had started walking, to avoid overheating. I untied my hoodie, and placed it on top of Teddy.

His frame calmed slightly. I noticed Charlotte was completely unfazed by this, and I felt her forehead too.

She was a normal temperature, thankfully.

I looked around us, and shuffled our cart down a small hill, covered and grass and flowers. I walked through the foliage and found a nice area, shaded by the many tall trees.

I stopped walking and the shopping cart moved slightly away from me. I looked around found some big rocks to place under the tires of the wagon.

Let's see what I can do, here.