My Daughter. My Eva.

Worries

My brother (who lives in some far flung corner of the world) kept sending me weird gifts. I found one sitting on the porch when I returned back home. I tentatively unwrapped it, eyes widening as I noticed a flash of gold. With that I picked up the speed of unwrapping, hoping it would be something good for once. It wasn't. Just some weird hand jewelry. I could pawn them off later I suppose. I rushed to the lab, grabbed my coat and experiment notes and rushed off to work. "Hey Miranda! How're you keeping?" Steve (one of my colleagues) asked cheerily, slapping me on the back a bit too hard as a form of greeting. "Good, well as good as I can be, y'know? This spanish flu business is rather worrying." I replied, avoiding eye contact as I set up my equipment. A rumour had been going around that Steve had the hots for me, god I hoped it wasn't true. I'm not into large men with beards. "I know. But we'll find a cure soon. We have to." I think that was supposed to reassure me, but it didn't. There's only so much looking at infected bird DNA compared to infected human DNA etc. Before you give up hope completely.

"You need some help with that?" My tall bespectacled friend Sarah asked. (I was having some trouble with dissecting a blackbird's brain) "No, I'm fine thanks." I replied, finally cutting it open. "Ha, ok then. It's lunch break soon though, what are you gonna get?" She asked, walking away towards the cafeteria expecting me to follow. I put down my scalpel and caught up to her stating, "probably just the ham sandwich as per usual. You?" "I dunno... Apparently they're making vegetarian sausage rolls so I might try some." We had lunch and were about to get back to work before my phone rang. 'Probably just a prank caller' I thought, but walked into the bathrooms to get a bit more privacy anyway. "Hello? Who is this, I'm at work." I asked briskly. "Ah yes Miss Baker, sorry to interrupt but a teacher caught the spanish flu so the school is closing for a week. Is there any way you could come pick up Eva?" The receptionist replied in a bored tone of voice, as if she had something better to do than call random parents to tell them the news. "I'll find a way." I shot quickly before hanging up and rushing to the boss's office.

"Shouldn't you be working?" He asked snidely. (No one likes him, he doesn't even know anything about science. He's just some rich kid.) "Can I get some time off I need to pick up my daughter from school." I responded quickly, breathless from all the running. "Your daughter doesn't leave school till-" "Someone has spanish flu, school closed." I countered, cutting him off mid sentence. "And before you ask no I can't get someone else to pick her up." I added. He looked flummoxed, not knowing how to respond at all. "Well fine. But don't make this a habit." He eventually said, I thanked him and left.

"Hey Eva! How are you? Have you had a good day at school?" I asked, picking her up in a bear hug. "It's been great! We did finger painting, told stories and loads of other fun things!" She answered happily. "Come on then, let's get you home. I bought cookies on the way here." Typical bribery, she'd stay and run around the school yard with her friends for ages if I didn't employ it. "Yayyy!!!!" She yelled, running as fast as she could into the car, rooting though the stuff in the dashboard till she found the bag of chocolate chip cookies and stuffed one in her mouth happily.

On the drive home, Eva suddenly started complaining about the cold, even though none of the windows were open and the air con wasn't on. I turned the heating up but she still said she was cold. As well as this she had a dry cough and runny nose. A couple minutes later she also had a headache and a sore throat. I rushed her to the hospital immediately.