Today is my due date.

Laundry, probably clean, but possibly infected await the washing machine.

Yesterday, a deep wet cough clambered out of my four-year-old, while a fever of 100 degrees burned beneath her skin.

The world warns me of the coronavirus. Cruise ships docked for weeks are disembarking. Travelers are walking out of airports and into supermarkets. Schools are closing. People are packing basements and pantries with boxes, jars, and cans. Pharmacies are sold out of sanitizer.

Is this what an apocalypse looks like?

Last night, I slept in her bed as she huffed and growled and heaved in her sleep. By the middle of the night, her breathing turned clear, and so I returned to my own bed.

A few hours later, she hollered, "I'm scared!"

"Coming," I called, carrying my pillow back to her bed.

For breakfast, she ate a bowl of frozen blueberries and a small square of cornbread. She coughed throughout the day, but her fever was gone. We took a walk to the mailbox in the sunshine. She drank cough medicine. She watched too much television. Then late in the afternoon, I read her a pile of paperback picture books.

A midwife told me recently that I should worry more about the flu than this mysterious and ambitious coronavirus.  I don't know that worry is ever productive, but I will wash my hands a few times more and do another load of laundry. Then I will clean the house and then I will clean it again.

Today is my due date and yet I can't help but hope that he stays inside me for a little while longer. Perhaps until summer?

I simply would like for her (and the whole world) to be a bit better before his arrival.