The first two weeks of my twenty-one-day quarantine pass, and I feel better each day. Poppy and Sequoia still have at least two weeks to go. On Saturday, I venture from my room to the kitchen for breakfast, where my mom and dad sit at the table, passing sections of the newspaper back and forth. They don’t read news online like everyone else. And they pat themselves on the back for supporting small businesses by subscribing to the local paper. In addition to national news, it has sports coverage of all the nearby high school teams and PTA fundraisers and monthly photos from Coffee with a Cop meetings at Java Jim’s by the pier. We live in a town where nothing much happens, so you have to go to the front page for the important stuff.
I sit at the table, take a sip of my orange juice, and riffle through the newspaper sections to find the front page. As soon as I get ahold of it, my dad tries to pull it away from me. We wrestle back and forth across the table, and the thin pages almost rip in half.
My mom grips my wrist. Tries to get me to let go.
“Nothing you need to see, June,” my dad says.
“Don’t bubble-wrap me. I already know bad things happen in the world,” I tell him.
My mom watches us, nervously biting her bottom lip. “Maybe not today,” she says.
“Why? Is it going to be different tomorrow? Whatever happened, happened. Me not reading it won’t make it go away.”
I give the paper one more yank and look down at the front page, and my stomach instantly drops. The sip of orange juice I swallowed makes its way back up my throat. There, splattered in black ink, is the cover story about a local baby, six weeks old, who has died from complications from the measles. Her name was Katherine St. Pierre.
Mouth agape, I look at my parents. I turn back to the paper. Study the baby in the photo more closely. The white bow attached to her bald head. The pull quote from her mother: I’ve gone back over every step I took, every doorknob I touched, every ounce of air she breathed. She was a newborn, so we were cautious about leaving the house.
I drop the paper. My heart pummels against my rib cage. I know her.
“I killed this baby.”
“Junebug,” my dad says.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” says my mom.
“Mom, who else could it be? Seriously. That’s why you didn’t want me to see this.”
“We didn’t want to upset you.” My mom grips her coffee mug. “We didn’t want you to worry the same thing could happen to Poppy and Sequoia. They’re recovering fine, as you can see. Same as you did.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call my recovery fine. I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. You’re lucky the same thing didn’t happen to Poppy and Sequoia.”
“But you’re better now. Look at you!” It’s like she’s trying to convince herself. To tell herself the measles isn’t much worse than the common cold. Stay home. Rest. Drink lots of fluids. You’ll be fine.
But it wasn’t like that for Baby Kat.
“Well, good for me. And good for Poppy and Sequoia, too. Because we all could’ve ended up like this baby. You do realize that, don’t you? We could’ve died.”
“It’s very sad, but this baby was six weeks old,” my dad says. “We don’t know anything about her health. There could be circumstances that led to complications. Immunity disorders. Other things. For all we know, she got you sick, not the other way around.”
“Her mother shouldn’t have had a baby that new out in the first place,” my mom mutters.
“Her complication was that she was six weeks old and too young to be vaccinated.” I point at the photo. “And you’re talking about her like she doesn’t even matter. This baby was named Katherine. Her parents called her Kat with a K as a nickname because she reminded them of a cat when she stretched. I met this baby. I helped her mom with her farmers market bags. That baby grabbed my hair and I touched her hand to get her to let go. I was sick then. Contagious. I gave her the measles. Not the other way around.” I suck in a breath. I remember that baby’s mom and how nervous she was to be outside. She wrapped her baby in a sling, kept her close to her heart, doing everything she could to protect her from people like me. She didn’t deserve to get sick. “This baby was innocent. Don’t I have to go turn myself in to the police or something? I should be punished.”
“It’s not like that,” my dad says.
My mom talks on top of his words. “Maybe you’re confusing her with another baby.”
“I’m not confused.” I pound my fist on the table. “Come on, Mom, it’s the measles. People aren’t walking around with it all over the place. It’s rare because people are vaccinated. And that right there”—I point at the paper again—“is the reason why. Because babies like Katherine St. Pierre can’t defend themselves. They’re counting on people like me and Poppy and Sequoia to protect them. They’re counting on parents like you and Dad to know better.”
“Well”—my mom tsks—“if anyone should’ve known better, it’s that baby’s mother. She should’ve known you don’t bring a newborn out like that. You keep infants safe and healthy by staying at home and letting them naturally build up their immunities through breastfeeding before taking them out in public.”
“She just went to the farmers market. It’s not like she flew across the country with her.” I choke on a sob. “She was so little. She didn’t deserve this,” I say again.
My dad sighs like he’s exhausted. “June—”
“The reality is that you guys are as dependent as the parents of newborns, because you have to rely on other people being vaccinated to keep your kids from getting sick. Except you had a choice and the parents of newborns don’t have a choice. Still, you knew it was almost impossible for us to get the measles because hardly anybody makes the choice you made. Do you know how selfish that is? How privileged? What makes us so special? What makes us better than any other kid? What makes us better than Katherine St. Pierre?”
“Call it what you want, but my responsibility is to my own children, not anyone else’s. I refuse to live in a police state. Every parent should have the right to make the choice that feels best for them,” my dad says.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Best for them meaning the parent, not the kid. Of course, you’ve never asked me how I feel. Or Poppy or Sequoia.”
“Poppy and Sequoia are too young. They don’t know.”
“How can they not know? They had the measles just like me. Because of that, we should all have a say.”
“Juniper,” my mom says calmly, “we understand your frustration.”
“This isn’t frustration. This is…” Tears fall down my cheeks. “A baby died! Don’t you care at all?”
“Yes, we care,” my mom says, her eyes misting. “It’s tragic.”
“I want to send flowers. I want to tell her mom I’m sorry.”
“That’s not a good idea,” my dad says. “It’s better if they don’t know who you are.”
“Why?”
“It’s just safer for everyone,” my mom says.
“Oh, now you care about safety?” I let out a sarcastic snort. “Maybe you should’ve worried more about safety when you chose not to vaccinate your kids. I can’t believe the way you walk around here like you can survive anything with some herbs and some hippie-dippie remedy. You can’t. And thinking you can makes you look stupid.”
“June!” my dad yells. “That is enough.”
But I will not stop.
“You know I’m right! And you can’t stand that I’m right. And you know what? I would’ve gotten the shot if I’d had the choice. But you took that choice away from me.”
My mom stands up, pushes her chair back with so much force it falls to the floor. “We’re done. Go to your room.”
I push my own chair back. Make it fall, too. I grab the newspaper, then stomp out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I slam my door shut and collapse on my unmade bed. I punch at the pillows.
My parents are fools.
Selfish.
Idiots.
I hate them.
Katherine St. Pierre is there on the front page, reminding me how short her time was and how she’ll never get to do or be anything. She was a baby and her parents loved her, and the whole story of her life was ahead of her until she met me and I made her sick.
I curl up on my bed, clutching my pillow and sobbing into it. The sadness is a physical pain. It stabs at my chest and makes my bones ache. How do Baby Kat’s parents even function in their grief? How do they wake up in the morning, face the world, and live? She was their first baby. Their only baby.
Their house must feel empty.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Baby Kat. “I’m so sorry.”