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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: General Interest
- Published: 01/12/2021
Pandemic E-Mails
Born 1929, M, from Roseville/CA, United States.jpeg)
2021Emails (Approx. 650 wds.)
Pandemic E-Mails
Although my brother Jake and I grew up together in New York we were never really close. For one thing he was five years older. For another after I returned from the Army after Korea I left New York and came out to California. Jake was the successful brother. He got a job in an ad agency when that business was taking off and wound up being a vice president of something or other. I was a lowly civil servant with the State for many years before retiring at the age of sixty. At the time when the pandemic started, Jake, who was closing in on 80, was in a senior home in Manhattan, an expensive one. He’d never married. I was in a retirement community with my wife Sally. We had two sons.
Sometime in April I was surprised to get an e-mail from Jake. It said: “You probably know the virus is pretty bad here in New York. I’m staying put in my apartment. No more going down to our restaurant. They deliver our meals. If anyone leaves they’re in quarantine for a couple of weeks. They don’t want what happened to nursing homes to happen here. How are things in California? Let me know. Jake”
I e-mailed back: “Glad to hear from you. California isn’t as bad as NY. That virus is zeroing in on us old guys so we’re sheltering in place, even ordering in our groceries. Hope things get better in NY.”
A few weeks later I got another e-mail from Jake. “Glad to hear from you, too. How is Sally doing, and your sons? I’ve forgotten just what it is they do. Things are a little better here. We can eat in the cafeteria. Didn’t you have a hip replacement? How’s that going? My knees are OK but I can’t walk too far. That’s what comes from playing too much handball.”
I e-mailed back and told Jake that Sally was doing OK, occupied with her watercolor paintings. I described the jobs our sons had and said that my hip was mostly OK. A few weeks later Jake e-mailed: “Glad Sally is doing well, my nephews, too. Bad news here, a lady I know tested positive. They say it was from someone who works here. He’s in quarantine and so is she. So far nobody else I know of has been infected. Stay safe.”
I e-mailed back and in a few days Jake replied that the lady had been in the hospital but had recovered and was now back. We started exchanging e-mails about once a week. He was very interested in what our sons were doing. He also asked me for the first time about what I was writing as he knew I’d become some kind of writer after I retired. I told him to look at Storystar.
In November Jake e-mailed me: “Well, at least Trump will be gone. What do you think we’d call him if he showed up at the handball courts. I’d say a meatball or maybe a stiff. Things are bad once again here and no one’s going anywhere. I hope you and Sally are staying put. The good news is that there’s a vaccine. I hope the pols don’t screw it up and we get it pretty soon. We’ll see. I read one of your things, not bad.”
A week before Christmas Jake e-mailed: “Things still pretty bad here and I guess just as bad in California. Can you let me have the addresses of my nephews? I want to send them a little something for Christmas.”
In January Jake e-mailed again: “I’m glad that 2020 is over. Things still bad here but we may get the vaccine soon. I don’t know if I’ll be up to it but maybe I can get out to California if things get back to nearly normal later in the year. Would like to see you and Sally and my nephews. Stay safe until the vaccine comes.”
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