Remember This on Father’s Day

Kathryn was two-and-a-half, and I was pregnant with Anna.  I had a lot of morning sickness.  Which is a misnomer.  I had round-the-clock, never-go-too-long-in-between-eating sickness.

Kathryn had crawled into bed between Geoff and me during the night, saying something about not feeling well.  In the early morning hours she reared up on her knees, started to say something about being sick, and spewed.  Geoff was asleep on his stomach, right in her line of fire.

I heard the wet splat of it connecting with his back, and quickly jumped out of bed.  Kathryn was crying.  Geoff, awash in puke, was suddenly wide awake and telling me to get some towels.

All I could think of was getting out of the room before I, too, threw up.  Sucking in air through my mouth, I plugged my ears and hustled off to the bathroom, willing myself not to be sick.

“Ruth, where are the towels?” I heard Geoff call.

“I can’t get them right now,” I answered, filling the tub with a pleasant, warm bubble bath.

“Why not?” he called.

“I just can’t.  I have to stay in here or I’ll be sick.”

I heard him mumbling something.  I didn’t really care what it was.  I still had my ears plugged, trying to erase the memory of that deafening splat sound.

I turned on the fan, turned up the hot water, and stepped into a calming floral-scented bath.  I could still hear Kathryn crying, and wished that she’d just be quiet.

Geoff opened the bathroom door a few minutes later.  I quickly shut my eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asked, exasperated, holding our screaming child.

“I had to have a bath.  Don’t talk to me right now.  I’m trying to not be sick,” I explained, rocking back and forth in the bath.

“Okay, so why are your eyes shut?” he pressed.

“Because I know you have vomit on you and I’d rather not have to look at it right now,” I explained, as gently as I could.

He made a mocking sound.  I didn’t care.

“Well, do you think you can bring yourself to bathe her, too?” he asked, handing me a naked, screaming child.

Calmly, I looked her over.  “I’d rather not,” I said.  “She’s got vomit on her, too.”

“Oh well,” he said, setting her down in the tub and turning to leave the bathroom.

I looked at him right then.  And wished I hadn’t.

Squeezing my eyes shut again, I started rocking back and forth in the bath. Breathing in the calming floral-scent. I doused Kathryn quickly to get rid of any vomit smell and replace it with the smell of bubble bath.  She, too, calmed right down.

After a while, I relaxed and knew the threat of my being sick was over.  I got out of the tub and got Kathryn out. I put her in some clean pajamas, and put her back to bed in her own bed.  Then I went out to the living room to find Geoff.

“I put Kathryn back in her own bed,” I said brightly.

“Think maybe I can go shower now?” he asked.  It was pretty apparent that he wasn’t happy with me.

“Yeah, go ahead,” I said, not wanting to discuss things further.

“I made up the hide-a-bed,” he said, as he shut the bathroom door behind him.

I saw then that he had pulled out the hide-a-bed and made it up with clean sheets and pillows.  He had brought out my water bottle, and our alarm clock.

The washing machine was going.  So I poked my head into our bedroom to see that he had stripped off all the bedding and apparently stuck it all in the washer.  And he’d opened the bedroom windows to air out the room.

By the time he got out of the shower, I was comfortably settled on the hide-a-bed.  I apologized for not helping.

He shook his head at me as he climbed back into bed.  “Just remember this on Fathers’ Day,” he said.

And after all these years, I still do.