ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
In the half-light of morning, just as the sun began to catch and lift the drew. Under the corrugated iron roof of a Hotondo shitbox in Betoota Heights, Shontelle Fraser stood in her kitchen with one arm wrapped around her son and the other holding an almost-empty bottle of Children’s Panadol.
It was the third Monday in a row that Cooper had woken up with something wrong. Not quite sick. Not quite well. Warm to touch, but not feverish. Clingy. Damp around the nose. Hair somewhat slick. A child hovering in that medical grey area where no parent wants to make the call but someone has to.
Behind her, the air fryer clicked off. In front of her, the daycare exclusion policy sat open on her cracked iPad, its wording as vague and poetic as the last chapter of Ulysses. No parent had ever read it with certainty. Only conviction.
“We’ve seen this before,” she said.
“Is this the same virus he had last week? Or is it a new one? Does it even matter?”
Daryl stood nearby in his hi-vis, packing a lunch he wouldn’t eat. He had a concrete pour booked for seven. She had a Zoom with a Sydney client who believed 9am is early. Neither could afford the gamble.
Cooper coughed once. A dry, ambiguous little bark. It could mean anything. It could mean nothing.
The Frasers exchanged a glance. The same glance they’d shared a dozen times before.
“Just tell them it’s his allergies, the seasons are turning,” said Daryl.
He patted his chest to make sure his smokes were there, picked up his bag and softly nodded.
“It has to be done.”
As of press time, the child was watching old episodes of Brum on YouTube and laughing like nothing had ever happened. And maybe it hadn’t. But the mucus was back, and with it, the eternal wonder if it’s clear. Or a tell-tale yellowish green.
More to come.
