This Is Only a Test by B.J. Hollars Page A

Bombs.
    But we were not.
    We were just prepared for it.
    You, too, have observed the drama of self-defense.

The Year of the Great
Forgetting
    TEMPERATURE UNKNOWN
    The fever strikes, and we, too, are struck by it, my wife and I suddenly jarred awake by the same cold sweat that’s worked into Henry’s small frame. In his eighteen months (541 days), this is the first of these sweats, and therefore the scariest. Mainly because it is without cause, an unexpected overture to an illness we can’t yet see.
    All of this takes place a thousand or so miles from our home, in a cabin in the woods in the Poconos. We’d found ourselves there at my mother’s suggestion. “A nice halfway point,” she’d argued, “so we can spend a little quality time together.” I agreed to the trip, not because the Poconos were a halfway point by any measure, but because I’d recently endured an existential crisis brought onby the purchase of a minivan, and a road trip, I figured, might help me acclimate to my new life in the slow lane.
    Once the decision was made, I immediately began poring over maps, a maniacal Magellan hell-bent on arranging a 2,800-mile road trip from Wisconsin to the east coast. As a result of my overzealousness, what began as a three-night stay in the Poconos quickly morphed into what we’d later call a “cross-your-legs-because-I’m-not-pulling-over” death march, complete with stops in Hartford, Salem, and Niagara Falls. We had no vested interest in any of these places, but I was lured by the open road.
    We are the proud-ish owners of a minivan
, I reminded myself.
Shouldn’t we at least see what this baby can do?
    What that baby did was safely transport us to a resort in the Poconos, which I will politely describe as “rustic.” Perhaps I am being polite even to call it a resort. The place was a shadow of its former grandeur, a towering farmhouse surrounded by paper-thin cabins, each in a unique state of disarray. We occupied one such cabin when Henry’s cries burst through the night, stirring the surrounding wildlife, or at least my parents in the next cabin over.
    Exhausted from the drive, I remained in my stupor throughout his first wave of wails, trapped in a half sleep that, for eighteen months, I’d persuaded myself was all the sleep I needed. Meanwhile, Meredith—for whom sleep has become a hypothetical—walks with her arms outstretched toward the crib, my zombie bride tripping over suitcases and still-wet swimsuits on her way to our burning boy.
    She presses a hand to him, and he sizzles.
    â€œHe’s hot,” she whispers.
    â€œHow hot?” I ask.
    â€œHot-hot,” she says. “
Scary
hot.”
    There they are again—the words that stir me awake. Suddenly I am groping for the thermometer, running my hands over countertops and patting the carpet. I frisk suitcases, unzip zippers in the dark, turn inside out every last sock on the off chance the thermometer is hiding.
    The thermometer, apparently, is hiding. At least from me.
    â€œSo what now?” I ask. “Do we turn on the light?”
    â€œDo you want him up for the next three hours?”
    The tone of her voice indicates that we do not, so I try a new tack: relying on the glow of my cell phone screen to sweep the room for the thermometer.
    â€œJust . . . forget it,” Meredith shouts over his wailing. “Grab a wet washcloth, would you?”
    Washcloth
, I think,
washcloth, washcloth
 . . .
    I repeat the word all the way to the bathroom, then flick on the light, startling myself with my reflection.
    Jesus!
I think, staring hard at the sallow-faced creature staring back.
Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?
    But much like sleep, vacations, too, have become hypotheticals—another concept my wife and I once knew but now know better.
    I turn the faucet and watch the washcloth bloom in my hands.
    Meanwhile, just a wall