Chapter 16: chapter 16

We isolated him in the adjacent room with all his essentials. That room was a part of our school known as the 'digital room' for the kids to view digital displays on a digital board. It didn't possess a bed. The bed from the dining space was shifted to the room by my husband and sons with great difficulty. We have a vacant flat on the top floor of our house. I asked him, "Papa Ji will you be able to climb the stairs?" He said, "No beta, I prefer the room next to my bedroom and I agree to use the bathroom next to it for the sake of the commode. Please talk to your mummy Ji too regarding this ." He was a devoted husband who didn't do anything without taking the approval of his wife. I arranged everything for him in the room. He shifted there in the evening carrying his pillow but before doing that he consulted me, "Beta, shall I take this pillow to the other room? hope your mummy Ji will not mind it." I promptly answered, "Yes papa Ji. With his small green-coloured water bottle, pillow and his smartphone which he purchased just a couple of months ago, he adjusted himself for isolation. My father-in-law had a long-cherished desire to possess a costly smartphone. In January, he expressed his intention to my husband willing to sacrifice more than twenty thousand for a good handset as his old smarty had gone outdated according to his view. Raghav pestered him constantly to replace it with a new one. My husband selected three, out of which he chose the costliest. He liked to spend his time on it even during his illness. He had clicked innumerable photographs on it. The majority of the photos were of my mother-in-law standing beside him. I never knew he was such a photo enthusiast. As I said earlier, I experienced some sort of throat infection entering my throat in the afternoon. My elder son caught an intensely high fever at night. My mother-in-law nursed him with a wet cloth strap. I gave him the medicine but the fever remained constant at 102 on the thermometer. All of us were worried. My mummy Ji burnt an incense stick and filled the house with its white cottony smoke to ward off some unknown spirit that had befallen our house. My elder son detested the smoke and asked me to carry the incense somewhere away from him. My husband contacted his medical provider friend. He insisted, "All of you isolate yourselves in different rooms. Drink warm water. Inhale steam. All the rest of you get tested tomorrow. Don't panic. Stop watching the news and don't use your phones." His consolation was an indication of the truth that we had been infected and nothing else.We were in no mood of having our food but we had to. We isolated ourselves in different rooms. I suffered from a tremendous cough during the night. My husband suspected something wrong. The next morning, the lab attendant visited again with his accompaniments to test all four of us. My mother-in-law was exempted from the trial as she had been targeted in the first wave and now she had recovered from the bouts. I was nervous to have the swab inserted.Both my sons tested positive. The younger one was in a recovery phase, the elder one was badly affected. On the arrival of my turn, I pushed aside the hand of the boy holding the nasal pointer, much to his irritation. The disapproval was evident on his face.