The Swailing

Malkut: Miserable

Finn is hungry again, but for possibly the first time in my life, I'm not. In fact, my stomach feels a little unfamiliarly queasy. He picks up some food at a restaurant by the hotel but just the smell of it makes saliva pool in my mouth, and not in a good way. We barely make it back to the hotel when I feel the barbecue from last night threatening to make a reappearance. I run to the bathroom and, for the first time in years, vomit out what feels like a week's worth of garbage-y food.

I truly haven't thrown up since I was in primary school, if you don't count the little retching near-vomit I did after trying that cigarette the other day. I forgot how much I hate it, how vulnerable and out of control it makes me feel. I'm still kneeling on the floor of the bathroom, my forehead resting against the cool porcelain of the bathtub, when Finn knocks on the door.

"Ember? You okay?"

I flush the toilet and kick open the door. "No," I groan. "Not good. At all."

He squats down and looks at me. "You look like death."

"Thanks," I say, and kick at him weakly with my foot.

He chuckles. "Come on, come lie down."

I let him help me up and lead me to the bed. My skin feels clammy and cool.

"I think you've got the stomach flu. Or ... maybe food poisoning."

I nod and close my eyes. "Maybe it's the ghosts of all the animals I've eaten coming back to haunt me."

He helps me into bed and, in a spooky voice, says, "Mooooooooo." Like a ... cow ghost.

I can't help but open my eyes and smile at him. Such a goofball.

He smiles back as he covers me up. "I'll get you a bucket or something. Just in case."

Luckily I never need the bucket, but I do alternate my time between the bathroom and the bed until my stomach muscles ache from heaving. If I didn't feel so completely awful, I'd probably be mortified that Finn has had to sit and listen to me throw up for six straight hours. But at this point I don't really care.

Finn uses the time to do some research, using an antique device in the room called a telephone to contact Healing Hands, which is a bit farther south. They tell him that their records from 14 years ago are not in their new system, and that the only way to determine if someone visited there that long ago is to come down and look through their guest books. Finn gets directions on how to get there – our GPS does not function down here – and hangs up the phone. I imagine that, like me, he's feeling fed up. More hours ahead of driving, flipping through books to try to find my mom's name among thousands, if it's even there at all.

"Finn," I say, fighting down a wave of nausea, "We don't have to go there. I mean, what's it going to tell us anyway? That she was here 14 years ago? It won't tell us if she's still alive, if she stayed here or went somewhere else."

"True," he says. "But ... it might give us something. It's only a couple of hours away."

I don't say anything else because I feel the telltale spit pooling in my mouth that signals impending vomit. I swing my legs out of the bed and shuffle to the bathroom. Again.

Finally around dinner time I start to feel better. I have no appetite, but at least the nausea has passed and I can keep down sips of water and some sweet, fizzy drink Finn has gotten for me called Ginger Ale.

He insists on standing just outside the bathroom door while I take a shower, in case I feel faint. I hope I don't faint because the idea of him having to come in the bathroom and pry my naked, slippery body out of the tub is mortifying. Well ... maybe mortifying isn't the right word. I don't have the right word for how it makes me feel. But, luckily or unluckily, I make it through my shower without losing consciousness. When I'm done and dressed again he tucks me back into bed.

"Why are you doing this for me?" I ask him.

"Doing what?"

"I don't know. Escorting me on my wild goose chase. Dealing with all of ... this."

Finn places a damp, cool washcloth across my forehead. It feels like that place called heaven I just learned about.

"Well, clearly you have the good connections," he says. "I've never stayed anywhere as nice as Sabine's before."

"I'm serious. I mean, this is ridiculous. I'm sure you have somewhere you'd rather be than here, chasing your tail with Miss Barfsalot."

He doesn't answer right away and I watch his face while he works through whatever it is he's thinking. Finally he shrugs slightly. "Penance?" he offers.

"I don't know what that is." I'm too sick to pretend I understand.

"It's another religious term. It's an act of ... devotion to show you're sorry for something you've done."

I feel something deflate inside of me. He's just trying to make up for stealing from me. What was I hoping that he'd say? That he enjoys spending hour after hour stuck in a car with me searching aimlessly for people he's never met and doesn't care about? That he likes being trapped in a hotel room, listening to me puke for hours on end?

He looks up and meets my frown with his smile. "But I'm glad I'm here."

I laugh. It's just too ridiculous to think that this is where he wants to be: A stuffy hotel room in the deep South, mopping the sweaty brow of a nauseous, ignorant teenage girl. But he just smiles again and looks down, and I realize he's not being sarcastic.

There he goes again. An effortless little compliment and my feeling of disappointment vanishes and is replaced by a glowing warmth. My instinct is to downplay, to make light of what he's just said, but I can't. He just seems too sincere.

Sometime in the middle of the night I wake up to the sounds of Finn in the bathroom, vomiting (though quietly, I think, compared to me). I hear the toilet flush and the running of water. When he comes back into the room I say, "You, too?"

He nods and groans and lies down next to me again. I reach across and place my hand on his forehead. Yep – clammy.

"Sorry," I say. "I probably gave it to you."

"We've been together nonstop for a week – I'm sure I picked it up the same place you did."

"Still." I think of Logan again, and how he was always so quick to assume that people passed each other illnesses almost intentionally. If Logan were here instead of Finn and he had gotten sick after me, I'm sure he would have found a way to blame me.

I try to take care of Finn the way he took care of me. I rewet his washcloth with cold water, I pour him glasses of Ginger Ale and encourage him to drink. I read to him aloud from the Bible, doing voices and giving a running commentary on some of the farfetched stories – Jonah and the whale, Noah and his ark. Finn seems to find me amusing, despite his nausea.

While he naps I flip through the channels on the iTel, hoping to find something to watch besides preachers. I luck out and find a children's channel playing a Walt Disney movie called Tangled, about a girl who is trapped up in a tower and manages to escape. She enlists the help of a handsome bandit thief (named Flynn!) to take her out into the world she has never seen. As silly as it seems, the story reminds me of me and Finn. I glance over at him, sleeping restlessly next to me. My hero. Maybe these fairy tales aren't quite so farfetched after all.

Finn starts to feel better by the late afternoon, but neither of us feels like driving yet so we decide to stay one more night, just to be safe. Get one good night's sleep before heading out again.

Neither of us has much of an appetite so we just nibble on some crackers that came with our barbecue from the other night. In one of the dresser drawers Finn finds a small rectangular box filled with a stack of paper cards. They all have numbers and shapes on them. Finn calls them playing cards and teaches me a few games. We gamble with our remaining crackers.

Being sick seems to have sapped our energy and it's barely dark when we both start yawning. We get ready for bed and climb under the covers like an old married couple.

I don't fail to notice that the mattress space between us seems narrower tonight.