Slightly Unexpected

In the aftermath of an ended baseball season, and one of my two favorites shipped out of St. Louis to who-knows-where, unpacking wasn’t the first thing I felt like doing. But it had to be done.

Fortunately for both Yali and me, Oxbear had decided to take off work for the entire week to fix things around the house. Like the washing machine, the thermostat, dish disposal, smoke alarms, and all those other things a house from 1957 needs in the repairs department.

Late morning, Oxbear was out getting stuff from Home Depot, and Five Guys burgers. So Yali and I went outside to try out Puck’s bow and arrows in a yard large enough to finally handle that sport. Yali collected the arrows for me in the light wind of an early October day that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be warm, or cool.

Around the time Puck and Yali began tossing volleyballs back to the girls during volleyball practice, I realized that Yali had that feverish look in his eyes. So we left for home earlier than usual.

It didn’t keep down Yali’s appetite. He still went to town on the rotisserie chicken for dinner, even though he preferred to remain in Oxbear’s lap during the meal.

For the rest of the evening Yali just wanted to be cuddled in a blanket in Oxbear’s arms. So they sat in the basement together watching Netflix while Yali snoozed, and his fever climbed.

Meanwhile, Puck and I examined the yard together between the mosquitos and decided which overgrown garden we should keep. We decided the lower garden was better than the upper, even though the lower garden seemed to be growing the remains of kale.

It was sometime before seven o’clock that I heard something unnatural. We had been prepared for it since the time we met Yali for the first time in that tiny hot room in Colombia. Febrile seizure.

Thirty seconds later, it was over. And Yali was sleeping again. Apparently he had forgotten about the whole thing. And his sense of humor certainly hadn’t suffered. When he woke up again awhile later, he belched, then grinned.

“Burp!” he said, then laughed to himself.