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The Before Times (Barely!)

“It’s never this empty here,” Gina says, herding her youngest out of the Titanosaur exhibit.

My best friend Alex, who’s come up from Delaware to visit me for a day, shoots me a look. I raise an eyebrow. He moves closer, speaking softly enough that Gina can’t hear him.

“It doesn’t seem all that empty to me,” he mutters, eyeing our fellow museumgoers.

I swallow a nervous laugh. By Delaware standards, the Museum of Natural History probably does seem crowded. The borough of Queens, my home for just over three years now, is more than twice as populous as Alex’s home state. Still, this isn’t the crowd I’d expect on a Sunday.

Most of the city’s seemed emptier than usual this past week. It’s… kind of creepy.

We make our way to the Discovery Room, a hands-on science area for kids. A friendly twenty-something checks us in. “Stay as long as you want,” she says, offering up the hand sanitizer that’s quickly become a fixture in all public places here. “It hasn’t been busy.” 

“Do you think it’s because of the virus?” I ask once the kids have run off to explore.

Gina shakes her head. “It’s the first really nice spring day. People are just outside enjoying it.”

I nod and fall silent, my insides twisting a little as I watch my 9 year old son strong-arming a kid he’s just met into serving as his assistant for whatever experiment he’s dreamed up. 

It’s March 7th, nearly a week since New York state confirmed its first case of the “novel coronavirus.” New Yorkers mobbed the grocery stores that weekend, standing in line for hours in hopes of stocking their tiny pantries with bottled water, toilet paper and Clorox wipes. 

Not yet, my friends told me when I asked if I should worry.

Since then, life in the city has proceeded as usual; it always does. But there’s more space than there should be on the subway during my commute, and the streets in midtown feel subdued when I walk them on my lunch breaks. It’s almost as though the city is holding its breath. 

And yet, when rumors swirl about closing the NYC public schools, I roll my eyes. Why would they do that for 33 cases? I thought New Yorkers were supposed to be good in a crisis.

The Calm Before the Storm

It’s only 7:30 on a Thursday night, but the N train is all but empty. I sanitize my hands. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I sanitize that as well before texting Alex: On my way home now.

Was it fun?

I bite my lip, glancing around the eerily deserted subway car. 

I ghosted everyone as we were about to walk into another bar but yes.

For good measure, I sanitize my hands again. It’s probably excessive, but you never know these days. It’s March 12th, only five days since the museum, and our case count has more than tripled. There are almost a hundred cases in NYC alone. The National Guard has set up what they’re calling a “containment zone” in New Rochelle, less than an hour away from the city. 

If my team at work hadn’t planned this outing months in advance, I would’ve backed out. I almost did anyway. But it’s for a good cause -- volunteering at a food bank. And once I got there, I figured I might as well stay for dinner and drinks; I’m not planning to go back into the office again until this whole virus thing blows over. Who knows when I’ll see everyone again?

But now I’m regretting how long I stayed, how careless I was. In Harlem, the food bank was quiet but the restaurant where we had dinner was nearly at capacity by the time we left. My coworkers and I sneak-shared food from each other’s plates when our boss wasn’t looking.

Meanwhile, Broadway’s announced it’s shutting down for the next month. And on a private Facebook group, my mom-friends and I are discussing whether we should pull our kids out of school; I decide tomorrow will be my son’s last day. Just for now, and just to be safe, but -- 

What if the virus really is as deadly as the news is saying? What if we all get sick?

A Beautiful Day

“Is it still safe to be outside?” my son asks.

They showed him videos about the virus in school, before I withdrew him. He’s discovered that the theme from Steven Universe is 21 seconds long, and he’s taken to singing it while he washes his hands. But overall, he’s seemed unperturbed by the virus so far.

“It’ll be okay,” I tell him, gripping his hand a little too tightly.

It’s Sunday, March 15th. There are 720 confirmed coronavirus cases in New York state, 329 in the city. Only yesterday, we reported our first coronavirus death; today there were two more.

My corner of Queens doesn’t seem to have noticed. The weather is glorious, unseasonably warm and breezy. People are out in force, strolling beneath the brilliant blue sky as though it’s a normal spring day -- as though our city isn’t dying before our eyes. I burst into silent tears.

“Are you okay, mommy?”

I nod numbly, towing my son down the sidewalk toward the corner bodega. 

In Italy, hospitals are now so overwhelmed they’re “triaging out” coronavirus patients who aren’t considered as likely to recover, turning away the elderly and those with exacerbating conditions.

Italy is us in two weeks, the news keeps saying. Will we be able to walk outside then? President Trump is already threatening to impose lockdowns for areas with large numbers of cases. I try not to think too hard about what that could mean, given his well-known vendetta against the city.

Should I find somewhere else we can stay? Just for a little while, you know. Just in case.

“It’ll be okay,” I say again, more for my own benefit than for my son’s.

We stock up on toilet paper and snacks we don’t really need. Once we’re home and showered, our cast-off clothes safely sealed away in a plastic garbage bag, we snuggle and watch cartoons. I hold it together for him; I don’t look at the news again until he’s gone to bed.

When I do, there’s a new round of closures: New York City public schools, all movie theaters, concert venues, and bars. All restaurants as well, except for takeout and delivery.

This time I allow myself to weep in earnest, and this time it’s out of relief.

At the Epicenter

In case you were wondering how many days into the apocalypse it would be before I snapped and gave myself a terrible haircut with blunt scissors, I text Alex, it’s today many days.

It’s Thursday, April 2nd. I call the virus by its proper name now, or COVID for short. I guess the city didn’t shut down soon enough to keep it in check. There are 92,381 confirmed cases of it in New York state now, an increase of 8,669 from the day before, and 2,373 total deaths. 

More than half of both are in the city. 

Times Square stands empty, though like most people, I’ve only seen it in pictures. We don’t go outside anymore, not even for walks; my son refuses to leave the apartment. The city is painfully quiet, apart from the unrelenting sound of sirens. We hear them all day and all night, echoing oddly off the silent buildings, and we all know each one means another likely death.

My friend Gina, the one from the museum, posts this on our Facebook group:

So John was called to work today in a hospital to put up shelves. He assumed the shelves were to store masks and other emergency equipment.

He just got home.

The shelves were for bodies.

At other hospitals, the parking lots are filled with refrigerated trailers to store the dead. We lose another New Yorker to COVID approximately every two and a half minutes. And as if this isn’t torture enough in itself, it seems people in other parts of the country believe it’s all a lie.

On Twitter, #FilmYourHospital is trending, an attempt to debunk the severity of the situation here by filming empty reception areas in overtaxed NYC hospitals. It makes me want to spit nails.

I learn to take comfort in small things: Governor Cuomo’s briefings, my talent for finding an Amazon Fresh delivery slot when no one else can, the fact that as our death rate continues to rise, the number of new cases per day seems to be plateauing at “only” 8 to 9 thousand.

We build a new normal, Zoom calls and waving from windows passing for social interaction. At 7pm every night, we cheer for the healthcare workers fighting for our lives. My friends talk about summer, as though camps and vacations are something we’re still allowed to believe in. 

But personally, I only hope for days where we don’t hear sirens.