Election Day Fever

It was as if Phoebe knew the results. As we were watching CNN in horror, and as I was refreshing the New York Times page to see the real number of electoral votes in favor of Clinton (as CNN was irritating me), I received a phone call. No one ever likes to get calls from their kids’ teacher. This was Miss Fanny, calling to tell me that Phoebe had a fever, and had put her head down on the lunch table to take a nap. TO TAKE A NAP. That’s when you know that something is wrong. Phoebe never, ever, takes a nap. In fact, she protested going to summer school because Phoebe Does Not Nap. She was so pissed off at the teacher for even asking her to nap, that she refused to go during the summer. But that is a story for another day. So when Miss Fanny told me that Phoebe was sick, I felt as if she was manifesting the queasiness I had felt in my stomach all morning. The dread of those three words: President Donald Trump, that I felt deep down in my insides, making it hard to even think about having lunch. It was as if Phoebe, age four, felt the pangs in Joe and I’s collective psyche on the reality that was imminent to the future of the country.

Joe went to go pick her up, and carried her home from the car passed out. She slept for the rest of the evening on the sofa, ate some soup, and then went back to bed. She slept through the night without a fever. But because she had a fever less than 24 hours ago, I chose not to send her to school in the morning, for fear that she might get other children sick. Throughout the day, she bounced around the house like her usual crazy self, singing songs, cutting paper, tracing letters. Over dumplings for lunch, she turns and said to me, “I think Trump is going to quit.” And for the rest of the day, she continued, without fever, running around like a maniac in her pajamas.

The only thing that explains this is that in another universe, Phoebe Hei, age four, knew that Trump was getting elected at 2:30 PM Taipei time (this was around when the votes were called back in the US). She knew the state of the union, and called it as it was. She physically manifested our shock, our worry, and our complete disbelief. 

Fortunately, she's all better now. My greatest hope is that my country will be fine, and will be without fever, as well.

in her pajamas all day, “i can't believe Trump won."