"I just don't understand why you wouldn't call to at the very least notify us that you had been released."

"Mom, I havent--"

"Your father is in the hospital. They're saying he may need to go to the ICU--"

"Is he okay? What happ--"

"And in the meantime, Dr. Mankowski is stuck in Costa Rica with his fourth wife, and I'm expected to cover his shifts this weekend at the hospital--"

"Mom, is dad doing--"

"And now with your dad sick, I'm nervous I could be the source of whatever bug he's got--"

"Are you having symp--'

"So Gerry's told the Geek Squad to not come back until things settle, and in the--"

"Gerry Noogle?"

"--10K TV is just sitting propped against the fireplace leaving me with nothing to watch this Lion King documentary Namrata has been talking about on Netflix--"

Viral pinched the bridge of his nose. Too often his mother positioned their conversations as forays into his wellbeing, yet each and every time the destination became her anxieties and what he wasn’t doing to calm them.

"Mom, stop--"

"--kind of big cat zoo keepers who also use drugs and sing country--"

"Mom!"

In the middle of her sentence about a Floridian named Joe Exotic, Priti stopped. Plunging into the silence, Viral said, "What's this about Dad and the ICU?"

Dr. Priti Chodha had been married to Viral's father, Modhi, for 25 years. Three days after their marriage in Calcutta, they arrived on the snowbanked shores of Massachusetts. As Modhi toiled ceaselessly through 72 hour shifts at Brigham Hospital, Priti taught herself the requirements she'd need to pass the foreign medical boards.  For five years the two worked tirelessly in their respective corners -- she at the dining table covered in loose paper, he at the carol reserved for him at the medical college. Perhaps driven by the shadow of her husband's ambition or perhaps awakened to her own constituent drive, Priti threw herself into the practice exams and ESL audio tapes she'd received from other Indian couples who had executed the same plan toward American citizenship: memorize more than Americans could and flower during an exam the stress and duration of which paled in comparison to the rigors under which Indians in India had been educated. When Priti learned she wouldn't have to wear a diaper, that the AMA would allow her bathroom breaks during its seven-hour exam, she finally relaxed. Maybe this America thing was going to be easier than she thought.

"--And they say it may just be precaution because of his age and history of hypertension."

"Do they know it's coronavirus for sure?" Viral asked.

Priti told him that though Modhi had been administered an antibody test the night before the CDC was not promising results for 7 days. "Gerry thinks it may be wise to bring him home because the ICU may just complicate matters."

It was the second time his mother had brought up Gerry, the name of Viral's father's personal attorney who had just hours ago sat with Viral in federal custody accusing him of being an ineffectual artichoke

"When's the last time you spoke with Mr. Noogle?" Viral asked.

"This morning. Why?"

"Did he tell you about our conversation last night?"

"Oh yes, he filled me in," Priti said. "I was very glad to hear that you had seen the wisdom in his suggestions."

"What?" Viral said.

His mother bouldered ahead like a pachyderm. "And I have to say that your friend sounds very appealing."

Viral could hear the wink in her voice. "Friend?"

"Your father, me, and Gerry--"

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Mother-f'ing Gerry, again!

"--Had been a wee bit concerned about the proximity your relationship with that roommate of yours had been reaching. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind if you were a poof, I'd probably actually even have preferred it--"

"Poof?"

"And I'm not going to say that his race played any part in the, um, reservations we had, but let's be honest, your father has his prejudices after what he's learned about Dr. Huxtable--"

"Mom--"

"But this girl, this Monica Treyna girl who answered your phone, sounds lovely, and it's, to be frank, a wee bit comforting for me to know there is a woman -- though not Indian presumably of at least a lighter shade than that Lron fellow -- who has your interests at heart during this moment of uncertainty."

Viral cast a glance at Monica. She sat with her foot propped on the ledge of her chair, and she was evaluating a chewed piece of gum between her fingers. "What did she tell you?" he asked his mother.

Priti reviewed the twenty minute -- twenty minute!! -- conversation she'd had with Monica while Viral had been meeting with Lron. From what his mother managed to tell him between asides regarding a woman named Carol Baskin and Dr. Mankowski's increasing obsession with flipping Costa Rican property, Viral gathered that Monica had told her that the two of them were classmates at college. Apparently, Monica had told Viral's mother that the two of them had met during an open meeting for the pre-med student club, and that she had offered to allow Viral to stay with her and her family at their luxurious 7 bedroom estate on Wrigley Beach in Rhode Island. If Priti was anything it was an aficionado for any hint of generational wealth. That Monica had told her of a waterfront mansion abutted by a castle owned by the Vanderbilt's suggested to Viral that Agent Treyna's training in psychic manipulation was indeed top notch. Perhaps she had been telling him the truth when she mentioned that the Bureau studied deeply the published works of Dr. Modhi Chodha, Viral's father, North America's third-most celebrated voice on neurodiversity.

Priti continued, "...and that she is so familiar with your father's work bodes well for her performance at one of our spirited family holiday debates."

Viral couldn't believe this. Never in his life had his mother even alluded to the possibility of a romantic life, yet here she was, now, making plans for family vacations, virtually setting the table with a plate dedicated to Monica.

"...and who knows, if she is as light skinned as she sounds then maybe the two of you have the chance to wash some of your father's dark, Dravidian genes out of the bloodline. Make a little more room for my parents' Aryan ancestry since --"

And that's when Viral received his signal. When his mother began to muse on the alleged influence of Aryan blood in her family's gene pool, which she traced to an undocumented encounter between a distant family relative and a courier for Alexander the Great, Viral knew a conversation with his mother was over. If he allowed her to continue to speak unfettered things would devolve as they often had when he was younger, with lamentations that she'd wished she’d had a daughter because the implicit patriarchy of a household of two Indian men added 10 pounds to her frame.

"Ok mom, so that's why you called? To tell me about dad?"

"No," she said, "I wanted to make sure that you listened to what Gerry had told you. He said he spoke with your father and that there had been some kind of misunderstanding with the boy you had been staying with."

"Yes, Lron--"

"Yes, yes," his mother said as if the mere mention of his roommate reintroduced a bothersome scent akin to farts after a boiled egg breakfast. "But now that I know you listened to him and have reconnected with this classmate of yours from the University, who seems to have a real major, I feel much better. I was beginning to worry what I would say if Namrata found out about your encounter with the law. She can be very judgmental, especially since her son got into Harvard."

Viral rolled his eyes. Whatever impetus he felt to clarify the dynamic he shared with Agent Treyna cowered in the shadow of the fear he felt for a cavalcade of deets regarding Namrata's overachieving son. Sometimes, he remembered, it was better to accept his mother's imagined version of the truth than burden himself with arguing against her reality.

"Yes, mom, you're right. Mr. Noogle made compelling points regarding my fealty to father, and I snitched on my roommate, and now enjoy upper middle class privilege as the guest of an American family with generational wealth."

Viral could nearly hear the euphoric grin crawl across his mother's face, the sound of her cotton shawl sliding down the seat back leather of the living room easy chair, as Priti sank into the fantasy of becoming party to a blue-blooded clan like the Kennedy's.

"You'll call me if any news with Dad develops?" He asked.

"Sure thing, babachu," his mother said. "And give my regards to Monica's parents. Oh, and if you could, just find out the zip code of their beach house so I can get an idea of its property value on Zillow."

Click.

Viral hung up. He couldn't tell if Monica was avoiding his eyes or simply lost in the game of Candy Crush on her phone. When Viral coughed for her attention she held a finger telling him to wait. When she'd finally cleared a screen of cherries, she looked up and smiled. "Ready?" She asked.

There was so much Viral wanted to ask her -- about Slim Jane, about Lron's Ed Norton in Primal Fear snap, about her lies to his mother, about gilded age summering off Wrigley Beach. But at a certain point of uncertainty more questions yielded diminishing returns, he felt. As the mysteries mounted Viral felt tired, nearly numb to the web of effect in which he found himself ensconced, for which he had no vectors to call as cause. He was spider or he was prey. It was kill or cure, as Delorean had mentioned. While exhaustion steamrolled his body, Viral returned to the ring that had so far kept him afloat in the morass of mystery. It was that gotdarn smile on this mysterious, mischievous woman. This woman calling herself Monica. As of now, in this moment of imbalance, she was his astrolabe, his conduit toward True North. No matter the questions in which he found himself mired like broken rose stems, one quest rang more pressing than the rest. Perhaps it was because it was noble. Or perhaps it was because it had come from Monica's mouth. Either way: he was going to cure this dang virus.