Fever

            The grocery store was closed by the time I reached it. Camila was craving something cold, and the store was closed. She had her tea cup clenched in her hands when I left, she had been begging me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to return home without something cold for her to drink. The only thing I could think of was yerba mate, it was her favorite thing to drink now-a-days.

            Ever since she had bought the tea set at the market, she had cravings for that tea that made it almost impossible to stand being around her. I love her, I always will, but right now it is so hard to be around her. When she gets her cravings, it is like she has become possessed, especially because she always drinks it out of that one damned cup.

How do I know it’s the same cup? There is a small crack on the bottom of the cup. It looks like a small spider web moving from the bottom of the green cup to the small flower sculpted handle. And once, when I tried to take it away from her, she hit me over the head with it, hard. I bled a bit from the hit, but the cup stayed intact. And I was in shock, she still looked at me like I was being a bad excuse for a human being, and that she had done nothing wrong, but it frightened me.

And now I make sure to stock up on yerba mate. The house has always been filled, until today. Today, I did not realize that she had been drinking the tea non-stop. I did not realize she had devoured the build-up I had. So, at around midnight, when she asked, I was afraid. And with the stores closed, I fear going home. In the distance, I can hear the pops of the cars starting and driving off, and I wonder if I can catch a taxi and have it take me to the boarder. I wonder if I could flee to Chile, or Brazil, or maybe Mexico.

Somehow, I find my way home, and I can hear her screaming, and throwing things, and I wonder how this happened. I can only remember the young woman we bought the tea set from, telling us how her grandmother had gone crazy just before she had died. How she had refused to drink yerba mate out of a gourd or a more traditional form, because she was afraid that if she drank it out of anything else, that she would forget who she was.

I’m afraid for my wife, I’m afraid for myself. I walk away from the house, I start to run, and I don’t stop until I reach our church.