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Feverish with chills and rattling lungs, we had spent the better part of three days on the downstairs couch, trying to sleep and rest off our respective influenzic illnesses. It was Valentine's Day, a day I have never been known to much celebrate, a day when my Dad has always surprised me, Tess, and Mum with flowers and a day when I usually stayed home or went out with the boys to celebrate my singleness and independence.
This Valentine's Day early morning, we were on the couch after being up all night unable to sleep from coughing fits and aching joints, trying to stay warm by the fire, when he said, "I have a surprise for you, let me get it." I told him I'd rather not have the surprise and have him stay with me instead, but I let him go anyhow and he disappeared and came back, wobbling on his feet with his one-hundred and three fever, a dozen roses in hand, all different colors. I had never really gotten roses before, but I decided that I loved them.
When Mum woke up an hour later and came downstairs to take temperatures and bring us Gatorade and do all those things that mothers do that make any sickness seem not so bad, he was lying down on the couch, eyes closed with headache and both arms around my waist as I sat up trying to clear my lungs. She balked at his high temperature, especially, decreed that he needed to take the blanket off of him even though he felt cold, and noted that I should probably get up and move over because I probably wasn't helping bring his fever down by sitting so close next to him with my own fever. Just as she spoke that last part, his arms tightened around my waist to make it clear he wasn't interested in that medical intervention.
I turned around to look at him and the one eye that wasn't shoved into his pillow opened up, looked at me, and he slowly shook his head, "no."