A Thing of Beauty - A Hozier Fanfiction

Chapter One

17, March 2020

Dublin, Ireland

Positive COVID-19 Cases: 169

Deaths: 2

"Oh shitballs!" Cassie exclaimed, hurriedly picking up the notebook she'd been writing in, hoping to rescue it from the pond of milky tea that was swiftly spreading across the granite counter top. She stood up and reached for the roll of paper towels next to the sink and pulled off four pieces.

"Sorry Mama," came a small voice from around the corner. Finn poked his head around the door frame, looking at her with blue eyes the size of saucers.

"Little Dude, I told you before. We can't play with balls in the house," she told him calmly. "Come help me clean this up, please."

Finn sighed and walked over, dragging his socked feet across the hard wood floor. He took several towels from her as she lifted him to sit on the counter.

"Mama, when can I go back to school?" he asked, his small hands wiping in clumsy circles, spreading the liquid around more than sopping it up.

"Not until the beginning of April," she replied. "Its closed right now."

"But why?" he asked, handing her his sodden paper towel. She gave him a new one.

"Because all of your teachers and friends need to keep from getting sick," she explained. "Remember how Mama told you about the little germs that are going around?" Her son nodded. "Well, if you catch them, you could get really sick. And we just want to make sure that doesn't happen to you - or anyone else."

"But the doctors can fix you, right?" he asked, tilting his head to look at her. 

Cassie watched drops of tea fall back onto the counter top from the soaked paper towel in his hand. She wanted to be honest with Finn - it had always been her policy up to that point. There was no sense in lying to him about things when she could give an age-appropriate answer. But this was new territory. Telling him that doctors knew how to fix this when they didn't seemed like giving false hope. But she didn't want to terrify the child into thinking they were in the end days. She sighed, choosing her words carefully.

"The doctors are doing everything they can for people who catch the germs," she told him.

It wasn't a total lie; the doctors were doing everything they could to help people who were catching the illness. But 'everything they could' seemed to be palliative care at best at this point. There was no cure. There was no confidence. There was apparently barely any survival. And Cassie was terrified.

This answer seemed to placate Finn and he nodded. "Can we go for a walk?" he asked.

Cassie looked at the notebook. It had a list of tasks she needed to get done that day and so far only one had been crossed off: unload dishwasher. There were at least a dozen other things she needed to complete. Most of them were basic housekeeping tasks, but at least three were related to publicity for her latest novel.

Finn's face fell when he saw hers and the wave of failure washed over her before he even opened his little mouth. "You're too busy," he said simply.

"I'm sorry, love. I really am," she said, with a sigh. "Mama's just got a lot to take care of today. But maybe later? After your nap?" He nodded and allowed her to pick him up from the counter and set him down on the tile floor. "Maybe you could color for a bit? A new coloring book came yesterday. Its on your art table," she suggested.

"Okay!" his face lit up and a sense of relief came over her as he dashed out of the kitchen and began to climb the stairs to the next floor.

The guilt wasn't normally this bad. Usually, he spent the mornings during the work week in his preschool classroom and she was able to work uninterrupted for several hours. But since the closings a week prior, her typical routines had gone down the drain. She'd fallen behind on her word counts and had to reschedule a meeting with her editor twice now.