The Broken Fence: Part 2

      I didn’t want to write today, but I’ve missed the last week of entries, and I do find this cathartic. I’ve had some kind of stomach bug. I thought my luck had run out, but I’m still here. It wasn’t Salmonella.

      I think it was last Tuesday, today is Wednesday, I woke up with an awful pain in my lower stomach. I tried to spend the morning in the garden, but the pain eventually forced me back inside. Jack stayed with me for a while, then disappeared until sundown. I was laid up most of the day, and by early evening, I was spending most of my time perched over or stumbling to the shit-pit.

      That was how it started for Kate, and for Aiden, minus the shit-pit. But things got worse for them. Within 24 hours they were both vomiting, first food, then fluids, then bile and blood. I tried giving them ice-cream. I tried juice. I tried water. I tried everything. Nothing stayed down. It went on like that for a week. The third and fourth days were the worst, when they still had enough energy to scream with each body racking stomach spasm. Then, all I could do was wait.

      I just had a week of diarrhea. I didn’t vomit, but I was sure it was coming. It didn’t. And I’m still here.

      We had some rain toward the end of the week, which is lucky, because I couldn’t tend the garden until yesterday.

      Jack went missing again on Saturday, and again, he came back around dusk.