Eleven hours prior, in a make-shift room in the pharmacy area of the grocery store, the walls constructed of pallets of bottled water. I watch the pharmacist push the needle into the glass vial of vaccine. A precious bottle sent up from America, the president’s good-will towards its Northern neighbour. The pharmacist takes my hand to arrange my arm.

“You’re so cold!” he exclaims.

“I’m nervous.”

“Take a slow breath,” he instructs. A quick, hot sting in my arm. “It’s over,” he says.

Hours later, in the deep quiet night, my immune system boils. My skin crawls, and I twitch and scratch at myself like a heroin addict. I writhe in bed, my fever peaking and ebbing every hour. Dawn arrives and the miserable hours pass. I fall in and out of sleep. Each time I wake, I hope that it’s over, but it doesn’t pass. The sun crosses to the west horizon and dips. Russell prepares me soup, and I last only a minute sitting up at the table. I return to the couch, weak and shaky. The fever remains.

In the middle of the next night, the fever breaks.

I rise the next morning, exhausted and relieved.

The maze of boxes.

The expansive view of the ocean, from the city to the island.