Reading what I’ve just written about the plague — it makes me cringe. Too polite, too nice… as if, deary-dear, we were all a wee bit strained but coping.

We weren’t coping. Never think that. You have to understand what mass death does.

My mother flew into spitting slapping furies, accusing me of doing the dance with every boy/man/fence post in town (and half the girls/women/punch bowls). She’d invent the most graphic details of what I supposedly did, kinkies I scarce understood even after Ma shrieked explanations in my face.

Is that coping?

Another treat during the epidemic: my father hit me. And I hit him back. Not a fight, a ritual… one smack from him and one from me.

Desperation. A way of touching each other when hugs felt too puny.

Dads always hit me on the arm. Even today, I can close my eyes and bring back fresh memories of the sting, the burn, the surprised red flush on my skin.

I hit Dads on the face. His beard scratchy under my hand; me slapping hard enough to give my palm whisker burn. So it felt anyway.

When he discovered the cure, I stopped hitting him. I stopped touching him at all. Temper. Stubbornness. The lonelier I ached for him, the more mulish I got. But at times I prayed we could start smacking each other again.

Is that coping?

Several times, those of us working in the Circus caught one or another of our volunteer nurses trying to smother a patient.