Flora paced for an hour, thinking, coaching herself out loud to be brave, doubting herself, then working up courage all over again. Then she made a list and got to work. She opened the medicine cabinet filled with liquid and pill bottles, eye droppers, nasal sprays, inhalers, skin creams and epi-pens and took a picture of its contents. She spent the next hour researching online. She Googled: how to cure allergies naturally, fast with drugs, without drugs. She visited sites for the mayo clinic, WebMD, homeopathy-practices, blogs by other allergy-sufferers, psychology pages, and one called “allergies and the hypnotic response.” She copied and pasted into an open Word document. 

On Amazon, using her mother’s account, she bought nasal filters and a new box of N95 masks in black. 

On her HMO’s site, she emailed her doctor, pretending she was her mother. “My daughter Flora is determined to spend more time outside. It’s very important to her. What haven’t we tried?” She consulted her notes. “Shots? Leukotriene inhibitors? Sublingual immunotherapy? Biological medications? Please get back to me as soon as possible. Thank you, Rose.” 

After sending it, she saw an automated message, “We’ll get back to you in 24 hours.”

“Well, shit,” said Flora.

Just then the front door slammed downstairs. “Hi Flora! It’s me. You ready?”

“Ready for what?” Flora yelled to her mother without leaving the computer. 

“To go to your dad’s.”

“What?”

“This is his weekend, remember?”

Flora buried her head in her hands and growled. 

“What are you doing?” her mother appeared in the doorway.

“I forgot. Do I have to go?”

“Yes.” Flora’s mother came into the room and sat on the bed. “I thought you were looking forward to this. It’s been a while. Your dad’s been seriously de-fuming the house in anticipation of your arrival, spent a mint on air purifiers, he told me.”

“It’s just…”

“What?”

Flora realized she wasn’t ready to tell her mother the truth. That she had plans, plans that involved being outside, that involved a boy. He won’t go away in a weekend, she told herself. But still it felt like a dream when you first wake up in the morning. If you don’t write it down first thing, you know that dream will just fade into oblivion.

“Can you give me fifteen minutes to throw a bag together.”

Her mother glanced at the clock. 

“Yeah, I have time. I just have to be back at the nursery by three. Big landscape purchase, some company replanting their campus, shopping local. It’s great. One of the silver linings of the pandemic. Besides other people wearing masks so my daughter is not the only one.”

Flora rolled her eyes.

“You said it,” her mother said defensively.

Flora got out a duffle bag from her closet and started filling it with clothes. 

“Yeah, but it’s my silver lining, not yours.”

“Capeesh.”

And then Flora, in double N95s was sitting in her mother’s car, the AC recycling filtered air on her way to her dad’s house with its ever circulating parade of nutty relatives.