Dani vomited again on our way back—noodles and water. Then more water.

“I can’t even keep water down.”

The words hit me harder than she intended. She was pregnant, sick, and we were in a foreign country halfway around the world.

“I’m going to text your doctor.”

She handed me her phone then fell asleep.

I wrote her the facts:

“Dani has the flu, and she can’t keep food or water. We are in Moscow, what do I do?”

She responded minutes later with practiced calm.

“Tamiflu, but she might need an IV if she gets too dehydrated.”

Tamiflu—I didn’t know such a thing existed. It needed a prescription in the states, but not in Russia.

My map showed the pharmacy sat on the corner a block from our hotel.

It had five or six transaction counters arranged down its length and surrounded by stacks of medications and cosmetic supplies.

“Tamiflu.”

She grabbed a box from a rack behind the counter and punched numbers into a. Calculator.

1,284

I hesitated.

No, not dollars. Rubles—about twenty dollars worth.

I slid my credit card over.

Medicine in hand, my next stop was to find us dinner. I also figured hot soup would “hit the spot” for her sick stomach.

Dani awoke when I returned, and she gave a weak smile.

I’d been gone for hours, but to her, it seemed like minutes. I set the soup before her along with the pill. 

“Yes Cutie. I promise I will keep this down.”

~

She fell asleep, while I reached for my phone.

Our visas expired tomorrow.

Emergency flights—leaving a few hours sooner—cost $5,000.

If Dani vomited again, she might need hospitalization.

Dani coughed and whimpered behind me while I refreshed the page again.

Her breaths came fast and shallow, and sweat glistened in her forehead.

I stroked her hair in the dark.

“You promised me.”