Pandemic Dad

By Jeffrey Zuczek

The year is 2020. Everything is shutdown. The virus is everywhere. Florida has just issued its state-at-home order. Jeff never planned for this. He was struggling already as a project manager working a 60-hour-a-week career and caring for his 11-month-old daughter, Chloe. He was also just assigned an acting director role in his department, which meant only more stress to come. But when things closed in the world, he was thrust into an impossible situation. With daycares closed, and his wife, Charlotte, a first responder at the local hospital, he had to watch Chloe at home throughout the day by himself while keeping his demanding job afloat.

              With the help of a trusty robot sidekick, named Kit, Jeff has to rework everything at home to survive. He has to rethink his home workspace to keep Chloe in constant view, the way he manages his workload due to Chloe's constant need of attention, and even adapt his mental capabilities to new extremes since taking notes, managing schedules and budgets, and hosting meetings has become too difficult.

              This memoir follows Jeff through six months of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Each chapter provides a glimpse of real pandemic events going on in the world outside their Palm City, Florida home. It then details true accounts of the struggles, laughs, and tough decisions going on inside their home at the same time.

              In this true story about the mental and physical marathon that Jeff endures to outlast the pandemic, he has to overcome feelings of guilt, neglect, and even depression to maintain Chloe's heath and development, his marriage, and his own mental health. The pandemic would put all of these to the ultimate test. (Approximate 63k words)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffrey Zuczek
• Release date: Jul 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223735724

Jeffrey Zuczek

Jeff presently resides in South Florida with his wife, Chantal, and their two daughters. He is a new author who enjoys writing in his spare time. His dream is to one day be published and have his novel available in a library for his daughters and others to enjoy. Please leave a shout out on my Instagram page below, and also join my Author page mailing list! Instagram @WriterDad_Jeff https://books2read.com/JeffreyZuczek

Book preview

Pandemic Dad

By Jeff Zuczek

Based on a True Story

A gold label with text and stars Description automatically generated

Preface

Dear Reader, I ask only one favor from you.

Read my story from start to finish. Don’t give up on it.

When you’re done, share your own pandemic story with your family, friends, and colleagues.

Never forget.

JZ

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DISCLAIMER: The details, accounts, references, and data expressed about the pandemic, pandemic-related events, and COVID-19 throughout this book, especially by Kit, are a broad reflection of events that took place. They are not meant to be taken as 100% accurate. They are illustrative in nature to paint a background setting for this novel based on the author’s accounts of events that took place. They are not meant to be utilized for anything beyond this work. The author did his best job to review publicly available sources for this writing. Please consult primary publicly available sources for true and fully accurate data.

Chapter I

Day 195

Mid-August 2020

8:30 pm

"In national news, the CDC has granted the manufacturer, Abbot, an Early Use Authorization for the sale of portable, at-home, tests to the public. The rapid test, as it is being called, can provide an at-home diagnosis in just fifteen minutes. This comes at a time when health officials report that several companies, including pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna, are close to entering Phase 3 clinical trials for their vaccine candidates.

In local news, Florida, and many other states across the nation continue to remain in Phase 2 of their reopening plans. As global COVID-19 fatalities soar closer to the one million casualties mark, many anxiously await an approved vaccine."

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Kit. End news. Go to home screen.

Jeff wasn’t feeling Kit’s news report today.

As Kit slowly dimmed to a low glow, he felt a little bad for being so short with it. After all, Kit had been there for him every day over the last six months.

He struggled to tie the final knot in his right shoelace. His lower back was in pain. It was one of those days where Chloe was needier than usual. She demanded to be held for most of his working hours today.

Now that she was in bed, he felt his neck, back, and biceps coordinating together to sound out their protests.

With the final knot completed, he slowly eased to an upright position and opened the front door.

He stepped outside into the humid, Florida atmosphere. With August now taking hold in Palm City, normally he would have been the one to find any excuse to stay couped up inside. But the last six months had given him every reason not to.

A beautiful orange dodge challenger stood at the end of the driveway. It was his first car. It had an immense amount of sentimental value for him.

His car was a female. She was his second true love, he always joked in social settings. His first love was Charlotte, his wife.

At some point in time, his friends at work came up with a name for his car – the orange crush, they called it.

The name somehow stuck over time, despite Charlotte rolling her eyes every time this reference was brought up in conversation.

Though today was the final test. Her final test.

Over the past few weeks, she had struggled to start. She had mostly sat idle in the driveway throughout the peak of the pandemic. This was somewhat his fault for not starting her up periodically to keep her going. Though he blamed it mostly on the Florida stay-at-home order that was issued some time ago. There was no longer anywhere to drive her, he concluded.

As his 17-month-old daughter, Chloe, was nearing the peak of her late afternoon nap inside the house, he seized this moment of freedom to try one last time to start her up.

He opened the driver’s door and sat down in her cockpit.

This is your last chance, honey, he whispered to her.

After a quick silent prayer, he put the key in her ignition and gave a few turns.

Slide to the right...

Slide back to the left...

...(silence)...

Although frustrated, his internal standup comedian was watching this play out and offered the next words in the sequence...Criss Cross.

However, this was not any time for laughter. It was unclear if his orange crush was truly dead, or if she was protesting his neglect of her over the past few months.

As he sat there trying to think through what other troubleshooting he could do, he realized something else much more potent.

He was a much different person today than the last time he drove her.

For a few seconds, he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. Was it that he was finally moving on from his rebellious twenties? he wondered.

After almost a full minute, the reason finally dawned on him.

The pandemic has vastly changed me, he concluded. I’m a much better father than I was before this all started.

When the orange crush was still guzzling down her unleaded meals prior to the pandemic, he recalled that Chloe was still in her bouncer at the time. But now she was officially walking, mumbling, playing games on her tablet, and even showing initial signs of her own identity.

Chloe was everything to him. She was his world. She was a beautiful mix of Chinese, Trinidadian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Irish descent. He would do anything for her.

Though during this eureka moment, he couldn’t help but think that if you asked him his feelings of fatherhood just six months ago in the very early stages of the pandemic, the answer may have been quite different. Glimpses appeared of many days when he had doubted himself. Quite often, he had questioned his parenting. The struggle to make difficult decisions of prioritizing work over that of soothing Chloe’s tantrums was often impossible to balance.

While flipping through this memory book in the orange crush, a shiver started to ascend the circular stairs of his spine. The beat of his heart started to tick faster, and faster, and even faster. The beats seemed to merge as the rhythm drew on.

Ba bum..........Ba bum.........Ba bum.....Babum....BabumBabumBabumBabum

He thought it was almost like a game of Duck, Duck, Goose, where the duck started out fleeing, but eventually the goose caught up. I’m the duck, he thought. And the pandemic is my goose. It’s always trying to catch up and remind me of the struggles I’ve endured.

He threw open the car door and jumped out in a panic. He let out a wild scream.

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

As he let out this momentary roar, he slammed his hands down on the hood. A quick glance left and right confirmed that there were no neighbors to see this childish act.

He looked up at the stars. The emptiness above invited more from within. He cried out again.

WHY ME?!!!!

These two simple words often plagued him throughout the pandemic. Why did fate decide to test his fatherhood during the pandemic? he wondered. How could anyone possibly maintain their sanity while juggling a demanding day job and playing caregiver at the same time?

Though somehow, through all this madness, he managed to survive. Somehow, he managed to keep his own wheels on the track. He even let many things go to the waste side, like the orange crush.

He drifted back into reality. He was still hunched over the hood. The beats of his heart started to diverge again as he realized that full nightfall was setting in. I’ve escaped the goose for now, he thought. Looking down at his watch, Chloe’s nap was likely coming up on its two-hour mark, so it was time for him to turn back on his parents’ senses and head back inside the house.

Before heading inside, he stopped at the doorstep and pivoted around to take a glimpse down the streets of Shoal Bay one final time this evening. Trumpets of kids playing in the distance sounded. He thought how nice it was to hear kids playing together in the streets once again. It was a further sign, along with recent news of a potential vaccine, that the end of the pandemic was near.

As he turned around, he started towards the door. When he came within arm’s reach of the electronic keypad, he slightly lost his balance. His left arm immediately shot out in instant reflex against the stucco wall. His forearm scraped downwards a few inches to steady himself. He was stuck in a half squat with shock across his face. After slowly regaining his posture, he realized that it’s been a while since he had something to eat or drink. The marathon of the workday must have quieted his inner metabolic needs.

He walked into his house and turned around to lock the front door for the evening. He felt more relaxed now, as difficult memories of the pandemic had subsided.

While arming their security system for the night, he thought again about his heart’s earlier game of Duck, Duck, Goose. Although he was now in the clear, he knew it would only be a matter of time until the goose caught up again.  

And in that moment, those two words sounded once again deep in the vaults of his subconscious.

Why me?

CHAPTER II

Day 0

Late January 2020

1:00 pm

As the peak of winter set in on this late January day, Jeff’s flight had just touched down back home in Palm Beach, Florida. He was returning home after one of his all-too-frequent work trips to Buffalo, New York. Although he didn’t consider Buffalo to be one of the most exciting places to travel, it allowed him the opportunity to accrue more than four hours of consecutive sleep in the night.

At this point, he would rake in limited hours of nighttime sleep. Chloe was going through one of those all-to-common sleep regressions. Getting a full night’s rest on a work trip was crucial these days. Since Charlotte and he did not have any family nearby, there were never any breaks. Jeff’s family was planted throughout all the northeastern states, while Charlotte’s family was scattered everywhere – even overseas in the country of Trinidad & Tobago where her parents now lived. These Buffalo trips were quickly becoming his proverbial reset button that kept him ticking during these early parental years. Internally, he had coined these visits to Buffalo his relief trips.

As he got off the plane, and made his way to baggage claim, he couldn’t help but feel that this relief trip was somehow different.

Something was off this time.

While standing there and watching the slightly therapeutic route of luggage doing laps around the carousel, he pondered on what exactly was different about this trip. Perhaps, it was the gentleman that sat next to me on the leg up to Buffalo? he thought. This man sat directly across the aisle. He was middle-aged, very well dressed, and only carried a backpack onto the plane, along with something very odd.

A full can of Lysol wipes.

His daydream was interrupted as he finally caught sight of his bag. He picked it up from the carousel and made his way outside to his orange crush patiently waiting in the economy lot. After looking her over to ensure she didn’t incur any dings or scratches while he was gone, he opened her door and sat down in her cockpit. He was excited to start her up. The sound of her exhaust pipes was always amplified in colder weather.

As he peeled out of the airport towards I-95 north, he drifted back to the man on the plane and his Lysol wipes. Prior to the doors being closed for their departure, the man (who he now nicknamed Lysol man) had done something very peculiar. He had opened the can and wiped down all three seats in his row. This is probably the cleanest those seats have been, Jeff jokingly thought. Though what caught Jeff’s attention the most was Lysol man’s meticulous and focused behavior. It was almost like he wanted to make certain that every square inch was sanitized. It was clear that this passenger was not a typical hypochondriac, but nevertheless he had a high concern for ensuring his exposure was limited for some reason or another. Occasionally, Jeff even noticed that the passenger missed a spot here and there, but somehow managed to hit them all during a second, calculated pass. This carried on until all the wipes in the Lysol can were used up. Jeff remembered thinking that Lysol man won the medal of the year in his book for effort – and oddity.

With the orange crush zooming further northbound on the expressway, Jeff had just passed the mile marker exit sign for his office. He put on his blinker and exited the interstate. The feeling of getting onto a familiar road brought excitement after a long trip. Although the consecutive sleep was nice, the frigid Buffalo weather had its downfalls compared to Florida’s.

***

2:30 pm

Jeff parked the car near the western entrance of his corporate office. He always preferred the western entrance due to less foot traffic and better shade for his car. After a few flights of stairs, and a short elevator ride, he sat down at his cubicle. Even after ten years with his company, he was still only a senior project manager. This meant there was no office. As he looked out the tinted impact glass on the fifth floor, he considered that there were many worse views one could have to look at during the workday. After a few moments of daydreaming, he realized that he hadn’t yet had his midday coffee and started towards the breakroom.

Their breakroom had just been remodeled to a modern, contemporary sort-of-look. It was fully modernized with a 55" TV, two commercial refrigerators, three diner-style booths, and multiple state-of-the-art coffee and expresso machines.

With a quick tap of the brew button for an expresso, he reminisced about an old friend named Darren at his alma mater, Cornell University, while waiting for the cup to fill. Darren had achieved housemate notoriety for his abnormally large caffeine consumption. Jeff recalled Darren drinking upwards of twenty-four cups each day. While still waiting for the last half of his cup to fill, he decided to do some arithmetic in his head. It was almost like an SAT question, he joked internally. He let out a slight giggle as he envisioned it laid out in his high school SAT prep book.

Q: If Darren had a six-cup thermos, and filled it four times each day, how many cups a day would Darren drink?

Yes, he thought. The answer is indeed twenty-four cups.

His thoughts were interrupted as the expresso machine was coughing up its last spurt of caffeine. As he stirred in a few small pours of creamer, he also remembering what happened to Darren when he tried to quit drinking coffee cold turkey. Simply put, Darren had landed himself a quick trip to the ER with heart palpitations. Unfortunately for Darren, their housemates drew from this event for jokes during the rest of the semester. Jeff was the only one who abstained, as he felt sorry for him.

As Jeff took his first sip of the expresso, he knew that this would be his last intake of caffeine for the day. He made it a point to avoid being a Darren, and instead remain a moderate coffee drinker. Even with only four hours of sleep each night, he wouldn’t let himself give into any more consumption.

He walked a few paces to the end of the coffee bar to throw away his sugar packets and straw. As he tossed out their carcasses, he started to hear some chatter behind him. He turned around and noticed that it was his co-worker, Matt, talking to another peer. Matt was a decent looking guy and around his height – just above 6’1". Matt had started a few months back as a GIS-specialist supporting project managers, like Jeff, on visual map creations. Matt was a down-to-earth guy that Jeff always felt comfortable sharing life stories with and talking sports at the office. Usually Matt displayed a happy-go-lucky persona, but today his face held an unusual look of concern.

Hey Jeff. Matt called out while pivoting towards Jeff. I see you’re back from New York.

Yep, and I’m still thawing out at the moment, Jeff replied.

Jeff always tried to add some humor to the conversation. Matt’s look of concern seemed to morph for a split second to an emerging smile, but then regressed back to that prior look of concern. Matt then pointed up at the breakroom TV.

Have you seen this? His voice was slightly trembling.

Jeff took a sip of his expresso and moved a few paces closer to the TV to make out what was airing. It was a news broadcast. There was a banner towards the bottom that flashed an unfamiliar word repeatedly - Wuhan.

No, I haven’t, Jeff replied. What is this about? What is this....Wuhan? Jeff expressed interest, although deep down he was tired from his flight and wanted to wrap up his cubicle work quickly.

It’s a town in China, Matt replied. He went on further. Apparently they’re saying people in that town are coming down with a new sickness of some kind.

Jeff took a moment to read the rest of the headlines to gain more clarity. It seemed to him, though, that this was a localized, China issue. Jeff gave it another few glances and recollected himself.

Thanks Matt, Jeff said. Let me know if they say anything else. Let’s catch up more later. I’ll probably head out in an hour or so.

Jeff gave Matt a pat on the shoulder as he started walking back towards his cubicle. Matt looked over for a moment, and finally a smile was able to gain a foothold on his face.

Sounds good, Matt replied.

As Jeff walked away, he looked back just before rounding the corner near the cubicle farm. He couldn’t help but notice that Matt’s look of concern had once again returned.

CHAPTER III

Day 15

Early February 2020

6:45 am

Charlotte’s phone alarm blared for the third time this morning. Unlike Jeff, who somehow had a natural alarm clock, she was the type of person that needed an electronic kick to get her out of bed for work. It always took her three alarms to get out of bed.

6:00 am!....(snooze)....6:30 am!....(snooze).....6:45 am!

Her resistance ran out, and she finally gave in to the alarm police. She turned over and used the bedside aid rail to sit up. She didn’t actually need it (perhaps except for her very poor eyesight she would say to this day). The rail was installed after her c-section last year when Chloe was born. For some reason today, the rail had remained – perhaps as a reminder of her struggles during recovery.

With her consciousness slowly waking up, she suddenly realized that it was a workday. After a quick shimmy off the bed, she was now