Mimi is slumped next to the tub, clutching a towel.

“You okay?”

Another moan.

I feel her forehead. “You have a fever.”

If either of us was going to get sick on the trip, I would have expected it would be me.

“The toilet,” she says. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

There are a number of things that men do better than women. Peeing is not one of them. For some reason, we’re trained to do it standing up. Women sit, and there’s nothing to say that men couldn’t sit too.

“Don’t throw up just yet.”

I grab a washcloth and clean up the area around the toilet where being startled has left a bit of a mess. Which, technically, was not my fault.

“I’ll get you some water.”

I flush the toilet, rinse out the cloth, and let the tap run cold.

“Here,” I tell Mimi, “you should drink some water.”

Some people, when they get sick, are good patients, and some are not. But you can’t tell by looking at a person. To look at Mimi, you would guess that she would be an agreeable patient, someone who would value the effort others make, someone who would appreciate a kindness.

“I don’t want water.”

“How about a cold compress?” I say, before I remember that the only washcloth is now unavailable.

Mimi lurches to a sitting position and crawls to the toilet. I step back into the bedroom, so she doesn’t feel crowded while she retches.

I check the travel clock. Four thirty. Three hours before the breakfast room opens and I can get Mimi something to help settle her stomach.

I cast back over the evening meal. We had eaten at a restaurant where we sat at long tables with other people and shared plates of sausages and boiled cabbage. I want to blame the boiled cabbage, which came in large bowls and smelled like the boys’ locker room at a high school, but we had eaten the same thing and I’m not sick.

“Little help in here.”

I go as far as the doorway. “What do you need?”

“A pillow would be nice.”

More retching.

When I was a kid, whenever I got sick, my mother would give me a glass of ginger ale and dry toast. I can’t imagine that either had any medicinal properties.

Mimi is lying next to the toilet. I try not to look in the bowl.

“You can’t sleep on the floor.”

“Just get me a pillow.”

I get a pillow and a blanket, make Mimi as comfortable as possible.

“Go back to bed,” she tells me. “You can’t do anything.”

“I can be sympathetic.”

Mimi turns on her side and buries her face in the pillow. “Why does the floor smell like urine?”