Excerpt from ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19
The worst day I had during the pandemic took me by surprise. It was 5 PM at the end of a workday & I was looking forward to a socially distanced walk with my friend Kirsten--who then texted me: Don’t go out—there’s a shooter on the Common.
Kirsten lived on one side of the Boston Common and I the other, and we met for socially distanced strolls, each other’s in person connection. Missing one walk wasn’t a big deal, but when I got that text I slammed my iPad closed. I was done. I wanted to go outside. I needed that one excursion into open air. I wanted exercise. I wanted nature. The magnolias were blooming on Commonwealth Avenue, heavier and more lustrous than I could remember. The previous day I’d lifted my face to the blossoms and inhaled—but I could barely catch the scent through my mask.
Now I was done. Done having to enjoy flowers through a filter. Done not being able to walk. Done with the Blaze—I wanted to go back to writing. I wanted the gym. I wanted my friends. I wanted my dog, who’d a few months before. I wanted my mom, who’d died a year before that. I wanted there not to be a shooter. OR a pandemic.
My friend Stephen called at that particular moment to see how I was doing.
“Checking in, my dear,” he said. “How are you?”
“Honestly? I’m bad,” I said.
“How so?”
I told him. “I’m done with Covid. I’m done with the whole thing.”
“Have you eaten today?” he asked.
“NO,” I said. I went to the refrigerator and opened it, then slammed it closed. “I don’t WANT to eat.”
“Have you showered?”
“Of COURSE not,” I said.
“All right, here’s what I want you to do,” Stephen said. “Go run a bath. I’ll even try hard not to imagine you naked.”
I was in such bad shape I didn’t even banter back—our friendship was flirtatious. “FINE,” I said, once I’d stripped and the water was running. “I’m in the tub.”
“Good,” he said. “Now I’m going to read you some poetry.”
“I DON’T WANT ANY FUCKING POETRY,” I said. “I just want my LIFE BACK!”
“I understand,” Stephen said. “Now: listen.”
I sat in the tub with Stephen on speaker, scowling as he read me poem after poem. I couldn’t concentrate. The words slid off me. They meant nothing. But I didn’t hang up. I let Stephen’s voice wash over me. I lay back and shut my eyes.
“Better?” asked Stephen. I grunted.
“Not yet, apparently,” he said. “Let’s try this one.”
For an hour he read as I lay with the water cooling. Eventually, I was able to bite down on what he was reading, my brain starting to make sense of the words. It was like a picture coming into focus, only the picture was myself. I sighed.
“Better?” Stephen asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
“It’s my privilege,” he said. “Will you be all right?”
“Now I will,” I said. “Stephen?”
“Yes?”
“That last one was yours, wasn’t it,” I said.
“Good ear, my dear,” he said. I smiled. The last poem was the first one I’d been truly able to hear.
ABOUT JENNA BLUM
Bio: Jenna Blum is the New York Times and # 1 internationally bestselling author of novels Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, and The Lost Family; memoir Woodrow on the Bench; audiocourse “The Author at Work: The Art of Writing Fiction” and WWII podcast The Key of Love. Jenna’s fifth book and first psychological thriller, Murder Your Darlings, will be published by HarperCollins in January 2026.
As CEO of online author interview company A Mighty Blaze, which she cofounded during the Covid-19 pandemic, Jenna earned a reputation as a publishing industry community builder and innovator. As on-air host, Jenna has conducted hundreds of interviews for the Blaze, from literary legends to new voices.
Jenna is one of Oprah.com readers’ Top 30 Women Writers. She earned her MA at Boston University in Creative Writing and has taught workshops for Boston University, Grub Street Writers, A Mighty Blaze, and numerous other institutions for over 25 years. She interviewed Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and is a professional public speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to speak about her work.
Jenna is based in downtown Boston, where she’s the proud human of her black Lab Henry Higgins.
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