I drag myself to my feet, feeling seventy-two rather than twenty-seven. The dream I was dreaming—something involving a circus tent in the backyard, elephants, and a monkey swinging on a trapeze—slips away.
I should be used to Jo waking me up with questions or prying open my eyelids with tiny fingers. But, no. Jo seems to find a way to startle me awake before my alarm almost every morning. Sometimes, on mornings like today, I also fall out of bed.
“Is it show-and-tell today?”
“No, it’s not show-and-tell.”
I don’t think. What day is it, again?
Jo follows me as I limp to the bathroom, where I am reminded by the duct tape over the lid and Jo’s hand-drawn sign that the toilet is out of order. It’s too early to make decisions. Even small ones like: walk all the way downstairs or just go to the bathroom in the shower?
I turn on the shower and hazard a glance in the mirror. Yep, I look like I barely slept. Between worries about Jo and thoughts about Pat, I couldn’t get my brain to stop doing its best impression of a jumping bean.
“You never answered—do animals have souls?”
“I’m not sure, Jojo. That’s a big question for first thing in the morning,” I tell her.
“What’s for breakfast? We’re out of cereal.”
I think we’re out of milk too. And almost everything else. “How about we stop for donuts on the way to school?”
“Yay! Donuts!”
“You’ll have to eat a kolache first. For the protein.”
I’m not sure how much protein she’s really getting in what amounts to a pig in a blanket, but it counts. This is what I tell myself, anyway.
“I’ll let the dogs out,” Jo calls. “And I think they have souls.”
Jo runs down the stairs, energized by the idea of donuts. I’ll admit that it puts a little pep in my step too. But only a little.
I leave the bathroom door cracked before climbing into the shower. That’s something I’ve gotten used to with Jo—no door is ever fully shut. Privacy is dead to me. Heaven forbid I lock something. The moment I do, Jo NEEDS me immediately and urgently.
The pipes groan and bang as the hot water finally kicks on, but they don’t sound as bad as the noise the toilet started making last month. I wish I had a little more disposable income so I could call a plumber.
Maybe if I didn’t also have a lawyer to pay for … but it’s always something. I can’t remember a month going by that didn’t have a surprise expense: worn-out tires, a dentist’s appointment, the hot water heater flaking out, Jo getting an ear infection, or some random art fee. As long as there’s one working toilet in the house, for now, we’ll call it good. （Good-ish. To be clear, it’s really not all that good.）
Ashlee’s words about a stable home life flit through my mind. But having two toilets isn’t required for that, right? Rumor has it Wolf Waters has three bathrooms in his bunker, so clearly stability isn’t relative to number of toilets.
The moment the warm shower spray hits my face, my dream comes to me with alarming clarity. Pat, wearing a ringmaster’s top hat and tails better than either Hugh Jackman or Zac Efron, grins at me from atop an elephant’s back. Doing a neat flip, he lands in front of me, a thick-maned lion weaving around his legs like a house cat. And now Pat has a Doc Holliday mustache as he cracks Indiana Jones’s whip, saying, “I’m your huckleberry.”
Ringmaster Pat reminds me that Pat was actually here at my house, not in tails or with a mustache, but with cowboy boots and a sincere apology. I’m still processing how I feel about all of it.
I’m mad.
I miss him.