“The dog takes a pill for allergies. Is that going to be difficult for you to be around?”
“The what?”
“The dog. She takes a pill for her skin. I’m just trying to be sensitive. I don’t want you popping them when you get back to Connecticut.”
Greg stood dumbfounded; he could only fight one battle at a time.
Patrick couldn’t read his reaction, so he shrugged—they could figure it out later. He took one last sip of his coffee before spitting it back in the cup.
TWENTY-TWO
Maisie and Grant had taken to wearing their bicycle helmets to breakfast. All day, really, except sometimes while swimming, as they worried about drowning. Despite Grant’s injury, they acquiesced at night and slept without them because wearing a helmet to bed was impractical. But come daylight? The helmets were strapped tightly under their little chins like they were inspectors on a construction site, there to assess the structural viability of his house. All they were missing were coffee thermoses and a tube of blueprints. The previous day, Patrick had filmed a video of them clanking their helmets together like battering rams, a test, of sorts, of their own emergency system. He’d even handed his phone to Maisie afterward and left the room, tacit permission to post the video to YouTube. There were now several such videos on Patrick’s channel. The first two; a video of the kids running an obstacle course he’d made around the pool that mimicked the one television show they seemed familiar with—some sort of ninja warrior challenge—along with his ongoing critical commentary; one where Patrick had hooked bungee cords around their arms and pretended to control them like marionettes; and one in the hospital they’d filmed in the style of a talk show, except they each held their tongues down with depressors. Patrick got a perverse kick out of the online response, although he didn’t altogether understand it. Likes and subscribers and comments came rolling in. First on YouTube and then on his old photos on Instagram. It was like people were remembering he was alive, discovering him all over again, blood flowing in the circuitry connecting him to the outside world.
But as the kids emerged from their rooms wearing their helmets for the fifth morning in a row, all Patrick could manage was “Why?”
“Aftershocks,” Maisie said with a dismissive nonchalance. “Things could hit us on the head.”
“The sky is not falling, Henny.”
Grant produced a granola bar he was hoping to eat. “My helmet’s on too tight for me to chew.” Marlene began sniffing around his shoes, hoping he’d drop a bite of his snack.
“Well, the good news is, you look ridiculous.” Patrick ushered Grant over and loosened his strap so the kid could eat his breakfast. “Finish up. We might as well go for a bike ride so you blend in.”
Early-morning bike rides had become a staple, a way for them to burn off some of their energy before they were driven inside from the heat. This morning, however, they got a later start; riding in the mid-morning sun was like pedaling into a wet cement wall that was slowly hardening around you. Five blocks from home, they dismounted their bikes to walk.
Patrick’s heart was racing and his palms were sweating, he assumed incorrectly, from exertion. It wasn’t until after they’d walked a block and his elevated heart rate refused to recede that he realized how apprehensive he was. It was long past time to tell the kids about Joe, and now he really didn’t know how to begin. A small lizard scurried across the sidewalk, which was hot like a griddle, until it disappeared in some tall desert grass growing on a vacant lot. Patrick didn’t call attention to it, for fear of losing his focus.
It didn’t matter; he chickened out anyhow.
By afternoon every inch of his swimming pool was covered in enormous pool floats. The unicorn, the flamingo, the donut, the pizza slice, they’d all been drafted into service—even the lobster that Sara had given him to remind him of his New England roots. Patrick could hardly see signs of water peeking through the flotilla. Grant rode a silver winged stallion filled with glitter through this inflatable forest; Maisie kneeled on a pineapple, clutching its yellow sides. Both of them in their bicycle helmets still.
“What on earth?” Patrick asked as he emerged from the house to join them.
“GUP, look! I’m riding a Pegathus!”
Patrick focused his attention on Grant, who was pleased as punch, perched safely above the water. His forehead was covered with a flesh-colored bandage that shined in the sun. Patrick set a tray of smoothies he’d made on the patio table. “You’re riding a pterippus. Pegasus was white. You know what? Pteriffic. Don’t get your bandage wet.”
“I’m floating on a pineapple!”
“I can see that!” Patrick cupped his hands above his eyes to block out the sun. “Where’s my pool?” He took two steps forward and tripped over the cord to the pump that they undoubtedly used to inflate his stash.
“GUP, get your thwimthoot.”
“Already wearing it, bud.”
As Patrick entered the pool, John popped his head over the wall, holding a gardening trowel.
“Howdy, neighbors.” John waved. “Just doing some planting, when I heard the kids playing. Thought I’d check on them.”
It takes a gay village. “How’s your house, John? Any damage from the quake?” Patrick could all but see JED’s collection of tumescent sculptures shattered in ruins on the floor; it was a mystery how they ever stood upright to begin with.
“A few broken glasses in the kitchen. We have a cabinet door that likes to swing open by itself. Some knickknacks. No heirlooms. A mirror fell off the wall and shattered. That’ll be seven years of bad luck.”
Some knickknacks? “Sorry to hear.”
“Don’t be. They’re just things. We’re fine. Dog’s fine. Cleaned up in a jiff. Grant, you’re riding a Pegasus!”
“That’s right!” Grant exclaimed.
