Back in Madeline's car, Michael turned the engine and the air conditioning on, and then he and Fi just leaned back in their seats, silent. What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four hours before, they'd been preparing for their day with Neal and his fellow fresh faces. Specifically, they'd been fighting about their day with Neal and his fellow fresh faces.
"Michael, seriously. Under no circumstances should this Neal person be allowed out of his cubicle. Did you read his profile? He has a Ph.D. in Tongan. Tongan. You know, the language they speak in Tonga? Lot of terroristic threats in Tonga, are there? That's it. He has no military experience, no weapons experience. He probably never even got into a fight at school."
"Fi, I don't control who they hire or who they give me. I'm supposed to teach these people some basic skills so they don't get themselves killed. Right? Isn't that what you wanted me to do? Look, we're just doing the thumb drive thing today. He's a language guy. He'll probably just start talking to you. Who knows, maybe he'll lapse into Tongan and you'll learn something. Point is, it's not like he's going to try to take you on physically. I'm sure he'll ignore the restraints and weapons and stuff and just flirt with you.
As Michael reflects on that exchange, he's even more amazed Fiona didn't punch him in the gut after she untied herself.
Fi spoke first. "Wow," she said, exhaling.
"Understatement of the year," Michael agreed.
"Well, look. We made it through the first night. We got him to school. Your mom only texted 11 times. I figured it'd be 15, minimum," Fiona said, pulling out her phone. "Wait . . . never mind. Seven more since we got here."
"Yeah, we made it. And we have to do it all again. And again and again and again," said Michael, leaning forward and shifting into reverse.
Two and a half hours later, Michael and Fiona sat at their kitchen table, sweating and trying to work up the energy to go get Charlie. Fi had completed the fastest grocery shopping of her life. She tried to stick to healthy foods, but she did tuck a few boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in her cart in the interest of domestic bliss. And decaf iced tea. And a few lidded cups. She got Michael twice as much yogurt than usual. That was his comfort food, and she figured the man could use all the comfort he could get. Then, thinking about her own comfort, she slipped into the wine aisle and got a couple of bottles of red. She got out for under $250, and she called that a win.
Michael filled every suitcase and travel bag they had with their guns, ammunition, knives, C4, RDX, detonators, det cord, grenades, smoke bombs, and tasers. When he ran out of room, he used pillowcases. He even managed to do it the right way – he individually bubble wrapped the stuff that needed it, he put other things in their original cases, and he grouped like items together. Finally he was confident he got everything.
He would enlist Sam and Jesse to help them erect a prefab shed in some remote corner of the yard and then shove it all in there. They'd throw an extra four or five locks on the shed as well. Fiona and Michael had briefly considered moving everything into offsite storage, but she was still Fiona and he was still Michael and they just couldn't bring themselves to do it. They'd both spent their entire professional lives pissing people off around the world, and even with the CIA's protection, they weren't willing to disarm completely. That would leave Charlie and themselves too exposed.
"You ready?" Michael asked, gulping down the last of his iced tea.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Fi answered. "At least he'll nap when we get home."
At 3:15, everybody was awake Chez Glenanne-Westen. It wasn't that they'd woken up after their naps. It was that they'd never gone to sleep.
"Why the fuck won't he slee-ee-ee-ee-eep?" Michael whined, banging his head three times on the table.
"For the love of god, Michael, would you stop asking that?" Fi snapped. "How the fuck should I know? I know as much as you do."
Charlie wasn't whining or snapping. He was in a great mood. So were all the imaginary friends he was talking to in Michael's and Fiona's bed.
They'd thought it'd be easy. When they'd picked him up, Ms. Virginia told them Charlie'd had a fantastic day but was pretty tired. She was sure he'd fall asleep quickly and have a solid nap today. Finally, they'd thought, finally something was going to be easy with Charlie.
At first they'd lain down with him. That was around 1:05. Kill two birds with one stone, they thought. Charlie'd feel more comfortable with them there, and they might catch a nap, too. (They'd decided resting was a better idea than unpacking.) But Charlie was having too much fun with his Teefee and Uncuh Micuh. So then they'd read him a Dr. Seuss book, wished him a good nap, simul-kissed him on the cheeks, and left the room. That's how Google told Michael to handle naps.
When Charlie had started crying a minute later, Michael and Fiona had immediately rushed in to see if he was okay, because Michael hadn't read far enough down in the article to learn they weren't supposed to do that. Google also said you can make a kid stay in his bed, but you can't make him sleep. Michael hadn't read that part, either.
After the third false alarm, they'd caught on.
So then they'd tried some tough love. "Charlie," Michael had said firmly, "it's time for you to take a nap. No more crying. It's naptime. We'll see you when you wake up."
And he'd been quiet for a little while, so Michael and Fi had been feeling pretty proud of themselves. They'd made themselves some lunch and engaged in a thoughtful discussion about the allegory in Dr. Seuss's stories. The Big Brag, Michael said, was a satire of the pissing match between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to be the biggest, baddest superpower after World War II.
But then Charlie'd started talking. To himself. To Thomas and Edward. To Lightning McQueen and Mater. To Coby, although Charlie had seemed pretty mad at Coby so that one didn't last long. And to six or seven other people they couldn't identify. Each grown-up had poked a head in a couple of times to tell him to knock it off, but it didn't work.
Now it was 3:15. And he'd yet to stop.
And Michael and Fi didn't know what to do.
So they were being pissy with each other. About everything.
"That's great, Fi. Yeah, my asking why he won't go to sleep is the real problem. Not him not going to sleep. No, no, that has nothing to do with it," Michael said, shaking his head. "Couldn't be. That'd be ludicrous!" Michael muttered, modulating his voice as he shifted into different characters.
"Oh, fuck off, Michael." Fiona got up from the table and headed to their bedroom. "So juvenile," she said under her breath, but not that far under it.
"What the hell are you doing?" Michael asked, surprised. "Don't go in there!" he ordered.
"Jesus Christ, Michael, he's not going to sleep. I'm sick of being held hostage listening to him. We might as well let him out and move on with our lives." She opened the door to their room and went in. Five seconds later, Charlie whizzed through the living room and threw himself, full speed, at Michael.
"I finiss seeping!" he announced happily, climbing onto his uncle.
"Well, Charlie, you didn't finish sleeping so much as you never went to sleep. How come you didn't sleep? Grandma Maddie says you always take a nap."
Charlie just giggled and started playing with Michael's ears, then pulling on his lips, then sticking his fingers up Michael's nose.
At the nose, Michael pulled his face away. Then he groaned and stretched his arms up slowly, trying to wake up his body. He was trying to figure out why taking care of a two-year-old was so much more exhausting than some of the missions for which he'd stayed up for 48 hours or more. And then it dawned on him: the missions came with an adrenaline rush. Not so much with a toddler.
"All right, Charlie, whaddya say we go for a drive?"
"Yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah yah!"
"Okay. Go find your shoes," Michael told him. Charlie scampered down and took off across the house. "FIONA," shouted Michael.
"WHAT?" she yelled back, more angrily than loudly.
"Charlie and I are leaving."
She appeared in the doorway of their bedroom. "You're leaving? Where're you going?"
"I don't know. We'll find a park or something," he replied, taking two bottles of water from the fridge.
"I must admit, Michael, you've surprised me," she said, a smile slowly finding its way to her mouth.
"Yeah, well, you and I are going to kill each other if one of us doesn't get out of here pretty soon. Take the quiet time and do what you want. But be ready, because it's your turn when we get back," he added quickly.
"Yo. No-nap boy. Where are you?" called Michael.
Charlie had already gotten distracted from his sole task of finding his shoes. He was on the floor of the front foyer, playing with – you guessed it – Edward.
"Charlie, buddy, what are you doing? Go find your shoes!" Michael said, trying really hard to sound enthusiastic instead of catatonic.
"Oh yah, soos! I fohgah." He ran out of the bedroom, ran around the house, and then came back to Michael. "Weh soos?" he asked, his eyes big, his voice concerned.
"Now, Charlie, if I knew where your shoes were, I wouldn't have asked you to go find them." Michael did the same smile-instead-of-pummel thing as he'd done with Neal the day before. "But we'll go look together." Michael took Charlie's hand as the Westens set off on Mission: Find Shoes.
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