Michael pulled the Charger into his mom's driveway a little after 7:00. They were going to switch cars for a couple of days. Seemed easier than switching out the car seat at dusk. Fi heaved the big passenger door open when the engine stopped and got out. She slammed the door closed out of habit, not looking at it. She looked around to grab Michael's hand. He wasn't there, so she peered in through the passenger window. He was still in the driver's seat. Still had his seatbelt on.
"Michael, what?"
"Are you sure this is what we should do? I mean, what would happen to a little kid whose mom got mono and there was no family around? Maybe we could hire a nurse or a nanny or something. Surely in Miami, we'd have our pick of nurses who take care of old people."
Fiona let her head go down, her hair cascading around her face. "Michael, get out of the car. Nobody would work for your mother for more than three days. This is fine. You'll be fine."
Michael inhaled deeply, opened his door, and stepped out slowly. He moved even more slowly to his mom's lawn.
They made it to the front door and went in the house. They were immediately aurally assaulted by something screaming. Michael instinctively went into battle mode, protecting his head and preparing to push Fi to the ground, and then he noticed the TV. A black man in an orange hat and orange body suit appeared to be DJing for five bizarre, non-human, dancing creatures. They were all different colors. The camera angles alternated between healthy distances and painful close-ups. Michael thought the whole thing looked like an acid trip.
He turned, horrified, to his mom, who was putting piles of little clothes into a Toy Story suitcase. "What the hell is that?" Michael asked.
"Yo Gabba Gabba," Madeline replied.
"Should that be on when Charlie's home?" Michael wondered aloud.
"Michael, it's a show for kids," his mom said. "They like the colors and the movement."
"We used to use something like that to drive our prisoners nuts before we started interrogating them," Michael said wistfully, still staring at the TV. "'Yo Gabba Gabba,' you said? I gotta remember that."
"Where's Charlie, speaking of which?" asked Fiona.
"He's in his room packing. He told me it was very important for him to bring his important things," explained Maddie. "You should probably go supervise."
Fiona took Michael's hand and pulled him down the hall. Charlie's room was Michael's old room. Nate's old room was closer to the master bedroom, but Madeline couldn't have anybody in Nate's room yet. From the doorway, they saw Charlie's back. He was sitting on his haunches in the middle of his train rug, his back curved forward as he studied something near his knees. Madeline had already dressed him in his jammies – dark blue pants with small gray guitars all over them and a short-sleeved, two-toned shirt proclaiming Charlie to be a FUTURE ROCK STAR.
"Hi, Charlie!" said Fiona cheerfully. "How are you doing?"
Charlie didn't turn around. "Edwuhd wee bwoke." [Translation for those who are new to two-year-old boys: Edward's wheel broke.]
"Who's Edward?" Fiona asked, sitting down next to Charlie. Charlie held up a blue train about three inches long. Michael stared at it because it had a face. "Ohhhhhh, Edward from Thomas the Tank Engine. What happened to his wheel?" Fiona asked. Michael was still in the doorway. He looked confused. Again. Still.
"Edwuhd wuhsh goin ovuh dis ting, dis bidge, an hizh wee gah tuck," said Charlie, patting some wooden train tracks. [Edward was going over this thing, this bridge, and his wheel got stuck.]
"Oh, I see. May I see him?" Fiona extended her open hand to Charlie. Michael gathered she knew what Charlie was saying. He had no idea. Charlie gave Fiona his toy. "Ahh, yes, I see the problem. This rubber band thingamajiggie came off," she said, inspecting the train's underside. "Let me just slip that back on and . . . done! There you go, Charlie."
"Yay, Edwuhd wuhks! Teefee fix!" Teefee was what Charlie called Fiona. Everyone referred to her as Auntie Fi. He dropped the an part and just said the last part: tie Fi. Teefee.
"Yep, Edward works now. Charlie, looks who's here! Look who's at your door," Fiona said, smiling.
Charlie twisted his head around. "Uncuh Micuh!" Charlie bolted up, practically knocking Fi over as he did. He ran to the door and threw his arms around Michael's thighs.
"Hi, Charlie," Michael said, awkwardly patting Charlie's back. "How are you?"
"I seep yuh housh." Michael looked over Charlie's head to Fiona, panicked. It was like Spanish.
"Yes, Charlie, that's right," Fiona said, getting to her feet and walking to the Charlie-Uncuh Micuh unit. "You're going to sleep at our house. Is that okay with you? Do you want that?"
"Yah! I seep dair!"
"Great! We're going to have so much fun!" Fiona looked back in to the room. "Charlie, Grandma Maddie said you were packing your important things to take to our house. Are they ready?"
"Yah, I got dis!" Charlie let go of Michael's legs and held up Edwuhd.
"Yes, definitely bring Edward. Do you want to bring anything else?"
Charlie looked around. He ran to his bed, because two-year-old boys always run, never walk, and got a stuffed dog. Then, from his floor, he got a magnet that said VANCOUVER! in cheerful letters, a souvenir from Sam's Alaskan cruise with his lady friend, Elsa, and the hat from his police officer costume, a current favorite. "I weddy!"
Fiona stifled a laugh. "Okay, you got your dog and your magnet and your hat! Let's go find Grandma Maddie!" Charlie ran down the hall. Fiona followed him. Michael stood where he was, still very confused by what had just happened.
"Okay, here's his suitcase," Maddie said, handing the little case to Fiona. "It's got clothes and PJs and water stuff for when they have splash day at school. And that big suitcase by the door has a bunch of toys and books and stuff. And grab that cooler from the kitchen counter. I packed a bunch of the food he likes. Wait, his shoes. What did I do with his shoes?" Maddie thought for a moment. "Oh, jeez, he's wearing them. Okay. There's also a few packs of underwear in there. So for school you need to send his little backpack with a couple pairs of underwear for him to wear during the day while he's potty training. He's got a whole pack of pull-ups already at school. His teachers are really good at this, so just do what they tell you to do and don't mess with their system. He's been doing pretty well so far. Hmmm. What else. Oh, well, I guess you need the potty!" Maddie laughed, then started to cough and choke. Once she could breathe, she said, "Michael, get it from the bathroom, would you, sweetheart?"
Michael's daze broke when he heard his name. "Get the what?" he asked.
"Michael. Focus. Go into the bathroom and get the little white plastic chair thing with the bowl inside it," Madeline instructed. "That's what Charlie uses to pee and poop."
"Mom, we have a toilet. Two of them. I mean, I know you think we live primitively, but we do have running water and everything," Michael pointed out.
"Oh my god, Michael, you're killing me. Fiona, please help him do this, okay? Please don't let him try to do this by himself," Madeline pleaded.
"Don't worry, Madeline, your son is only temporarily stupid. He'll be fine once the shock wears off," Fiona assured her. "Michael. Little children aren't usually comfortable on a regular toilet. My oldest cousin's son used to fall in. They need their own little chair to sit on to go to the bathroom."
"Or you can get a soft seat topper," Madeline offered helpfully. "I've been meaning to get one and just haven't had a chance to get over to Babies R Us. Oh, you've got to see them, Michael. They're just darling. You can get them with Elmo or Disney characters or anything, really, and some of them even play sounds when the kid goes! Isn't that incredible? When you boys were little, we didn't have anything like that. I just had to hold you on and make sure you didn't fall in."
Michael had started to feel somewhat more focused, but thinking about an Elmo toilet seat that played music when he peed was fast returning him to the safety of oblivion. "Okay, I get it. Just – I'll go get the thing. Don't talk about it anymore." He walked into the bathroom he and Nate used to share, found the plastic contraption on the floor, and picked it up. That's when he realized something.
"Wait, how does this connect to the plumbing? Is there an adapter or something?" Michael inquired, inspecting the potty from all sides.
"Michael." Maddie put her head in her hands. "Oh my god, Michael, this isn't complicated. It's self-contained. It doesn't hook in to the plumbing," she explained. "The bowl fits over the rim of the chair. Charlie sits on it. He pees or poops. The pee or poop goes into the bowl. He gets up. You throw the pee or poop into the regular toilet. You flush. You clean the bowl. Done." She said all that very, very slowly.
Michael was starting to get that fuzzy look again.
"Oh, but don't forget you have to tell him what a good boy he is for going tee-tee and poo-poo on the potty. And a lot of time he likes to dump it in the toilet himself and do the flush, but sometimes he's a little off so some of the pee might run down the side of the toilet onto the floor. So just watch out for that. Oh and the other day there was this smell in the bathroom and I just couldn't find what was there!" Madeline went on, pausing dramatically between couldn't and find. "But eventually I saw this little piece of poop – like a little pooplet, I guess – that had fallen behind the tank so watch out for that, too. It's very important to heap praise on him, Michael. You have to make it very exciting and positive and safe for him. Otherwise he can become anal retentive and have to go to the emergency room," cautioned Maddie.
Michael knew very little about the toileting habits of children, obviously, but he seriously doubted his not being enough of a cheerleader for Charlie would necessitate a trip to the hospital. And he knew for damn sure he couldn't say tee-tee or poo-poo. Or pooplet.
Oh, but Maddie wasn't finished. "Now, at school they give them one M&M for peeing in the potty and two for pooping. And if they go a whole day without an accident, they get a lollipop. So you probably want to stop by a drugstore or something to get some M&Ms and lollipops. And don't you give him a hard time about the sugar, Michael. I know you prefer kale and keen-oh-ah, but you give that boy some candy if he wants it. Not yogurt. Yogurt is not a treat."
Michael was now just staring ahead, not making eye contact or focusing on anything.
"All right, is that it? I guess that's it. Can you think of anything else?" Maddie asked Fiona, having realized it was better to leave Michael out of the conversation.
"No, everything sounds in order. We can certainly improvise if we need to for a few days," Fiona said.
"Wait, the daycare badge. You're on the list of people who can pick Charlie up but you still have to have a special badge. Let me find my purse." Madeline disappeared down the hall to her bedroom.
"Michael, you're good. Are you good? This will be fine," Fiona said, uncharacteristically warmly. Michael nodded a little but didn't say anything.
"Found it! Here you go." Maddie handed a laminated card on a lanyard to Fiona. "Okay, I guess that's it. I just feel like I'm forgetting something. Maybe he needs some more clothes in case you don't have time to do laundry. You think?" Maddie wondered aloud.
"Mom, in a lot of places in the world, children travel with their skin and that's it. He doesn't need any more stuff," said Michael, pretty snidely for a person who, to this point, had contributed nothing of value to the discussion and shown himself to be incompetent.
Madeline ignored him. "Fiona, if you need more stuff, just call me and we'll figure something out. Oh, and he usually goes to bed around 9:00. He takes a really good nap around 1:00, like two or two and a half hours, so he's generally not that tired in the evening."
"1:00 nap and 9:00 bed. Got it. Everything will be fine, Madeline. You just rest and let us know if you need anything." Modulating her voice about an octave up, Fi enthusiastically said, "Okay, Charlie! Are you ready to go to our house with me and Uncle Michael?"
Charlie had been playing with a couple of trains on the floor all the time the adults were talking, zoned out, unaware of any of the complexities of toilets and daycare badges. Michael was envious.
"Yah yah yah yah yah! Les go!"
"Throw me kisses, Charlie!" said Maddie, her eyes tearing up. "I love you so much! You're going to have a great time with Auntie Fi and Uncle Michael! Will you call me tomorrow to tell me about school?"
"Okay, I caw mawoh. Les go, Teefee!" Charlie urged, grabbing his aunt's hand and trying to pull her out the back door. All the while, he kept murmuring, "Les go Teefee! Les go Teefee! Les go Teefee!"
Michael turned back to his mother, who had already flopped onto her couch. "All right, I guess we're going. You sure you don't want us to get someone in here?" Michael asked, handing Madeline the key to the Charger.
"No, Michael, I'm sure. Thank you, though, honey." Maddie was quiet for a moment, trying to conserve what was left of her energy. Then she said, "Well, there's one good thing in all of this. Now that Charlie's not here, I can smoke whenever I want."
"Jesus Christ, Mom. Your entire body is plagued by disease, and you want to add carcinogens to the mix?"
"Can you think of a better time to want the comfort of a cigarette than when your entire body is plagued by disease?"
Michael shook his head and turned to leave. "Bye," he called. "We'll check in tomorrow."
"Bye, sweetheart. You're gonna be fine."