A/N: I'm back! I didn't intend to take a 2.5 month hiatus, but I just didn't feel creative until now. Hope you enjoy the three chapters I'm posting tonight.
"Hey, Nisha," said Michael as he and Fiona walked in the front door to Charlie's school. "How're you doing?"
"Hey, guys. I'm doing just fine, and yourself?"
"House is still standing, so we're great. You guys been able to get out in this rain at all?"
Nisha groaned. "Not much at all. Kids are going nuts. Teachers are right there with them. It's not like this is a new thing, of course. Last year we said we were going to add on to the back to have a big enough place to play indoors. We had a contractor work up some plans at the beginning of the year, but I guess he . . . I don't know." She trailed off, and it was clear she wanted to say more. "Anyway, I'll be happy once we get some dry weather again."
Michael was curious what else she wanted to say, because anyone would be. Trouble is Michael's curiosity never stops there. Usually ends in gunfire. So he knew not to ask. He knew to just nod sympathetically and continue on to Charlie's classroom.
Fiona knew it, too. She just didn't care.
"You guess he what?" she prompted.
Nisha was silent for a moment. She looked around to make sure nobody was coming. "It's Virginia's husband. He was the contractor. He just stopped showing up one day. We asked Virginia if he was okay, and she said he was fine and would be there the next day, but he didn't show up. That happened a couple of times. It got awkward to keep asking, so we didn't. We hadn't paid him anything yet, so we just kinda let it go. Virginia hasn't brought it up since. I really shouldn't be telling you guys this. So please don't say anything, especially to Virginia, okay?"
"Of course," Michael said, at the same time as Fiona said, "But aren't you curious what happened?"
"I'm sure she is curious, Fi, but as she just explained, they're just letting it go," Michael said, though he knew it was pointless.
"Nisha, look, the whole thing sounds really bizarre. I, well, actually, we have this kind of, umm, well, kind of a business, I guess you could say. We're sort of like private investigators. We can figure out a lot of things," Fiona said. "Let me just talk to Virginia. You do mean Charlie's teacher Virginia, right?"
"Yeah, but . . . I don't know," Nisha said.
"Trust me. We can talk to her in a way that we can figure out what's going on without letting her know you said anything," Fiona said.
Michael noted "me" had become "we." Gunfire, he thought. Nine times out of ten, it's gunfire.
"I mean, I guess if you can be discreet. I just don't want to embarrass her. Something's going on and she obviously doesn't want to talk about it."
"Discretion is our motto," Fiona assured her, as Michael prepared for her to spontaneously combust. But no. Evidently it wasn't a big enough lie. "We'll talk to her. Don't worry about a thing."
Once they were through the double doors, Michael pulled Fiona towards the wall. "Fi, what the hell are you doing?"
"You know exactly what I'm doing."
"Fi, no. Do you recall why we're at a preschool? We're picking up a two-year-old. Our two-year-old, for all intents and purposes. Weren't you the one who said we'd take a vacation from our 'other job' while we have Charlie? Why are you walking into something that could put Charlie in danger?"
"Oh, for god's sake, Michael, calm down. We have no reason to believe there's anything dangerous going on. We're just going to talk to this woman. I bet it's nothing, which would be a shame, actually, because I'm getting itchy."
"When, Fiona, when since we've been in Miami has it turned out to be nothing? It's always something. You know, normal people don't have these issues. Normal people have friends who have some bad luck every now and then, and normal people nod and offer to do whatever they can to help, and the friends never take them up on it, and everybody goes on with their lives. That's not us. We attract shit. We are shit magnets, Fi." Michael heaved a big sigh and was quiet for a moment. "I just want normal. A little normal. They'll find another contractor. Just – just let's have normal for a while."
Fiona didn't say anything. She stared into Michael's eyes and let a little gasp escape when they started to water. "Michael," she whispered. "Michael, okay," she said, clearing her throat. "Okay. Obviously this is upsetting you. I want to talk about this with you because it's – I don't know what it is. Out of character, to say the least. But yes, in the meantime, I won't say anything to Virginia. I think we have to talk to her at some point because we told Nisha we would - "
Michael interjected. "We t - "
"Fine, I told her we would. But we won't do anything now. Okay?"
Michael nodded, then breathed in and out deeply again. "Thank you."
"Yeah. Shall we?" Fiona asked, taking Michael's hand and starting to walk to Charlie's room.
Hearing the doorknob turn, six little bodies whipped their eyes toward the door to see whose turn it was to go home. A split second later, five of them returned to whatever they'd been doing, and the sixth sprung from the rug where he'd been building towers from blocks and ran to Michael, knocking over a tower and two kids in the process. The kids didn't appear to mind. Just another day at the office.
"Hey, Charlie," smiled Michael as he braced himself against the wall, preparing for 30+ pounds of Charlie to barrel into him. Charlie made impact, threw his arms and legs around any available parts of Michael, and buried his face into his uncle's neck. "I'm so glad to see you," Michael said, kissing Charlie's hair. "Did you have a good day today?"
"Yah I pooped free times!" Charlie exclaimed with pride.
"You what? You pooped three times? On the potty?" Michael asked.
"Yah on da potty."
"Three times?" Michael repeated, looking to Virginia.
"Yep, just getting ready to talk to you about that," Virginia said, getting up from her spot on the rug. "He's had a lot of bowel activity today. Little bit of diarrhea the last time. He said he felt fine, and it didn't seem to be bothering him. I'd just keep an eye on him tonight."
Fiona was getting Charlie's things together but stopped when she heard diarrhea. She darted to Michael and Virginia. "What are we supposed to be looking for?" she asked.
"Oh, you know, just if he starts feeling bad or if he has more diarrhea."
"And then what are we supposed to do if that happens?" Fiona asked nervously.
Virginia hesitated. "I'm not supposed to give any medical advice," she said. "Liability." She looked into Michael's and Fiona's eyes, silently inviting them to continue the conversation.
"Hey, I got it," said Michael. "It's not even Charlie. Say, Virginia, your kids ever have a day with a lot of bowel activity and they seemed fine but then that night they had some more of that nutty bowel activity?"
Virginia smiled. "Matter of fact, both my grandkids had something like that just a few months ago."
"Really," Michael said, shifting Charlie to the other side of his chest. "Go figure. What'd you do?"
"Well, one of them, turned out he'd eaten a whole box of Fiber One bars. Gave him Pedialyte 'cause they can get dehydrated from too much diarrhea. Made for a long night, but he was fine in the morning. The other one ended up getting a little cold a couple of days later. Pediatrician said a lot of times kids have weird stomach stuff with any virus, even if it's not a stomach bug. So I figured in hindsight that was probably it."
"Pedialyte?" asked Michael.
"Yeah, it's like Gatorade for little kids," Virginia explained. "Electrolytes and all that jazz. It's with the baby food in the grocery store."
"Okay, good to know."
"Oh, and, you know, this isn't about Charlie or anything, but I made sure to tell my daughter that it's almost always a bad idea to take a kid to the ER 'cause you end up waiting for hours. All these doctors' offices these days have nurse lines you can call and they tell you if it can wait 'til morning."
Michael looked at Fiona, then at Charlie, then back to Fiona. "Yeah, we should probably figure out if Charlie has a doctor."
"You have to call your mother this time," Fiona said. "I took the last two."
Virginia tried to stifle a laugh. "It's okay," Michael told her. "You can laugh. I trust you understand why we have to take turns calling my mother."
"Aww, she's a sweet lady, really. Just a little, uh, a little tense is all."
"You're a good woman, Virginia," Michael said. "I bet your kids don't have to take turns calling you."
"Oh, you never know. They probably have all sorts of stories about me."
"Maybe so. Okay, Charlie, you ready? Tell everyone goodbye."
"Bye Miss Jinjah! Bye Coby bye Mawilyn bye Anna bye Jonafan bye Jacob!"
"Bye bye, Charlie. We'll see you tomorrow. Hope you feel better," Virginia said, tousling his hair. "Oh, I almost forgot! I didn't give my grandkids anything real heavy to eat. Just toast and dry Cheerios and that kind of thing."
Fiona gave Virginia a thumbs-up sign. "Got it. I'm sure it's nothing."
Michael and Fi looked at each other as they walked out, both remembering when he reminded her that it's never nothing with them.
And they both wished they didn't remember when Michael called them shit magnets.
Fiona walked into the laundry room where Michael was transferring a second load of wet sheets into the dryer. "I think he's really asleep now," she said, leaning against the wall with a sigh. It was only 9:45, but it'd been quite an evening. Charlie was happy, Charlie was playful, Charlie was well-behaved, but Charlie was poopy. Really poopy. For a few hours. But now the diarrhea was just about gone and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction, so to speak. They'd given him grape Pedialyte just in case. Now he was cuddled up under his blankets on towels as makeshift sheets, Edward in his hand and a dream in his head.
"I didn't know a two-year-old could do that," Michael said.
"Live and learn, I suppose."
"We induced something like that in Panama years ago, but it took drugs and bad fish. And we made Sam take care of it, as I recall. He'd lost a bet." Michael closed the dryer door, turned on the machine, and headed into the kitchen.
"Let's just pray it's finished," said Fiona. She retrieved her mug of now-cold tea from the microwave, where she'd tried in vain to reheat it an hour before, and dumped the tea into the sink. Then she retrieved a bottle of red from the fridge. "Wine?" she asked Michael.
"No, thanks."
"Anything?"
"I lost my appetite a while ago."
"I lost it for food, but I've always got room for a fine wine," Fiona said, pouring.
"It was $8.99 at Publix."
"Fine is relative."
"Indeed it is."
Fiona joined Michael at the kitchen table. "I want to talk about what happened today," she said.
Michael sighed. "I don't."
Fiona stared at him wordlessly.
After an uncomfortable silence, Michael spoke. "Fi, I don't know what you want me to say. I don't want to do those kinds of jobs anymore. What's so complicated about that?"
"It's complicated because it goes against everything you've been for 45-odd years."
"You were the one who wanted me to get out, Fiona!" Michael suddenly raised his voice. It caught both of them off guard.
More silence.
"I wanted you to get out of slavishly risking your life day in and day out for an unappreciative government," she said quietly. "I still do. Helping Virginia isn't that. We don't know what it is yet, but it's not that."
And still more silence.
"Look, Michael, something in all this has touched a nerve. You're not doing yourself any favors by refusing to talk about it. I know you won't do it for yourself and you probably won't do it for me, but you owe it to Charlie to be a stable presence in his life, and you can't do that if you start crying and yelling at me whenever you think about doing a job. You know yourself, Michael. You are going to shut down your whole self just to avoid dealing with this."
Michael rested his face in his hands. "I don't know what this is, Fi."
Fiona sipped her wine for a few moments. "It strikes me as almost some kind of post-trauma reaction. You're out of harm's way, and you're reacting to the thought of going back in. I still don't know why you'd equate helping a grandmother with infiltrating a terror network, but you are, for some reason."
Michael's face was still hidden, but his body was visibly moving. It didn't take long for Fiona to figure out he was crying.
She rubbed his back. "Michael, it's okay. You're just exhausted. Neither of us realized how tired you still are."
"No, Fi. It's not that. This is the first time I'm really thinking about what it'd be like to go back, and it's the first time in my life I think I might not be able to. And I want to go back. I want to go back."
Fiona rested her head on his back. "Well, maybe your subconscious is telling you you don't want to go back."
At that, Michael fell into full-on sobs.