Chapter 55

The alarm went off at 6:00. I got up and Jill moaned. Bozo came over to me and made himself known. I'd totally forgotten he was in the garage with us. He really was a pretty good dog.

I opened the side door and saw that the outside lights were still on. Bozo ran out to squat as I flipped the switch. Jill came up behind me, put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a quick kiss.

"See you inside. Gotta pee." I saw her open the kitchen door, step up with one foot, then screech "Daddy!"

I went up to the door to see John standing next to the kitchen table with a big smile on his face and his daughter wrapped around him. I walked up to him and held out my hand. He took it, then looked a little closer at me.

"Jack, you've got some kind of crud around your mouth. You should have someone take a look at that."

"Daddy! Be nice."

I went over to the sink and John put his attention back on Jill.

"Is he taking good care of you?"

"You better believe it. He took such good care of me last night I think we probably woke up the whole neighborhood."

"I don't know if I should be happy or angry at your boyfriend."

"If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at me. I'm the one who started it."

"I should have known that. Jack seems to be a complete gentleman. You, on the other hand, are a brazen hussy."

"Oh, Daddy. I am not brazen. Let me go. I've got to pee."

Jill took off just as Mom walked through the door. She had a big smile on her face. I looked over at John and he was smiling, too.

"Good morning, Mom. You look awful cheerful."

"Morning. I'm just happy."

I looked over at John. "What time did you get here?"

"About an hour ago. Why?"

"I thought maybe you got here last night and that's why Mom is so happy."

John got a stern look on his face as Mom interrupted him.

"Jackie, there are a lot of things you can do in an hour. If the sounds coming from the garage last night are any indication, you already figured that out for yourself."

"Jill does get a little loud."

"Jill's not the only one who got loud last night. You may not have been aware of it at the time but you were pretty loud in your praise of what she was doing to you. But to answer your question, no, John did not screw your mother. We did have a really nice conversation over the last hour or so. It's nice to sit down with a cup of coffee and have a conversation with an adult once in a while. I've missed that since your father died."

Jill had arrived at the tail end of Mom's response. She went up to her father and wrapped both arms around his right one, snuggling into it. Much the same as she did with me. She had a big smile on her face.

"Did you cure everybody in Houston, Daddy?"

"No, Honey. They kicked me out."

"Why would they do that?"

"When FEMA took over, they said they had all their own doctors and they couldn't let just anybody practice medicine. I don't think the fact that they didn't have enough of their own doctors to do the job made any difference to them. I wanted to tell them to go screw themselves, but you can't fight a government bureaucracy like that. I just feel sorry for all the people who won't get proper care so that FEMA can do things by the book. They fucked up New Orleans, now they're going to fuck up Houston."

"Are you going to take me to school, Daddy?"

"Sure thing, Baby. When do you need to leave?"

"I guess we can leave at about twenty to eight. That will give me a few minutes at school before class starts. I need to take a shower before I go."

I couldn't wait for her to shower. "Jill, give me about five minutes in the bathroom."

"Sure, Jack."

I went in and took care of everything that need to be taken care of. When I came out, Jill, Mom and John were all sitting around the kitchen table, coffee mugs in their hands. Jill had a plate with some toast on that she was working on. There had been something nagging at me since I'd first seen John. A subtle difference I couldn't quite put my finger on. As I walked into the kitchen and saw the three of them talking, it hit me. John wasn't putting on his "look at me, I'm the king" show. He was perfectly relaxed. And the funny thing is, the two women at the table were treating him the way his act was designed to make people treat him but never did.

"Get yourself some coffee and sit down, Jackie. What do you want for breakfast?"

"You know, Mom, I think I'll just have cereal. Stay there. I can get it myself."

I dug through Mary's Cocoa Puffs and Captain Crunch and found the box of Corn Flakes. I poured some in a bowl and cut up a banana and threw it in. The milk was already on the table. John had to move over so that Jill could move over to make room for me to sit next to her. I experienced that phenomenon that men have been experiencing since the first time one dragged a woolly mammoth home for dinner. Jill picked pieces of banana out of my cereal as I was trying to eat it.

After my banana was gone, she had me move over so she could use the bathroom and shower.

"Hang on, Jillian. Let me see this love nest you two have out in the garage."

"Oh, Daddy. Come on."

I got another banana while I was up and sat back down, slicing the new one over my bowl. I don't mind sharing, but one slice of banana for me and the rest for Jill was more than I was willing to settle for.

John and Jill came back in. Jill had her cosmetics bag and some clothes for school and headed for the bathroom. John came over to the table and made Mom move over so he could sit next to her.