And then there were three

I turned the notebook around so Ethan could read it.

“You get the idea,” I said. “The kids from one of the classes could dress all in white, with strands of tinsel taped all over them. Maybe we could attach some of those plastic icicle ornaments to cheap plastic tiaras, too. They’d do it as more of a chant than a song, and they’d be reinforcing their counting skills at the same time.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ethan said. “I’ve got an old door in my storage unit we could use. And I could find a big tree branch somewhere, cut off any small branches that might poke the kids.”

I nodded. “Obviously, we’d keep the song going until the icicles are all gone, and then bring them all back for a happy ending. I’ll keep working on it.”

“Great. Hey, and thanks for listening,” Ethan said as he turned to a new page and began sketching. “I’ll keep working on my own happy ending, too. You know, figuring how to deal with that tree semi-dying in the pot and all that.”

I glanced over at Ethan’s notebook, tilted my head to look at the massive tree he’d drawn.

“Not that it necessarily means anything,” I said. “But that tree you just drew looks like something out of Little Shop of Horrors. Just saying.”

John looked up from his laptop when I walked into the kitchen.

“Hey,” I said.

“Listen,” he said.

“Wait,” I said.

“What?” he said.

“Never mind,” I said. I dumped my teacher bag on the floor, opened the dishwasher, started pulling out dishes for the animals.

John’s car wasn’t even in the driveway when I’d finished walking home from the beach last night. I’d brushed my teeth and washed my face quickly, changed into a sleep T-shirt, crawled under the covers in the cat room with a book. Realized it wasn’t even 7 PM yet, but stayed there anyway. When I tiptoed out to the kitchen to get more animal food a few hours later, I heard the Addams Family theme song coming from one of John’s prized pinball machines in the front parlor. I didn’t even look in.

Now John pushed his chair back from the table. He picked up my bag, put it on the kitchen table.

“If I wanted that on the table,” I said sweetly, “I would have put it there.”

John watched as I opened the pet food cupboard.

“Horatio’s already been fed,” John said. “In fact, he’s been overfed a lot lately. Over fifty percent of the dogs and cats in this country are clinically overweight, so it’s something to be aware of. I was thinking I could create an Excel sheet so we can keep track. You know, that way we can check off the feedings. And the snacks.”