Page 72 of The Devil You Know
“Sweetie,” I say. I’m trying not to lose it. I’m so sick of changing urine-soaked clothing. “Can’t you wait until we get home? We’re almost home.”
“No!” Leah wails. “I need to go nooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww!”
I glance back at her and see that she’s clutching her crotch—the universal sign of needing to pee. I think there’s a reasonable chance that she might be able to hold it. And the only places we can pull over are stores where we’ll undoubtedly be told the toilet is staff only.
We could also try the gas station coming up, but that only has a porta potty. Leah is not a fan of the porta potty. When I took her to one once during a carnival, she looked utterly horrified. “Mommy, this is‘sgusting!” she gasped when she saw the hole filled with shit. As if she hadn’t just been sitting in her own shit on a daily basis one month earlier.
So I drive as fast as I can, speeding through yellow lights, all in a desperate race against Leah’s bladder. “Mommy, I need the potty!” she sobs. As if I could snap my fingers and make a toilet appear.
When I pull into the garage, I realize that I’ve lost the race. The familiar smell of urine wafts across the car, and when I look back at Leah in her car seat, I see a circular stain on her crotch.
Damn it!
“Leah,” I say sharply, “this is why I told you to go at the preschool!”
She looks up at me, her lower lip trembling. “But I didn’t have to go then.”
I sigh.
I unbuckle Leah from her car seat and bring her into the house. She walks extra slowly because she’s covered in urine. When I get into the living room, I see Ben sitting on the couch with his laptop, eating from a jar of peanut butter. He immediately notices the urine stains on Leah’s legs and jumps up. “Another accident?”
I nod miserably. “It’s all over her car seat.”
Ben leans in to kiss me on the lips. “Okay, I’ll go clean out the car seat. You take care of Leah’s clothes.”
I smile gratefully at him. Over the last month, Ben has gotten much better at helping out with Leah-related chores without my having to ask. It also hasn’t hurt that we started going to marriage counseling two weeks ago. I always thought that kind of thing was bullshit, but amazingly, it really helps. Just knowing that a third party is going to be listening helps us to talk things out more rationally. Also, in all honesty, knowing that a third party is going to hear about everything bad that I say helps keep me from saying bad things. The marriage counselor, on his part, has congratulated us both on being really dedicated to making the marriage work.
“But first…” I nod at the jar in his hand. “Let me have a scoop of that peanut butter.”
He grins at me. “Don’t you want to know what flavor it is first?”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’d rather live dangerously.”
Ben scoops out some peanut butter from the jar. It’s brown and roughly the normal color for peanut butter, so that’s a good sign. He puts the spoon in my mouth and I let the peanut butter dissolve. I taste a hint of vanilla. And honey. And cinnamon.
“It’s really good!” I say. “What flavor is it?”
“French toast,” he says.
“I want to try!” Leah yelps.
A minute later, the three of us are still standing in the living room, eating peanut butter. Even though Leah is still covered in pee.
_____
“This is for you, Dr. McGill.”
I have to say, I’m a sucker for presents. When a patient brings me a present, I always get really excited. Especially if that present turns out to be food, which it usually does. Usually they bring me chocolate or cookies or something along those lines. A few times, I’ve gotten candles. Once, I got a huge jug of vodka.
Today Robert Hopkins has brought me a plant.
I don’t love plants. Not to say that I’m not a nurturing kind of person, but I’m not good at nurturing plants. I’m already having enough trouble taking care of the human being I created—the last thing I need is a plant to worry about. I know all you have to do is water them, but even that’s too much trouble. (And aren’t you supposed to give them food? I know that’s counterintuitive because of, you know, photosynthesis, but I know there is such a thing as plant food.)
And this is not just a plant. It is aginormousplant. The plant easily weighs more than Leah does and she’s a good forty pounds. When I take it from Mr. Hopkins, I have to grunt with the effort of holding it. The pot comes up past my knees and the leaves run well above my head. It’s like something you would find in a jungle. What am I supposed to do with this plant? How am I even supposed to get it home?
Mr. Hopkins beams at me. “My wife picked it out. Do you like it, Dr. McGill?”
“I love it!” I hate it. “Thank you so much.”
