Day Thirteen

Thirty-One, A Novel


Day One
Day Two  
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Day Eleven
Day Twelve


Day Thirteen, Saturday

The smells of pizza and garlic bread and popcorn and chocolate cake and wet dog permeated her house. Last night, they had laughed and ate and partied until much later than the kid’s normal bedtime.  The puppy, Joey, kept the party lively and happy with her antics and goofy expressions. She loved the pizza and popcorn, too. To the kids, the idea of going to Germany to see their dad was a great adventure. Nancy brightened with their enthusiasm, and relaxed, setting aside the worry over the details and the crisis.

Morgan asked why a little girl puppy was named Joey?  They all laughed.

“Long story,” said Sarah, the talkative one. “Mom wanted to name her Joy. We all thought that was corny and there was no way we were going to go in the yard and call out, “Joy!” like it was Christmas all the time or something. Jimmy wanted to call her Joe, because he had a special friend at one of our houses that he really liked. Which was kind of like Joy. But a girl can’t be Joe, that’s just weird. I had the idea to name her Josephina. I had some friends, at school, that had girl’s names, but guy’s nicknames, like Samantha was Sam, and Andrea was Andy. We could name her Josephina and call her Joey, which almost sounds like Joy, and everyone would be happy with that.” She took a deep breath, after rattling off her story at a rapid fire pace.

Morgan told them of her son, Elliot. Elliot was her name, before she was married, but they called him Eli. Same kind of thing, a name within another name, another meaning behind it.

And Johnny added in his eleven year old style, “If you say Joey and draw it out really long, it sounds just like the pig farmers calling, ‘Sow-eeee!’ with a high squeak at the end. And she eats like a pig, anyway.”

Morgan smiled at the memories of the evening. Her quiet, calm, peaceful house turned upside down by three kids and their happy puppy. She wondered if they would be able to take the puppy to Germany with them. But enough of that, there was still clean-up to do. She left it last night because she was so tired. Exhausted.

Fun to have a lively house again. She was happy they had all felt so comfortable. They ate pizza with sodas, then cleared off the table and played silly card games. They watched a movie, ate popcorn (four bags of microwave popcorn – she didn’t know how kids could eat so much) and then ate pieces of the chocolate cake she made. Nancy probably had a terrible time getting them to sleep last night, she thought, with all that junk food in them.