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It’s Thanksgiving when the ancient water heater finally gives out and floods the basement. How ironic. Standing on the wooden staircase, Alex says, “I don’t know why you won’t just sell this dump and move somewhere else.”
Jody is ankle-deep in water. Her back aches from three hours hoisting bucketfuls into the laundry sink. She straightens stiffly. “Sweetie, the thing was prehistoric. It’s my own damn fault for not replacing it sooner. Now go check on the turkey, will you?”
Alex throws up her hands and treks back up the stairs.
It’s not just the water heater. The house really is falling apart. The roof is decades old and deteriorating—the leak in the garage that Dean patched up last spring has been dripping again since the fall rains started. The plumbing often backs up into the sinks and bathtub. The exterior siding is cracked in places, the paint peeling away. Jody suspects there’s a nest of squirrels living in the wall next to the fireplace but lacks the heart to do anything about it, despite Claire’s grumbling about electrical wiring.
They’ve been pushing her to sell the house for years now and move somewhere newer, smaller. “Like a condo,” Sam suggested over the phone once. That was after a family of vamps smashed half the windows trying to break in before Jody blew their heads off with a shotgun.
Even surrounded by broken glass and duct-taped windows, Jody wasn’t impressed. “Do I seem like a condo kind of girl to you, Winchester?”
“We just worry about you living alone, Jody.” That was Dean. “We want you safe.”
She smiled fondly, but insisted. “I can take care of myself.”
Jody wipes the back of her wrist across her brow and surveys the basement: bare, unfinished, no reason to worry about permanent damage. Her jeans are soaked up to the knee and she’s still standing in a puddle, but staying down here all day isn’t an option.
She sighs, conceding defeat to the water heater. Tomorrow, she’ll call a contractor to deal with the rest.
Slowly, she trudges up the staircase. Her back aches. The pain in her knee is flaring and she’s limping badly. If she doesn’t ice it soon, the joint will swell up like a cantaloupe again and everyone will gripe over dinner about her not taking care of herself. It’s a theme in her life lately. She’s only fifty-two but everyone at the station is constantly on her case about taking more time off. The last time she saw him, Sam took stock of her limp, the grey in her hair, and asked delicately why she needed to work seven days a week—whether there was anything she was running away from. He only grinned sheepishly when she cocked an eyebrow and said, drily, “Pot, meet kettle.”
She makes it upstairs just as the front door creaks open. Claire comes in on a gust of autumn wind, dragging a duffel bag and looking like she hasn’t showered in a week. When she sees Jody she smiles and mumbles, “Hi, mom.”
Lifting her arms hurts but Jody hugs Claire tight, savors the warm ache that still blooms in her chest whenever one of them calls her that. “Hey, sweetie.”
Claire steps back, wrinkling her nose. “You’re soaked.”
“Water heater went,” Jody says cheerily. “Basement’s flooded.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Claire narrows her eyes. “And you—what? Bailed it out with your bare hands?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I used a bucket.” Then, before Claire has time to react: “I have to change. Alex is in the kitchen. Go help her.”
Claire rolls her eyes and marches away.
Jody says, “Don’t think this gets you out of showering!”
In her bedroom, Jody removes her button-down easily enough but has to sit to deal with her sodden jeans, carefully peeling the fabric over her swollen knee. As she bends forward, the gold band she wears on a chain around her neck brushes against her thigh, a solid weight.
“Yeah, yeah.” She touches the chain. It’s warm from being held close to her body. “I know.”
They bought the house together, two years after their wedding when Jody took a job in the Sioux Falls Sheriff’s Department. It wasn’t falling apart then. The previous owner had chosen salmon pink for the exterior but Jody and Sean were sensible people, painted it beige the day they moved in. After, they climbed up to the roof and lay out under the stars and drank beer, young and absolutely certain of their place the universe.
Dressed in sweatpants and a clean shirt, Jody limps back into the hallway. From the back window, the yard is visible. It’s raining again. There are robins picking worms in the grass. Water is dripping steadily from the deck roof onto the patio furniture.
Shit . She should bring that inside for the winter.
They built the deck themselves after they moved in. During the summer before Owen was born, when temperatures reached record highs and the doctors ordered her to take it easy for the baby’s sake, Jody liked to sit out in the shade in the mornings and listen to the bird songs. It’s still the only time in her life she’s ever found something worth slowing down for.
Moving stiffly, Jody follows the sound of voices to the kitchen. Alex is at the stove stirring the gravy while Claire chops potatoes. They’re bickering about nothing in particular in that comfortable, affectionate way siblings do.
Jody leans in the doorway. “Anything I can do to help?”
Alex whirls around, starts advancing toward her. “Nope. No way. You’re gonna go to the living room and sit down. I’ll pour you a glass of wine.”
Jody thinks about protesting, but Claire is nodding emphatically and she knows she can’t win against both of them. “Okay. I was just asking.”
In contrast to the worn carpet and linoleum decorating most of the house, the living room floor is shiny laminate. It still looks new. The original carpet had been unsalvageable, after. All the bleach in the world couldn’t have gotten rid of those stains, spread dark and wide and soaked through to the concrete underneath.
That’s what the flooring contractor told her, at least. She hadn’t been there to see it. She came close to selling the house without ever setting foot in it again.
That was ten years ago.
Jody sits heavily, props her bad leg on the coffee table. It was cold in the basement but it’s warm up here, rich with the smells emanating from the kitchen.
As promised, Alex brings wine and an ice pack, which she straps around Jody’s knee without comment.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” Jody asks fondly.
It’s a rhetorical question. They both know.
Alex studies her, eyebrows drawing together in concern. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
It resonates in Jody’s chest, warmth and affection and always the swelling undercurrent of old pain. Alex feels it too, she knows. They all do. It’s what binds them together, keeps them rooted.
Jody smiles. “Yeah, sweetie. I’m good.”
Her next words are drowned out by the distinctive rumble of an engine in the street. Out the window, a sleek black car pulls into the drive.