Archive of Our Own

It was the end of a stressful day at work for Patty Newby. She organized her files and placed them neatly into their rightful places. A small bag of leftover cookies from an office meeting earlier sat on the bottom of her purse as she zipped it up. They were still fresh, and she hoped that it’d be a good treat for when her children got off of school in a couple hours. On her desk she had a frame of her younger son’s portrait from picture day and another photo of her oldest during a soccer game. She glanced at them for a moment and smiled before standing up from her seat.

“Leaving early?” Her coworker asked.

“Yeah. Only had three clients today,” she responded. “I’ll see you at Rosie’s birthday party tomorrow. Lou is really excited. He chose her present!”

“Aww, what a sweetheart.”

Patty slung her purse over her shoulder. “He is. He’s so sweet. I already know she’s going to love it.”

“Oh I know. Rosie loves all kinds of presents. We’ll see you then!”

“Bye, Lisa.”

Patty made her way out of the office building, offering a few more goodbyes to passing coworkers that she knew. Her smile stayed cracked on her face until she got into her car. Finally, she let her lips falter into a frown. Only three clients that day. One couldn’t show up because he missed the bus. She had to comfort the second client who cried because the father left her after she gave birth. Lastly, she knew that she’d be fighting a failed health insurance claim with the last client for a while. A pang gnawed in her stomach. This wasn’t pain that she was going through, but she couldn’t help the constant guilt that clawed at her. The guilt of knowing that she can’t help them all.

Patty did what she always did after work. Breathing exercises. Grounding techniques. Remember that her children. A ritual that she learned in therapy. She sighed to herself when she realized that she forgot to book her biweekly appointment again.

She started the car and slipped an Ella Fitzgerald record into the CD player before she began her commute back home. Ella Fitzgerald’s music has comforted her ever since she was small. As a lonely and outcast little girl, she was empowered when she remembered that a beautiful woman who looked just like her created universally beloved music. She used to lie about how Ella was her mother and dress up like her because it made her feel closer to her. She was different, a minority, but she was still dazzling and loved by all groups of people. She wanted the same then, but she doesn’t think she’s achieved that.

Patty lived in the outskirts of Chicago with her kids. She made a living as a child protection social worker, spending her days face-to-face with the deepest pain that this world had to offer. Every time she tells people this, they applaud her for her compassionate work. The words bounce off of her. She can’t help but feel like she wasn’t making a real difference. It only ever reminded her of the cruelest things that others can go through. She’s more resistant to it than others, having been away from her birth mother and being raised in a hateful environment. But that didn’t mean that she could stand to see it around her.

What she did now was work with integrity, but she used to want to be a famous musical artist. She wanted to sing on stage like her real mother - and her fake mother, for what it’s worth. She particularly wanted to perform in musical theatre and sing show tunes. Though she fantasizes about it, she knew what mother went through behind the scenes. Patty had to take a different route.

During an argument when she was a teenager, her father said that it was good that he “adopted” her because mother was just a drug-addicted wench, and that she should be grateful that he took her in.

But that was before the incident.

She almost got into it during her last therapy session. She began to discuss why she hadn’t gotten married before admitting that there was a boy she used to love in high school. 

“What is it that you loved about him?”

“What I loved was that… he didn’t make me feel bad for being different. He empowered me. He made me feel like my differences didn’t matter. No, actually, they did matter. Because they were my superpower, as he’d say. I think that’s why I chose to become a social worker and to adopt my sons. I am different. And that lets me understand people no matter what their background is, because I’ve been through all that.”

“Yeah? I like it. You chose a path where you could use your weaknesses as strengths. That’s why I chose to be a therapist. I get it. So, is that why you two connected? Was he also different in a way?”

Patty’s heart tugged at itself. She thought so much about the end, that she hadn’t reconnected with the beginning anywhere near as much. But there was a beginning. Everything had to start somewhere.

“He was. He was quiet. Everyone thought he was strange. He kept to himself a lot.”

She had a hard time putting her words together when the topic came up. Her face grew warm.

“I was sort of the same in high school. I wanted people to like me, but everyone thought I was weird…”

That was when she started talking about how she struggled to make friends when she was fourteen rather than discussing the ton of rocks that’s been weighing her down for nearly three decades until they ran out of time. Then, she told her therapist that she’ll book an appointment when she gets her schedule sorted. Her schedule was planned days ago.

Patty turned up her music. When she gets home, she will set up a snack tray for when her sons arrive. She will take the chicken out and then she will incessantly clean the living room, even though she just did that yesterday. She hoped Lou had homework he’d need help on. She hoped it was Algebra.

The drive home was only fifteen minutes, and she still had an hour and a half until her kids came home. She left the car and held onto the railings as she went up the stairs. She could walk fine, but she still felt a twinge in her right hip and knee when it came to stairs.

She placed her coat on the rack by the door and started to arrange a charcuterie board. Charlie’s favorite was sharp cheddar and Lou’s favorite was swiss. Strawberry jam would be good with the crackers, too. Grapes and blueberries were their favorite. Broccoli and carrots on the side were a good way to trick them into eating vegetables. After she finished, she took the chicken out. She grabbed one of the last three leftover Halloweens from the bowl. It was a Mound. Then, she dusted and organized the living room.

Only twenty minutes have passed. Patty groaned. She moved too quickly. At least it made her a star employee.

She thought about the vodka sitting in her fridge in the garage, and if she mixed it with iced tea then her kids wouldn’t know that she was drinking in front of them. Patty should have taken on some extra work. The client from earlier is raising her daughter alone. Hospital bills are piling just because of a little boy’s broken leg and a lack of insurance. The client who missed the bus was going to meet with her to discuss how to balance drug rehab with fatherhood. He missed the bus. He missed the bus because he was hungover. She knew that because of his voice. She knew how that kind of voice sounded.

Usually, she knew how to separate her home life from work. It was almost as the bridge she made between the present and past was beginning to collapse in on itself.

Patty sorted through her vinyl collection and got out a variety Bebop record. Something a little more fast-paced than the smoothness of Fitzgerald. 

She bobbed her head and swayed her hips to the saxophone and drums. In her stomach, and gnawing began to die down as she let the music fill her senses. Music was still the one thing that could calm her down when times were hard. It prevented the pain, and thoughts, and the past from overcoming her present. Charlie told her that her taste in music was “old” and that she needed to get into the modern stuff, but she loved these records when she was young, confused, carefree, and discovering herself. There was nothing quite like that period of your life.

Patty made a quick glance at the basement door and decided to leave it closed. She was content with her arms wrapped around herself, swaying to the music.

Then, her trance broke when she heard the sound of the doorbell cut through the music. It couldn’t have been either of her kids because they knew the code to the garage. She also knew that sometimes she’d have clients come over when they needed extra support, but she would have gotten a call. This was something different.

Slowly stepping towards the door, she looked through the peephole. She knit her brows at the sight of a teenage boy that she’d never seen before.

Her dad told her to be wary of strangers. Her mom told her how to keep the apartment safe when she was away. This had stuck with her for the rest of her adulthood and she passed it down to her sons, but this wasn’t a strange man. This was a dressed down and wide-eyed young boy. Alone.

She slowly opened the door, meeting the eyes of the teen. He was thin, pale, half a foot taller, and the most important to her; he looked nervous. His hands rubbed against one another and his chest rose and fell quickly.

“Are you Patty Newby?” He asked.

What Patty didn’t expect was for the boy to know who she was. She then noticed a running truck parked on the curb behind him. This finally worried her.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said. She has said that phrase the same for every call, but it came defensive and impatient this time. “What are you here for?”

He stood there, silent for a moment.

“I need to talk to you. Please,” he said. “You might be the only one who can save Hawkins.”

She softened.

His name was Mike Wheeler. Most of the time, he kept his expression flat, but Patty could tell from his wandering eyes and his bouncing foot that there was more beyond the surface. He started to talk to her about what he meant about saving her hometown, a dramatic feat that was coupled with a monotone voice and eyes glued to the table. She turned the music down, but it still played silently in the background.

“How’d you get here from Hawkins? They’ve even enacted protective measures in school districts here in Chicago because of the lockdowns all the way over there.”

“We found a way. It took a bit of convincing, but we got the guards to let us through. My family and friends are back home, looking after each other. I left with only one other person to drive me.”

“Who drove you here?”

“Jonathan.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. We found you through a newspaper advertisement. My best friend’s mom - Joyce - said she knew you.”

Patty gasped. That was a name that she hadn’t heard in such a long time, and she was shocked that she could recall her name.

“Joyce Maldonado?”

“Well, she’s gotten married since then, so it’s Byers now.” 

Patty thought the last name was familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on where it was from. That was the case for a lot of what she left behind in Hawkins.

“I’m glad she found someone.”

“Uh, she didn’t really stay married. He wasn’t a good guy - as I’ve heard. But they made Jonathan and my best friend Will, so something good came from it. But he dated your brother for a bit. Bob?”

“No way, Robert?” Patty smiled. “He had the biggest crush on her! I’m shocked. I haven't spoken to him much after I left, but we still called and sent cards for the holidays a few times a year. He hasn’t returned any of my calls in so long though. Is it because of the quarantine?”

Mike stuttered. “Uh, yeah. He’s been pretty busy. And they aren’t together anymore, so I haven’t been in contact with him. I was president of his club when I was younger, though - AV club.”

“You’re a nerd into radios and tech like him, huh?”

Mike laughed. “I guess so. What about you? You weren’t a nerd?”

“Mmm,” Patty smirked. “A little, but not on his level. I liked superheroes and comic books, but I was mostly into music. I was in the church choir and loved going to jazz shows. I mean, I never fit in anyway, so it didn’t really matter if I was a nerd. I looked different. I was adopted, or so I was told. It’s not like there was much I could do to fit in.”

He knit his brows. “Or so you were told?”

Patty sighed and looked up at the ceiling, remembering the way that defined her as a person during her youth. All those years, she was told that she was an orphan. Her father used “I chose you” as a counterpoint during arguments, only for her to find out that she was born through adultery. He slept with a casino singer all the way in Vegas, and then she was born.

She never checked to see how her mom was doing since she left Vegas, but once she came back, her father had already passed away. She had to find elsewhere to live that was neither Vegas or Hawkins. That feeling of guilt panged in her stomach again.

“Or so I was told, exactly. My mom raised me for a couple years until my dad went to Vegas to beg for me in exchange for stupid amount of money, because he thought a baby would fix his marriage or something. Of course, my mom was desperate and poor. She could barely feed herself, so she took the money. He hated me. Believe it or not, I forgive both of them, but there's a lot of reasons why I chose not to reconnect.”

“Wow,” Mike said. “I mean, not like wow, but like wow, that’s a lot. That’s a lot for you to go through. I actually remembered Bob talking a bit about how his dad used to be the principal. Apparently he was kind of an asshole.”

They both laughed. “Ugh, yeah. He wasn’t nice to him, either. So, we were both happy when he… y’know.”

Patty made a slashing motion on her neck with a kch sound.

Mike burst into laughter. “Yeah, there’s a lot of people like that. I get it.”

“Oh, yes. Some people’s gotta go. It’s funny in retrospect now, though. He used to be very… protective of me, if you can call it protection. Said I couldn’t date boys because they only wanted one thing. I couldn’t wear lipstick either. I think it reminded him too much of my birth mother. Luckily for him, I’ve only had one boyfriend.”

“Only one? Did you marry him?”

Patty suddenly paused. She didn’t usually mention that she has had a boyfriend before. In fact, she has tried to avoid conversations about romance altogether so she couldn’t even remember that she used to be in a relationship. Now, the thought of it having had worked out and ending in marriage made her breathing hitch. She regretted letting it slip out.

“No. It was in high school. You know, high school relationships.”

Mike nodded. “I - yeah. My relationship didn’t really last. We’re still good friends, we have to be. We need the mutual support. We basically work together. But, I was sort of having a problem with being affectionate and she finally picked up on it.”

“Wow, a high school break up and you guys stayed friends? You two are a rare sort. Why couldn’t you be affectionate, though? I thought that was all teenagers cared about.”

Mike was so pale that even the smallest twinge of embarrassment caused his face to grow red. Patty looked closer and noticed that there were prominent bags under his eyes. His lips were flaky with a line of red in the middle as if he had been chewing at his lip. Patty let her guard down further.

“I don’t know. Something seemed off. I couldn’t get into it, I guess? And I felt so bad and so guilty for being such a jerk in the past that I knew I needed to pull away.”

Patty nodded. “That’s mature of both of you. I’m proud of you guys.”

He perked up, surprised to hear that kind of response from her. He had looked so nervous when Patty opened up that door, but the shaking went down. Not completely, but Mike was starting to relax. He started to tremble again after it went silent. He shifted in his chair and opened his mouth, trying to find the words.

“Patty. I know you might have seen the news about Hawkins being on lockdown. Because of the murders and the weird snow.”

“Yeah?”

“There's more to it. There is so, so much worse happening than murder, snow, and the military.”

When Patty passively listened to the radio during her commute last year, she heard the breaking news about Hawkins, a seemingly safe town suddenly facing murders and meteorological phenomena. It has been under constant military surveillance since then. All she could do then was to be relieved that she left all those years ago. She knew that nothing good could come from staying. She was glad that she was right. And now, a boy has showed up to tell her that she was the only one who could fix everything.

Could it be that the reason she left may be the reason she will have to come back?

“I really need you to listen, and I know that this is going to sound crazy, but I promise that this is all real.”

“I am listening, Mike.”

Mike breathed, looking down at the charcuterie board. Patty welcomed him to anything he wanted, but he had only stomached a few grapes.

“We have been fighting an entity named Vecna. He’s been slowly trying to bring a parallel world of Hawkins here and create a new one without mankind through closing a wormhole. And he’s been taking children and vulnerable people, manipulating them, and exposing them to their deepest fears and secrets so that he can break them down until they give into his commands. So he can take them and siphon them for power in order to gather the energy to close the wormhole.”

“What?”

“I know you’ll understand when I finish.”

Her vision grew blurry. Mike assumed that she didn’t believe him, but the truth was that it sounded more familiar than she would’ve liked. She didn’t want to be afraid, but as he continued to speak, the fear started to grow. Could she be hallucinating? Is this strange boy a product of her repression forcing its way into her life?

She reached forward to put her hand on his. Warm to the touch. Real. She could even feel the dryness of his skin due to the cold weather.

“The original plan was to let Vecna come closer. Then, when he’s near, that was when he kill him.”

His voice started to crack. She could feel the trembling under his palm, so she cupped it with her other hand, tightening her grip.

“It didn’t work,” he said simply. “What actually happened was that we gave him the perfect opportunity to take El and Kali. And now only that, but now he had Will-”

He abruptly stopped as if something had suddenly been lodged into his throat. Patty cupped his cheek. Then, he broke down crying. He gasped, fighting for air. The tears came so suddenly, but Patty knew that this was an outburst of pressure that had been building for a long time.

She got up from her seat so she could come to his side of the table. She wrapped her arms around him, and the boy who was previously six inches taller was the same amount shorter than her. She brought him to her chest and rubbed his scalp. The collar of her dress grew wet with his tears. He pulled away.

Patty didn’t know these names. She only knew Will was Joyce’s son, but they were clearly important people to this boy. Especially the name that broke him. Yes, the entire town was at stake, but the danger of his own loved ones were what impassioned him. It was staggering to know that she had been in his shoes. She had been through a situation so similar she almost felt like she was there again when she held the boy tight.

“You want to save them?”

Mike pulled away from her and looked up. All he did was nod.

“I had someone I wanted to save, too, Mike.”

Suddenly, his eyes widened.

“That’s why we came for you,” he said frantically. “We need you to try to save him again. And this time, we think you can succeed.”

Patty froze. This couldn’t be…

Those mysterious events she heard on the radio. The murders. The lockdown. It couldn’t be him.

“Henry,” she whispered.

“Henry Creel. You used to be close.”

She slowly shook her head side to side in resistance. “No, no. I can’t. I couldn’t do it last time. How could I do it now? He let it in. He let the shadow in and then he was far too gone.”

Mike wiped his eyes and stood up. “No, Patty," he said gently. “We know that you’re the one person who can get through to him. When he put our friend Max into a trance, she told us that she travelled through his memories. For almost two years! She watched his entire life from the sideline, and she felt what he felt.”

A trance. Patty thought about when Henry put her in a dream where her mom was nearby. She felt like she was in a trance the whole time. It wasn’t real, but it came from something that was real.

“And you were in so many of his memories, Patty. And in those memories, Max felt safe. She said those were the only memories where nobody could hurt her. That must mean that you are the one thing that can help Henry overcome Vecna - or the shadow, as you called it. We need him to reunite with the one thing that gave him hope in the world.”

Her eyes started to well up, and she hated it. She couldn’t cry when Mike was crying. When she would comfort her sons or a client, she had to be the one to be strong. She needed to be strong, but this - this was something that she couldn't pinpoint as a nightmare or a dream. Because all of these past few decades, she had longed for Henry to come back. She hoped that whatever thing that took over him and dragged him away from civilization could let him go so that they could finally reunite. 

Henry was her first friend and last love. She was bullied for being adopted. She had no friends. She wasn’t seen as pretty like the other girls in the church choir. Her father despised her. But Henry - he made her feel like she was beautiful. He loved her. Not despite, but because of her differences.

Yet, the problem was that he was also different in a way that didn’t pertain to his awkwardness or unique interests. It was his powers. The powers that grew from the sick monsters that took advantage of him; The shadow entity and the doctor. She spent years afterwards overcome with guilt that’d eat her alive so aggressively that she couldn’t get out of bed some days. The memories were starting to flood back, and that was precisely what she had been trying to avoid. Now, she can no longer run.

“No, no, Mike, I don’t know. I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve what’s happened to you or your friends, but I don’t know if I’m the one. I don’t know if I can save him. Not after what happened last time.”

He put her hands on her shoulders. “Listen. Listen, please. You are our last hope. Vecna has taken over Henry, and his connection to Hawkins limits the wormhole to it. He is the core to all of this, and he’s going to rip Hawkins out of existence, and who knows what he’ll do next? If we can’t get to Henry, there is nothing that we can do.”

Patty continued to frantically shake her head, but Mike held on.

“Dr. Brenner, you know about him, right?”

“That pig.”

They chuckled even in the midst of her hysteria. “Yeah. He is a pig. El and Kali have powers like Henry. Apparently, he used Henry's blood to cause that.”

Patty couldn't process the existence of others with powers before Mike continued.

“Now that Vecna has both of them, his powers are stronger than ever. And Will… he took over Will’s body. And he’s turned him into someone I - I don’t even recognize anymore. Whatever he did with Henry… that’s… that’s what’s happening with Will. Will is the closest person in my life, just like how Henry was to you. You are the only person who truly knew Henry before Vecna took him. You are the only one who can make him remember who he used to be. And if you can’t get to Henry, please, please at least come with me and Jonathan to Hawkins so you can help us figure out how to get to Will.”

She was nearly inconsolable now. “Mike, I can’t save everyone. I have never been able to do that in my life. My entire job is to help people, but even then I fail. I couldn’t save Henry. I found my birth mother but I had to leave because I couldn’t save her from her addiction. I can’t even save the ones I love the most.”

“Patty, we just met, but I have felt so safe even after our short conversation. And I know Henry felt the same way about you. He knew your heart. He knew that you were someone he could confide in. His memories don't lie.”

Patty couldn’t understand. This boy dropped on her doorstep out of nowhere, and here she was, sobbing her eyes out in front of him. She didn’t know how he managed to say exactly what she had wanted to hear after all those sleepless nights of ruminating about her lost love. It was horrifying that he was experiencing the same thing she experienced with Henry, except the stakes were a hundred times higher.

She did those same techniques that she did in the car merely an hour ago. She breathed through her nose and out her mouth. She thought about her children. If they were in danger and she knew one person in the world who could help, wouldn’t she do everything in her power to get them to do something? Even if it was a long shot?

Tears continued to fall down her face, but she could breathe steadily again. 

“Sit down with me, Mike. On the couch. You want to know how you could save Will, so I need to talk to you about what happened with Henry, because I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to revisit it later.”

Patty grabbed Mike’s arm, passing by the vinyl record. She briefly glanced at the fireplace where one of the framed pictures on top was of her mother performing.

“The last time I saw Henry was backstage for our school play. He came to warn me about something. He told me that I needed to leave as soon as possible for Vegas before I got hurt. Maybe I should’ve left, but at the same time, the shadow had almost fully taken over his body, telling him that he was the monster. That all he was going to do in his life was hurt people,” she said. “I couldn’t leave him then. I couldn't. Especially since we planned on running away together. But then that horrible doctor came.”

“That pig,” Mike referenced.

“Yeah. That pig.” She started to clench her fist. Her teeth grit. “If he wasn’t there, I could’ve gotten to him. But he convinced him that he was the shadow controlling him. I knew he wasn’t. He came to me so he could make sure I was safe, even though it hurt him. We loved each other so much, Mike. I loved him, and even through it all I wasn’t afraid of him. But for only a second, during our last moment together, I was. That one moment of doubt was all it took.”

Patty wasn’t looking at Mike anymore, she was staring blanky at a wall.

“I wish I wasn’t scared. I shouldn’t have let the doctor get into my head, because this whole time I had only told Henry that I loved him for him. I knew deep down that he was a good person. It was selfish of me to let that go."

Mike looked down at the ground, contemplative. She gave him a moment to process, allowing for her to think a bit longer about her memories. 

“I guess there was a problem on both sides. Neither of us could fully accept our situations. Henry supported me for my differences, but he couldn’t accept himself. He still wanted to be 'normal.'”

Mike’s attention was suddenly captured.

"Nobody in his life accepted him. His parents desperately wanted him to be just like everyone else. It only made him hate himself. He thought everyone would only fear him for who he was. I should have fought harder for him.”

“Normal?” Mike questioned.

“Yeah. Normal,” Patty said. “He was shy and sensitive. He was ashamed of what the shadow made him do. And he was dating me. Even though his mother, my father, and that doctor told him to stay away."

“I didn't know your relationship with Henry was like that." Patty nodded. It was like that, and so much more. "Why did everyone want you to stay away from him? Maybe your father thought he was weird, but why his mother? Or Dr. Brenner?"

Patty raised both her brows in wonder. She hated thinking about it. She loved humanity at its core, but there were things that disgusted her about it.

“His mother said he’d hurt me. The doctor said I made him weak. I guess I don’t fully understand their perspective, but I don’t know if the reaction would’ve been so strong if I wasn’t…”

She shook her head. It was a complicated situation, but Patty found it hard to love after what had happened. She feared that if she fell in love again, she wouldn’t be enough. She wasn’t enough then, and she couldn’t be now. Soon, she would have to put that theory to the test.

“But it shouldn’t have mattered. It doesn’t matter how other people felt about us or what their opinions were. If we had both stuck to our love for each other, then none of this would have happened.”

Mike’s expression softened when Patty took his hand. 

“Henry felt unloved and feared. That’s why he let the shadow in. He felt worthless and thought that the shadow was his only hope. Listen, Mike. My biggest point is that if you love someone, you need to tell them. You just have to, before it’s too late. You need to express it unabashedly. Don’t do what I did. Never let other people’s thoughts get in the way of that. Don’t let whoever this Vecna is get in the way of saving who you love.”

She wiped a tear from her eye and met Mike’s. “Whatever is happening with Will, you need to stick to your true feelings. You know who he truly was before that shadow took over. Whatever that thing is making him do, it’s not him. And you know that. You need to take that knowledge and put it to the forefront. Don’t let Will lose sight of who he is. Don’t let him forget that he is loved.”

Mike looked at her hand when she put it on his shoulder. “Say what you need to say. You know how you feel. Never, ever, let doubt fill your mind. Don’t let your fears get in the way of saving them, even if you’re scared for your life.”

Patty couldn’t get a good read of his face, but she heard his stuttering. Trying to piece together words that couldn’t quite come out. He didn't need to say anything, though. She said what she could, and she hoped that if Will was going through what Henry did, it could work this time.

“He... everyone... are all important to me. They’re all I have,” he said, his voice faltering.

“I know, I can tell. You came all this way. The world is on the brink of ending, but you’re still doing what you can. You are so brave, and I will do what I can to help you.”

Mike’s puffy eyes started to well up with tears again. She pulled him towards her for another quick hug before pulling away.

“So, you’ll go to Hawkins with us?”

Patty looked down and sighed. “Absolutely. And maybe I’ll get to say hi to my brother again.”

Mike opened his mouth, but quickly shut it.

“I know it’s a lot, but I’m so glad we found you.”

They both exchanged a bright smile, an exhilarating realization that their long buildup of pain may soon come to an end. Patty had never expected that today was the day she would face her deepest fear. She didn’t know about Mike, but maybe he felt the same.

“I’m going to call my coworker to take care of my sons, but I need you to do me a favor first.”

Mike nodded. The garage door opened, and they both looked over to the window, revealing the passing school bus.

“Can you help me prepare dinner for my sons?”