“What the heck is going on here?”
Beth answered frantically, screaming over the loud sound of the water spray. “Thank God you’re here! How do you shut off the water?”
“Turn the handle under the sink?”
She opened her clenched fist to reveal a rusted valve knob. “It broke off!”
“Where’s your main?”
“My what?”
“Forget it.” I turned around and jogged back outside. Circling the perimeter of her property, I found the main and twisted off all the water coming into her house. When I returned to chaos central, the water had stopped, and the two of them were catching their breath.
“What happened?”
“At night, we put the kitchen garbage can in the sink to keep it away from Mark.”
“Mark?”
Owen responded with a shrug. “Our cat. She’s a girl.”
“Mark likes to knock over the garbage to eat it,” Beth said. “So we put it out of her reach. She must’ve jumped up on the kitchen counter and knocked the garbage over and somehow turned on
the water in the process. When I got up this morning, the kitchen was already flooded. I tried to turn it off, but the stupid knob broke off in my hand.”
I took off my shoes and started to roll up my pants. “Why didn’t you call me?”
She pointed to the corner next to the refrigerator where something was floating. “I tried. I dropped my phone. I don’t have your number memorized.”
Wading into the kitchen, I took the bucket from Owen’s hands. “Got a shop vac, buddy?”
“In the basement.”
“Come on. Show me.”
I followed Owen into the basement and grabbed the vacuum. Owen was looking down with both hands in his pocket. His pants and shirt were soaked, and he looked defeated.
I set the vacuum back down and knelt. “Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll clean it up.”
He spoke with his head still hanging. “My dad said I was supposed to take care of the house and Mom. But I didn’t know how to fix it.”
Crap.
I nudged his chin up. “I think what he meant was, he wants you to help out whenever you can. And you did that. From what I saw, you were scooping buckets as fast as the water poured in. Without you, the water would probably be to at least your waist, instead of your ankles.”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
I lied. “Yep. You pretty much saved the house, and you stayed pretty calm from what I saw. That’s the number one thing you need to do in an emergency, you know. Stay calm.”
His frown turned up to a grin. “Mom was freaking out. She wasn’t calm, was she?”
I smiled. “Nope. So it’s a good thing she had you. But I’ll teach you some things so that if this type of thing ever happens again, you’ll be even more ready for it.”
“Okay!”
I carried the shop vac upstairs and put it in the kitchen. Beth was in her room getting changed, so I used the opportunity to give Owen a lesson. “Come on, let me take you outside where the water main is.”
The two of us went outside, and I showed him where to turn off the water coming into the house.
Then I took him back to the kitchen and gave him an electricity-meets-water lesson. God forbid the water would have been any higher, it could’ve come up to the electrical outlets and electrified the water they were standing in.
Beth emerged towel drying her hair and wearing dry clothes. “Owen, go get changed into something warm.”
“But I’m going to help Heath fix the kitchen.”
“You are, are you? Okay…well…go put on a bathing suit and take off the wet shirt and socks, at least.”
“Okay, Mom!” He took off running toward his room.
“I’m sorry about this,” Beth said. “I’ve ruined our sightseeing morning.”
“Don’t be silly. I made a list of shit I wanted to do out here; first was to see the Red Rocks and second was to clean up a flood.”
She laughed. “Thanks for being a good sport. But you don’t have to help me clean it up. I’ll do it.”
“I got it. Go sit down for a few minutes. You look sort of a wreck.”
“Gee, thanks.”
While I vacuumed up all the water, Owen did as I’d instructed him to—drying off his mom’s cell phone and putting it inside a baggie full of rice. Beth came back into the kitchen with a stack of towels when the excess water from the floor was gone. She started to lay them on the floor and dry the rest of the area.
“What happened to that cabinet door?”
“Don’t ask,” she said. “We ran around like two chickens without our heads until you got here. I dropped my cell. Owen tried to grab the Cheerios from the cabinet while he scooped water because he got hungry, and he wound up dumping the entire box into the water. And then I asked him to get me the electrical tape so I could try and tape up the spray. He couldn’t reach it, so he used the cabinet door as a stool and broke it.”
I chuckled. “You had a pretty bad morning.”
For the next three hours, my shadow and I went about fixing things. After everything dried, we went to the plumbing store and picked up the parts I needed to install a new faucet and valve handle. Owen stuck next to me the entire time. It was really freaking cute.
“First, I’m going to fix the valve handle that broke off. That way when we install the new faucet, we can turn the main back on and control things from under here in case anything goes wrong.”
“Got it.” He nodded.
The wood in the cabinet underneath the sink was soaked even though there wasn’t any visible water anymore. It would probably take a few days to dry out. I slipped off my shirt before sitting down on the floor. I’d need to be on my back inside the cabinet to work on the broken pipe stem and handle. I had to swallow my laughter when little man yanked off his shirt, too. Owen managed
to fit inside the kitchen cabinet and watch everything I did while I repaired the valve stem and handle. And he asked some pretty damn good questions while we worked.
“Did it break because it was rusty?”
“Yeah, that’s what happens. The rust causes the metal to disintegrate and then it falls apart when you need to touch it one day. Basically, the rotten metal crumbles.”
“So should I change the ones in the two bathrooms? I looked under the sinks before. I think they’re getting rusty, too.”
What a kid…wasn’t even asking me to do it. Figured he’d take it on himself after he watched me do one. He took the responsibility of looking after his mother pretty seriously. I was familiar with that and respected the hell out of it.
“That’s a good thought. I’ll check ’em out and see if maybe we should do that together.”
A little while later, his mind had obviously wandered. “Dad would’ve been cursing a lot if he was here.”
“Yeah? Well, between us, I curse sometimes, too.” Translation—a fuck of a lot.
“He gets mad a lot. That’s why he doesn’t like it here anymore.”
I stopped tightening the bolt and looked over at Owen. “All adults get mad from time to time. I’m sure your dad liked it here. It’s just that sometimes people need to be separate to like each other again.”
“Do you live separate from your wife?”
No, but I just ran two-thousand miles to get away from the woman I love.
“I don’t have a wife, buddy.”
“How come?”
“I just don’t. Sometimes it takes people a while to find the right person and know it’s time to get married.” I’m having this conversation with a six-year-old. While under a sink. Both of us shirtless.
“I’m never getting married.”
I chuckled. “That’s what I always said, too. But that might change when you meet the right person.”
After we finished changing the hardware under the sink, the two of us climbed out. Beth was standing in the kitchen and handed us each a towel.
I dried my hands and looked over at Owen. “Thanks for the help, O-Man.”