In the winter of 1980 the naturally beautiful, blonde Michelle Dawson, born in Oklahoma City, met the love of her life, Douglas Brown, a six-foot, lean country boy with dark hair and tan skin. He was a freshman business major and a Sigma Chi at Indiana—Michelle’s sister Carla, a neighbor of Doug’s, set them up on a blind date—Michelle would be graduating high school in the spring. She was going to be a flight attendant, since her daddy had been a fighter pilot in Vietnam (he started flying commercial airliners when she was in middle school—she always wanted to fly for ATA). Doug was planning on being a stockbroker for a major firm in Indianapolis after college. After they’d dated awhile, he taught himself to not mind the times Michelle was gone on long flights. He had school to worry about, he had obligations to his fraternity brothers to keep in mind, and he had realistic dreams of building a future for himself. He hoped for them.
Michelle would fly from Indy International to Seattle, to Chicago, to New York, and then back to Indianapolis. She would stay a weekend with Doug, visit a frat party or two, have a few nice dinners, and then set right back at it for another week, in and out of hotel rooms with her co-attendants. She was accustomed to traveling—the lifestyle thrilled her, gave her a sense of purpose, made her feel like she was actually doing something real. Since she was born in Oklahoma, her family had moved almost immediately to Yokota, Japan, then straight to Hawaii a few years later. And then they lived in Boston. And then it was Phoenix, and Dallas, and then all the way to Egypt for a year, before finally settling in Rantoul, Illinois, where Chanute Air Force Base was located, just three-hours drive to Indiana University—Carla’s alma mater.
Doug graduated in the spring of 1983, positive that he would marry Michelle Dawson by the end of the decade. He set out in search of a career, what he’d always envisioned himself doing. First he’d be a financial intern at Merrill Lynch, a major wealth management firm, for a year and a half. He would gather a list of valuable contacts, he would use his bright personality and positive outlook to gain friends, and then he would be hired on, supported by his business degree from a reputable state school. No, it was one of the top ten business programs in the country. Some would say on charm alone, Doug achieved official stockbroker status in the fall of ‘85. Merrill Lynch hired him on a six-year contract. He and Michelle had already talked about getting married, about having children someday, maybe even in ten years. They weren’t worrying about anything. They were comfortable in one another’s company, with one another’s chosen paths.
Doug and Michelle announced the engagement to fairly compliant parents in the early spring of ‘87, before flying to be privately wed on a quiet island in Hawaii. Certain in his position at Merrill Lynch, Doug knew that somewhere down the line (very soon), all of his hard work would pay off. And he wasn’t surprised when he received an award for his impact in the firm from Barron’s, a weekly financial newspaper, in 1989, though he was only twenty-eight years old. A year later Michelle gave birth to Doug’s first son, David William Brown.
“I’m on my way home!” he yells over the backdrop of wind that whips in and out of cracked windows, through the open sunroof, of his silver ‘94 Mercedes SL300, and Don Henley belting Hotel California, a classic. Doug can barely hear himself think, much less speak, cruising down I-465 post-rush hour. Just like Jerry Maguire, Doug’s favorite movie ever. Besides Star Wars: A New Hope. And of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He screams over the noise, “SHOW ME THE MONEY!”
“Turn that down!” hollers Michelle on the other end, sounding frantic. She can’t stand the noise sometimes, even though he’s so “always going.”
Doug knows that. He just likes to jam. He spins the volume knob to the left sharply. “Sorry, I’m on my way home. Ha ha.”
“I heard you, hon. Is everything all right,” she says, now calm.
“Everything is just fine, babe. What are your thoughts on Clinton?” Doug is too excited. He can’t quit the thoughts—every moment today, from the end of my lunch break, through the entire fiasco (if anyone could even call it that) with Noder, the fuck, up until this moment, sitting in my slick black, leather interior, with that orange fireball burning behind me, sinking slow…I’ve loved every minute of it. I live for this.
“Clinton? I prefer Hillary,” Michelle says. “I’ll see you at home.” She laughs and hangs up.
He smiles, closes his Motorola flip-phone and drops it into the middle console, simultaneously rolling the stereo’s volume knob to the max. Don Henley and the Eagles scream, “He had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude, they said he was ruthless, they said he was crude…” Doug knows every word and sings along. An orange fireball reflects off his rearview, sort of blinding him. He snatches his Ray-Bans from the sun visor and slaps them on, revving his engine and passing an idler who’s slow-poking it in the left lane. He spits minty brown into his water bottle and glances at the time—6:07—I must’ve lost an hour in the office, on the computer, staring at that goddamn screen. He pauses Life In The Fast Lane and flips the radio to AM570—local news.
“Today Microsoft bought a $150 million share from Apple Computers, who have been in a serious financial crisis, as we all know. Your thoughts on this controversial transaction, Tim?”
“Well, Char, you know how it goes. You win some, you lose some, you share some.”
There’s a long pause on Char’s end, until she responds, “Really? Is that how it usually goes? I thought it was sort of like, selling out, you know, giving away part of your company to the competition? Ha ha ha.” Char’s laugh echoes throughout Doug’s car, bass booming, complimenting her hoarse voice. There’s something attractive about a woman with that sort of voice, in Doug’s opinion.
Tim rebuttals, “It’s not selling out if you’re Steve Jobs and your company is going bankrupt. Ha ha ha ha.”
“Ha ha. Good point.”
Good point, my ass. Where’s the weather? C’mon, Steve Jobs is lucky Bill Gates had the brains to invest his money in a worthwhile opportunity, so that later he could donate to the Apple fund… Doug flips the knob, cutting Char and Tim’s debate in half.
AM640 is strictly local weather. “Sunny skies this weekend, folks. Highs in the eighties, lows in the low-seventies, so you can expect to see quite a few more days at the pool! But remember, if there’s a heat advisory, be sure to keep drinking those fluids. I’m talkin’ water, people. Keep it in you and keep it classy, everyb—”
Doug cuts the phony weatherman off, turns back to the Eagles, maybe the best. Besides the Beatles. And perfect weather this weekend, too. Perfect for doing yard work, which is how Doug will spend his entire weekend—away from Brian Noder, anywhere he is not. Brian Noder is the scum of the earth. Doug thinks, I’d rather be mowing the lawn, weed eating around the back fence with my shirt off, edging and fertilizing the yard, cooking out with Michelle and the boys all weekend. David’s baseball game on Saturday. And the new system coming this evening! He imagines all he has to look forward to, singing his favorite part, “Call the doctor. I think I’m gonna’ crash. The doctor say he’s comin’, but you gotta’ pay him cash.”
His Motorola starts buzzing in the cup holder, followed by a shrill alert.
Doug flips it open and says, “Jimmy Boyle, how’s it going? Good news?”
“Great news, buddy,” says a gruff, solid voice. Jim Boyle is an old friend of Doug’s from IU. They were both Sigma Chis, and their other brother, Benny Niceley, is in possession of a “luxury” pre-owned car dealership. Benny wants the dealership off his hands, and who are better prospective buyers than two of his best friends from college? Jim says, “Ben is ready for us. He wants to start making moves next week.”
“Benny boy! That is great news, Jimmy. Thanks for the update. Anything else?”
“That’s it, man. Just positivity from here on out. I’ll talk to you soon.” And with that, Jim hangs up.
Squeaky clean, front tires roll over the bump at the end of the driveway, suspension bounces, followed by the back tires, until Doug is parked. Michelle’s white Chrysler Town & Country minivan is in the garage and the door is up. Doug shuts the engine off and steps out, admiring his two story brick house with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a finished basement. And the backyard is huge. He scans the front, spots David lying in the grass playing Taylor’s (David’s cousin; Michelle’s sister’s son) old Game Boy—probably either Tetris or Pokémon. The large Ash tree, surrounded by a ring of manicured mulch and an organized bed of Begonias, is dropping its turds. David calls them turds because they’re dark green berries with long stems, like cherries, but they really do look like bird shit.
Jack, only two, is trying to stand up a few yards away from David, but continually plops back down on his butt. A baby blue blanket made of fleece lies a few feet further in the green grass—it was David’s in ’90, now a hand-me-down.
Doug notices that the grass needs to be cut. But damn, is it green? “Dave, why is the neighbor kid in our yard? Go tell his parents to look after him,” he says walking onto the lawn.
David sits up, startled by Doug’s deep voice. Is that Kent? Spencer’s (David’s neighbor friend) dad is such a jerk. He notices who’s calling him, realizes his forgotten responsibility and glances at Jack who is still struggling, grunting, maybe saying the words, “Pop, pop.” Could be “Plop.” Or “Pot.” David can’t figure it out. He shades his eyes with his hand and says, “Dad, it’s Jack. Your son, remember?” He laughs at himself, thinking he’s cracked some hilarious joke, and hops up to hug his dad.
Doug squats, intercepts the hug, wraps his arms around David, and carries him airborne, twirling him effortlessly. They fly a few feet to Jack and David secures himself onto Doug’s shoulders. “Get up here, boy!” says Doug, bending at the knees to pick his second son up off the grass. He pats Jack’s butt, making his diaper crunch. “Now, where’s mom?” he says, heading for the front door. He can feel the mass of whatever mess Jack has made lying idle in his diaper, but he chooses to ignore it.
“Inside, duh,” David says, laughing again, tickled by vertigo from this height. He ducks when Doug walks through the front door, so he doesn’t smack his forehead. Jack starts screaming, crying for no reason at all, yelling, “Oop, oop! Toooooo!” Doug shrugs, tossing David onto the living room sofa where he lands with a boyish grunt, and then Doug shifts the baby on his hip, as he walks into the kitchen.
Michelle is glancing through a stack of mail. She has a sweating glass of Diet Coke on ice with a straw in front of her, and she’s got her eyes all over the cover of a Banana Republic catalog. “Hi,” she says softly, without lifting her gaze. “What do you boys want for dinner?”
“You,” says Doug, smirking. “I want for you to hold this thing.” He laughs and completes the handoff. “Touchdown. How was your day, baby?” He moves behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and kisses her on the cheek hard. He squeezes her hips and rocks and closes his eyes. Nothing could be better than this. Nothing could be better than forgetting all about him, Brian Noder. Brian fucking Noder. I can’t wait to be out from under that pathetic excuse for a person. I almost can’t even imagine using the word ‘fucking’ in front of David or Jack, much less Michelle. She’s too conservative, too religious, but it isn’t like I dislike going to church as a family every Sunday. First Baptist is like a second home. Jack’ll play ball there, too.
Michelle interrupts his half-asleep stream of consciousness, “Got the laundry finished before Dave’s practice ended, picked him up, ran a few errands. It’s so nice out. Should we eat outside? We really should.” She flips a few pages deeper into the catalog, eyes still flickering. She wants a new skirt. New tennis shoes. What I really want is a new racket, or at least mine restrung. All I have to do is ask him, but I feel like it could be too much. Is it too much? It always feels like it’s too much.
Doug pulls a bottle of Corona Light from the fridge and reaches for the bottle opener magnetized to its side, next to souvenir magnets from Hilton Head and Fort Myers, Florida. David’s first grade portrait is tacked next to a stylish, professional photograph of baby Jack, not smiling, red-faced, pudgy and covered in drool. But he’s wearing Ralph Lauren overalls and Sperrys.
Doug says, “Bleh, I’m tired. Can’t we just eat in the dining room tonight?”
Michelle glances up from the magazine and looks over her shoulder, towards the dark dining room. “Really? But it’s so nice out.”
“I know, I know. If you want to so bad, why not? Did you get to play today? Looks like you got some sun.”
Michelle gives Doug a look of suspicion, as if to say, “Are you okay?” Instead, she says, “The girls just wanted to lay out.”
Doug shrugs. He walks into the pastel-colored den, where the backdoor exits into the garage. The den is littered with Jack’s toys, an Elmo doll, some oversized Legos, the crib, and a tiny color TV with bunny ears that are now obsolete, ever since Doug had the satellite dish installed the previous year. And the Dial-Up has got to go. A cable modem would be ideal.
The hot air in the garage smacks Doug in the face, as he makes determined strides towards the Mercedes, where his briefcase rests in the front seat. He turns the key halfway, so he can roll up the windows, close the sunroof. The honk echoes through the garage. Maybe I should trade the SL for a Corvette. Why not? I’d look awesome. But is it necessary? What’s necessary at this point? I’m on top.
Even Michelle’s delicious beef lasagna and garlic bread and a fresh garden salad have trouble keeping Doug’s attention. Michelle makes David eat every single bite, while Doug mindlessly spoons baby peas and carrots into Jack’s mouth. Doug isn’t focused on the forest green paste, but instead he carefully watches the front window out of the corner of his eye, waiting intently. They’ll be here any minute. I can eat later. I’m not even hungry. C’mon, open up, dude. Stop bubbling. I hate it when he bubbles. It makes my stomach bubble.
“What’s the deal?” Michelle says, biting into the last of her garlic bread. Her plate is so clean it looks wiped. Her cheeks are red from lying out today.
Doug thinks it makes her look cute, cuter than she normally is doing laundry or shopping online. He looks at her and smiles. “Absolutely nothing,” he says. “Trust me.” He turns and looks out the window again and says, “Oh, look who’s here!”
Out front, a delivery truck from hhgregg pulls into the cul-de-sac, as the driver scans houses for the street number: 9401.
Michelle says, “Who? What? Doug?” She turns in her seat, watching the foyer for shadows, somebody coming to the front door. Who is it? What in the hell does he have planned this time? is all Michelle can think.
Doug is on his way into the den, grabbing something, two things out of his briefcase. He carries them into the dining room just as the doorbell rings. He says to his wife, “We have company, babe,” and hands her two remote controls.
What are these? “What are you talking about?” The look on her face represents utter chaos, the unknown—her mind ravels into billions of threads, spinning, winding and stretching, until she can’t even begin to imagine and so she just waits.
Doug welcomes them in, winking to Michelle who rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Come in, come in,” he says. “This is the living room. Don’t mind us one bit.” He beams, rocking back and forth on his heels.
Michelle can hear them in the living room, Doug instructing where, but she doesn’t know what. “Watch your brother for a sec, honey. And finish your plate,” she says to David, before walking into the living room to join Doug. She nudges him in the side, saying nothing.
“What?” he says, grinning even bigger than before. The redness in his face is a deep tan, too dark to tell whether or not he’s truly embarrassed. His brown eyes seem endless, but she trusts him. “You’ll see.” He mouths the word: Pioneer.
Audio/Video technicians from hhgregg install the new big screen, the surround sound stereo system, the six CD changer, the three-foot speakers, the brand new oak-wood entertainment cabinet Doug ordered today during his lunch break, and they set all of it up for free. They build the cabinet, they bury the cables under the baseboard, they install the components, they connect everything to the TV, and they instruct Doug and Michelle on how they should go about using their new system. Doug is unable to speak. He wants to run, but he wants to stay and play too. He wants to share this excitement with his wife, but whenever he looks at Michelle, she seems to frown. Is she not as excited as me? Isn’t she so pumped to mess with the volume on these new speakers?
“Aren’t you so ready to watch a movie now?” says Doug, almost peeing his pants. I feel like a seven year old. “Dave! Where’s Dave?” He glances around the room, hopping on one foot and then the next, turning around and around. He wants to shake Michelle, to hug her. “Dave!”
David hollers, “In here,” from the den, where he’s on the computer playing a CD-ROM—a Tonka Construction game. One he’s beaten several times, but it never seems to get old.
“Come see our new TV!” Doug’s eyes are huge, ready to show everybody all these cool new features. He waits. It’s like Christmas morning. Like when he was nine and his dad brought him home his first Daisy Red Ryder BB rifle. And then he went outside and shot his first squirrel and felt like he was really a man for the first time ever.
David says, after another minute of excavating, “In a sec.”
Doug’s face goes slack with disappointment. He turns to Michelle and says, “Why is nobody as excited as I am?”
Michelle looks at him and smiles, knows how he feels, but she’s sorry she can’t feel as excited as he is. “Dave is seven. Jack is two. I’m not into all that electronic stuff, babe. We can all watch a movie together, how about that?”
Doug grabs her and kisses her hard on the mouth, picks her up and kisses her again. He carries her to the couch and collapses on top of her, laughing hysterically, causing her to explode with similar laughter, until both of them are almost crying together. Doug gets up, panting, and says, “C’mon, Dave! Let’s play Nintendo.”
Less than ten seconds after Doug finishes that last word—Nintendo—David sprints into the living room and slides on his socks across the carpet. He stands beside his dad, watching the remotes, wondering why everything has to be so complicated all the time. Why can’t kids just play games? Why can’t we just have fun? “Mom?”
Michelle sits up on the sofa. Her chest is still slightly heaving from laughter. “Yeah, honey?”
“Do I have to go back to school next week?”
“Of course you do!”
David acts like he wants to die. He falls on the floor, dramatic as ever, curly blonde hair he inherited from his mom waving and bouncing, while he pounds his fists on the floor and yells, “Noooooooo!”
“Hey, quit it,” says Doug, flipping David’s Nintendo 64 on. He tosses his son the blue controller, plugs them in, and sits back on the ottoman of their red leather lounge chair.
The start menu screams in surround sound, “It’s me, Mario!” Go-carts fly around the corner, bigger than David has ever seen them in his life, like this is something he will never get to experience again, but then he knows that this is one thing he loves about his dad—doing new things, exciting things, going places he’s never been before.
Moments later Doug crashes into the wall, laughing, not a care in the world about his poor video-gaming skills. He has an epiphany: Why are we playing video games? I want to go sailing. I want to vacation, before Dave has to go back to school, before Jack gets old enough to go, before Dave can leave home. I want to teach Dave how to play every sport, not just baseball, and how to make friends, and how to be a successful business owner, or just do whatever Dave really wants to do. He snaps out of his stupor and pauses Mario Kart and wrestles David over his shoulder, back onto the floor, where he has him pinned. He growls and they both start laughing.
“I was winning! You cheater! You cheater!” David yells, tickled to the middle of his insides.
Doug lets him free and he jumps up.
“Let’s watch Star Wars,” Doug says, winking at Michelle.
Michelle gives the look that says, “Oh no, I don’t know about that.”
But Doug knows that David is ready. David knows he’s ready and says, “What? You mean it? Can we, please? Mom?” He looks back and forth, wondering, wanting to know immediately that his parents aren’t just messing with him.
“Please, mom?” Doug says, laughing. “We have to have popcorn first.”
Jack is fast asleep in his crib and Luke Skywalker is halfway across the desert with his newfound droids, while David snores under a comforter on the floor, his head on a couch pillow. His bowl of popcorn is just kernels and Doug can’t help but not pay attention to the movie. He stares at Michelle’s sandy-blonde hair, the dark highlights, wondering why she didn’t like it how it used to be. Why isn’t it just blonde, pure, like it always was? He wants to know what she wants. “What do you want, baby?” he whispers, without even meaning to do it. “Tell me what you want.” His voice is so low, she can hardly hear him over electricity, the gadgets, all that stuff in front of them and behind them, all those things that just come down to money.
Michelle brings her face closer to his, kisses his nose so lightly that he can barely feel her lips, and she says, lowering her voice, “Luke, I am your father.” And then she laughs so hard she gets redder than she was from UV rays, and they both feel hot under the heavy blanket because Doug can’t stop laughing either, so they toss it off.
“That’s exactly what I want,” he says and closes his eyes, lying on top of her. “I also want to buy a boat. And a car dealership.”
“You’re goofy, babe.”
He opens his eyes. “No, I’m serious. I’m quitting Merrill Lynch.”
Michelle says nothing. She narrows her eyes and purses her lips.
Doug can feel the reaction she’s about to give grow in his groin, bulging, and then it shifts, moves to his stomach, his chest, expanding and contracting, his heart aches because maybe her face means that it isn’t a good decision, maybe she isn’t supportive of everything he does, maybe she doesn’t trust him.
“Why would you do that, Doug?”
She didn’t call him baby or babe or honey. Just Doug. He feels the weight sink heavier, feels the strings pulling tighter on his lungs, contracting now, not expanding anymore. His brow shrinks; it wrinkles, and he can feel it starting to hurt because he doesn’t want to do it. He wants to be happy. Why is she questioning me? What did I do to make her not trust me fully? I must have stayed too long at the office.
“Well, answer me. Why would you do that?” She sits up on the couch, forcing him off of her.
He feels sweat on his forehead. He stutters, trying to form a response, “I, I, because… I think I need to be my own boss. I know it. I won’t work for Brian Noder another week. I’ll kill him if it continues.”
Michelle looks absolutely disgusted. She says nothing.
“Don’t look at me like that, please.” Doug sounds like he might cry. His lip trembles. “Please, Michelle, baby. I love you. Please. I just, I don’t know right now.”
“So all of this, Doug. That’s what this is about? You just need to keep making money? You gotta’ keep going, right? Keep it up, because five hundred a year isn’t good enough for you? Who are you? We used to be happy with a thousand dollars. I used to have nothing. Do you know how content and fortunate I feel to have you, to have our life, to have Jack and Dave. Our babies?”
Doug says nothing because he can’t formulate the words to express himself. He can’t seem to think of a sufficient response because Michelle always has the words when she’s being threatened. She knows exactly what to say under pressure, but that’s not him. He’s different. He has to have a plan of attack, a method, a way out, and right now, there’s nothing.
“I’m going to bed,” she says. “This discussion never began.” She stomps up the stairs to their bedroom and slams the door.
From the living room couch Doug can hear his bedroom door lock from the inside. I’m really sleeping on the couch tonight, after all this? He looks around the room. He glances at David on the floor, and then to the big screen, where Vader breaths deeply, questioning an aid about the progress of the Death Star. Doug gets up, turns the movie off, and scoops up sleepy David. He carries him to his bedroom and tucks him in, closing all of the blinds, before turning out the lights. A framed photo from Kings Island, when David was about five years old, catches Doug’s eye. That was in the middle of it. No worries. He notices the lack of lines on his forehead, wonders how fast somebody can age in a whole two years, looks closer and picks up on the smallest features—Michelle’s dimples, the lines around her mouth and the corners of her eyes. That’s what I love.
He leaves David’s door open, because he’s a seven-year-old and sometimes he needs to run to his parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night, and this hits Doug hard, what if my son has a nightmare and he can’t get in my bedroom for help because she locked the door? What if we aren’t there to make sure he’s okay? Doug starts to think about terrible scenarios. He gets a tear in his eye, walking down the hall, to where his two year old, Jack, lies sound asleep in his crib. Doug looks in at Jack and a tear falls, drips just on the sleeve of his tiny shirt—Indianapolis Colts—a blue and white long-sleeved Doug and Michelle bought on Christmas Eve, after a game against the Bills in the Hoosier Dome.
Doug takes the tiny hand, forcing it to grab onto his massive thumb—it looks gigantic surrounded by Jack’s miniature fingers. It’s funny how babies do that. They can be asleep and they still wanna’ hold onto your finger. Security or something. Doug has trouble imagining how something so small was actually one hundred percent smaller just two years ago. He doesn’t want to think about baby Jack growing up fast, going to college like he did once, doing all the terrible things he did. Doug leans over as far as he can into the crib and kisses Jack on the top of the head, admiring his dark hair, knowing that his own head is where that trait came from.
He walks down the steps to the living room in almost perfect silence, wondering what’s going to happen when his boys move out and leave he and Michelle alone. It’ll be quiet, that’s for sure. He starts to cry hard, imagining his oldest son experiencing drugs for the first time, doing a line of coke off a mirror in a frat house, something Doug was never proud of because he knew his dad wouldn’t have been proud of it either. Doug has the urge to grab his keys from the hook in the kitchen, under the cubbyhole where they keep spare change and paperclips. He has the urge to drive downtown to a bar that stays open until the early morning. He even has the urge to do coke, but he doesn’t know why.
He grabs his keys and unlocks the back door using the most precise movements. In the driveway, Doug contemplates driving off forever. What happens tomorrow? What happens when Michelle doesn’t accept the fact that I’ve already quit? What happens when she finds out that I cursed out Brian Noder in the boardroom during the advisors meeting? What happens when she finds out that my last five awards have been revoked? Michelle might kill me, might actually murder me. She’ll run to Illinois and live with her parents, taking my boys with her. I don’t know. She might become a flight attendant again, but maybe that’s for the best. She never wanted to quit, I know that. She always loved flying, but I needed her at home. I missed her too much. And I got her pregnant and we had Dave so she would stay home with me. And now this. I never wanted this.
Doug presses the unlock button on his key fob, but nothing happens. The key fob seems to be dead, but for some reason Doug isn’t going to try unlocking his Mercedes SL300 again. He wants to go inside and sleep with Michelle, but actually sleep. But instead, he goes inside and gathers the comforter and couch pillow that David was using on the living room floor. Doug makes a bed for himself in the hallway just outside of David’s bedroom. Doug sleeps deeply for the first time in… he doesn’t know how long. He doesn’t care. Tomorrow I’ll explain my position to Michelle. A civilized conversation will solve all our problems. But for now, Dave needs my protection.
