William followed them into the hallway, then returned to grab his backpack and drop
it by the door. He noticed the paintings above the couch had changed again. Casey
rotated them every month or two. The middle one was new. A painting of his 1992 Le
Mans. The car had finally died last month, and the mechanic said it wasn’t worth
fixing.
They couldn’t afford a new one. They were down to Casey’s car. She used to drive
him to work, but a few times she didn’t wake up to pick him up. He had been left
stranded at the gas station.
May usually slept in until seven and waking her earlier made her grumpy all day.
Eventually, Casey decided it was better for William to take the car than deal with
a cranky toddler.
He heard the bath water running.
“I wan bubbas!” May shouted.
Casey poked her head out of the bathroom.
“Hey, Will!”
“Yeah?”
“I’m giving May a bath now. When I’m done scrubbing her, she’ll probably want to
stay in and play.”
“Okay.”
“Can you watch her for a few minutes while I clean up the paint?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thanks!” she said, disappearing again.
Ten minutes later, May was clean. William expected it to take longer. He estimated
that she'd had half a gallon of paint on her. Casey kissed both of them on the
cheek, then headed to the art room.