Household Gods

On the way home, Victory was slow. Sherman Way would have been slower. The 101 would have been slowest. Nicole had got past White Oak and was heading for Reseda Boulevard – halfway back, more or less – before Kimberley gulped. “Oh, baby,” Nicole said in despair – she knew what that sound meant. “Don’t be sick. See if you can hold it till we get there.”

“I’ll try.” Kimberley gulped again. She wasn’t saying she was fine now. Nicole tried, too: tried to go faster. She didn’t have much luck.

Just past Reseda, Kimberley threw up. “Corny dogs!” Justin said gleefully. Nicole hadn’t wanted to find out quite that way what the kids had had for lunch.

There was a medium-sized shopping center at the corner of Victory and Tampa. Nicole pulled in there among the people stopping for milk and groceries on the way home from work. None of them, she was sure, had to stop to mop up a pool of puke. She fished an old towel out of the trunk and, holding her breath against the acrid reek, cleaned off Kimberley and the car seat and the upholstery under it as best she could, and flung the towel into a trash can. She probably couldn’t afford to replace it. “Who gives a damn?” she said to the trash can.

Kimberley had the thousand-yard stare of a sick child. Her forehead was hot. A virus, sure as hell. “It still stinks, Mommy,” she said as Nicole buckled her in again.

“I know it does,” Nicole said, as gently as she could. “I’ll put that goop on it after we get home.” Odo-Clean, the stuff people used to get the smell of dog and cat pee out of rugs and chairs, also worked wonders on making cars livable when kids puked in them. Frank had taught her about it; it was an old family trick of his. At the moment, Nicole was not inclined to give him any credit for it.

Home came none too soon. Justin had stopped holding his breath and started making imitation retching noises of his own. Kimberley was mute, which said something worrisome about how sick she was. Nicole got her out of the car and cleaned her up properly and threw her soiled clothes in the washing machine, then settled her in front of the VCR in her pajamas with Toy Story and some water to rinse out her mouth, and fed her a little Tylenol liquid to make her feel better. Nicole hoped it would stay down. In case it didn’t, she equipped her daughter with a red plastic bucket and a roll of paper towels, and went back outside with rags and the bottle of Odo-Clean. Fine way to work up an appetite before dinner, she thought as she held her breath and scrubbed.

It wasn’t till she’d made it back into the house again that she noticed the smear of vomit on her suit jacket. She shed it with a muffled curse. The tag inside said Dry Clean Only. Of course.

Justin was waiting for her in the kitchen, perched in his high chair with the tray table up. “Hungry,” he announced, patting his tummy.

“Nice to know somebody is,” Nicole said dryly. She wondered if he’d get sick tonight, or if he’d wait till tomorrow or the next day. He’d been massively exposed to whatever bug Kimberley had. But, she conceded to herself, he’d also been good while Nicole took care of his sister and cleaned up the car. She took a package of chicken nuggets and French fries out of the freezer.

When Justin recognized the box, he slid down out of his high chair and hopped with glee. Chicken nuggets and French fries had no nutritional value whatsoever. So, of course, he loved them. So, also of course, his father fed them to him all the time. Frank was a devout believer in the four basic food groups: sugar, fat, salt, and chocolate. Nicole, cast by default in the role of Health-Food Ogre, often wondered why she even tried.

Tonight, just for this once, she stopped trying. One meal of solid fat and sodium wouldn’t kill the kid, and he’d earned a little reward for being so good for so long.

Slacker, her conscience chided her. She shut it down and clamped the lid on it.

She thrust the tray in the microwave, set the timer, and pushed the button. Nothing happened. The light inside didn’t go on, either. She gave the door a push, thinking – hoping – she hadn’t closed it all the way. It was closed. She opened it and closed it again. Still no light. When she pressed the button, still no action. One dead microwave. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said.

“Hungry,” Justin repeated. He watched Nicole take the chicken nuggets out of the microwave; his eyes went huge with dismay as she shoved them into the regular oven and twisted the temperature knob up as high as she dared. “Hungry!” he screamed, and started to cry.