“I’m awake.” Harrison shot up and blinked around the room. His bedhead was flat on one side and sticking up on the other.
“Oh. No. Did we wake you?” I said loudly over a halting rendition of what may have been “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
“No. I’m wide awake.” A jaw-cracking yawn split his face as he scrubbed sleep from his eyes. “Morning, kitty, ready for school?”
Collette dropped her recorder and flung her arms out. “I’m still in my pajamas,” she said with incredulity.
Harrison squinted to look at her. “I thought maybe it was a fashion statement.”
“Come on. Get up.” She shoved his arm, and he flopped back over onto the bed, wrapping himself tightly in the comforter and pretended to snore loudly.
“Harrison!” She giggled, and he snored louder as she catapulted herself onto his back.
A loud “Oomph” came from under the blankets. “I’m up. I’m up.”
Sure, it was all fun and games, until it wasn’t.
“It’s after eight,” I said. “I’ll be getting to work. Breakfast needs to be made. Lunch packed and George needs to take his pills so he needs to eat ASAP. Collette will help. Snap, snap, get to it.”
They both sighed. I walked out of the room before curiosity got the best of me, and I could see what he was packing in those undies.
“Come on, Collette. Let’s give him a minute to get dressed, and then you can show him the ropes.”
“What ropes?” She followed me, and I shut the door as she stood outside. “How much is a minute?”
“Sixty seconds.” I began to walk away when it was clear she took the minute warning literally.
“Okay. One. Two. Three …” she yelled, face pressed against the closed door.
I strutted to the office with a smile as her counting faded away.
As I sifted through the Post-its and sheets of papers with notes scribbled on various scraps of paper, I heard Harrison and Collette chatting happily.
I hadn’t expected the anxiety as I finally sat at the typewriter to get to work. Well, yes, I had expected it for the writing but not for listening to Harrison and Collette learn their morning routine together.
“Don’t forget my water bottle,” Collette said.
I had to bite my tongue from jumping up and running to tell him where it was.
“They’ll be fine,” George said from the wingback chair where he sipped coffee.
I relaxed back and pretended I wasn’t staring down the hallway.
George was having a good morning. It made me want to make as much headway as possible on the book while I had him like this. Mornings like this made it hard to remember that there was anything wrong with his traitorous brain. A stirring of hope that maybe it was Harrison’s presence was quickly clamped down. I wouldn’t get my hopes up. One day at a time. He would be leaving.
I would be leaving.
This was all a temporary situation.
I glanced at the keyboard. “I’m not worried.”
“Okay, good. Because you seem tense.”
“There’s just a lot of steps to get her out the door in the morning.”
“And they will figure it out.”
I put my head down and got to work. A little while later, Collette jumped into the office.
