Page 73 of How To Not Need You

“This is the best bath EVER,” Tilly announces, plunging both arms into the foam up to her elbows and emerging with what can only be described as bubble gauntlets. She shakes them at me. Drops of soapy water hit the bathroom tiles. I accept this as the cost of doing business with a child who treats cleanliness as an abstract concept.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the mess I’ve created.”

“It’s not a mess. It’s a bubble castle.” She submerges her entire head. Comes up sputtering, foam clinging to her eyelashes, grinning with reckless joy. “I’m the bubble queen.”

“You’re something, alright.”

Hades has taken up his customary position on the bathmat, centre stage, directly in the splash zone, apparently his sense of entitlement outweighs his instinct for self-preservation. He sits with his tail curled neatly around his paws and eyes half-lidded, radiating disdain.

I should have known better. I have spent enough time in this house to understand that Hades and water have the same relationship as cats and gravity: mutually disrespectful at best. But the foam, as it turns out, has effects of its own.

The first bubble lands on Hades’ head about thirty seconds into Tilly’s reign as bubble queen. A single, perfect dome of foam, settling directly between his ears with the accuracy of a crown placed by invisible hands. Hades surprises me with his lack of reaction.

Then the second bubble joins the first. Then a third. Tilly, in her enthusiastic attempts to sculpt what she insists is a “bubble mountain,” sends a wave of foam over the edge of the tub that hits the bathmat with the force of a miniature tsunami. Hades now has what can only be described as a bubble helmet. Foam covers both ears and most of his head, leaving two golden eyes staring at me with the quiet promise of future violence.

I laugh. I can’t help it. The sound escapes before I can swallow it, bright and startled, and Tilly, hearing me, whips around to see what’s funny, and then she sees Hades.

The shriek that leaves her isn't fear. It's laughter. She points to him and she gasps. She laughs so hard she slides sideways in the tub, grabbing the edge to steady herself, water sloshing over the rim in a fresh wave that only adds to Hades’ predicament.

“Hades is a BUBBLE KING!” she announces, and the delivery is so triumphant, so utterly delighted, that I laugh again despite the fact that my socks are now wet and there is foam on the ceiling. Actual foam. On the ceiling. I’m going to have to explain this to Jake.

The thought of Jake, of explaining anything to Jake, sends a different kind of warmth through my chest. I reach for my phone on the bathroom counter, open the camera, and snap a photo of Hades in his bubble crown. His expression hasn’t changed. He looks like a cat who is determined to sit through anything but wants you to know it’s under protest.

I attach the photo to a text.

I hope you are safe. I think Hades may rethink his hatred of you after my bath time attempt.

No immediate reply. The fire must be still burning, or he’s driving, or he’s doing whatever firefighters do when things are on fire and text messages are the least of anyone’s concerns. I set the phone face-down on the counter and return to the bubble apocalypse with a towel.

Somehow, we make it through. Tilly is extracted from the tub wrapped in a towel that is immediately too damp to be useful, her skin pink and warm and smelling like artificial strawberries. I find pyjamas, the unicorn ones, because Tilly has impressive amounts of unicorn pyjamas. Teeth are brushed amid protests that toothpaste is “spicy” and also “too minty” and also “makes my tongue feel weird,” all delivered around a mouthful of foam that, at this point, I can no longer distinguish from bath bubbles.

We migrate to the living room. Tilly plants herself on the couch, pulls the blanket over her legs, and announces, “Story time.”

I sink into the couch beside her. Then my phone buzzes.

I reach for the phone. Jake’s name on the screen. My heart does that annoying thump again.

I might finally take his number-one spot We’re safe, but we'll probably be a few more hours. Thank you again, hun.

The smile happens before I can stop it. If Luca were here I know that he would tease me about it. I stare at the message for a beat longer than necessary, then type a single heart emoji and hit send before I can overthink it.

If Luca ever asks, I will deny this until my dying breath. The heart emoji does not exist in my vocabulary. It is beneath me. It is sentimental. It is the textual equivalent of holding hands in public, and I have standards.

Except apparently I don't, because it's sitting there in Jake's messages and I don't even regret it.

“Was that Dad?” Tilly asks, watching my face.

“Dad’s safe. He’ll be home later.”

She nods, satisfied, and reaches for the stack of books on the side table. Her small fingers bypass the sensible choices, the ones about sharing, or kindness, or ones that don’t involve bodily functions, and land squarely on a slim volume with a neon pink cover and block letters that read, in a font I would never use professionally, GIRLS DON’T FART.

I stare at it. “You want me to read this?”

“It’s my favourite.” She says this with the absolute conviction of a child who has found her literary hill to die on.

“Of course it is.”

I open the book. The illustrations are exuberant. A small girl with pigtails and an expression of profound concentration, surrounded by thought bubbles containing increasingly creative euphemisms for flatulence. The text is written in rhyming couplets that scan approximately as well as a drunk trying to walk a straight line.