As matters turned out, Willard’s estimate of somewhere around a month before any action could be taken on the house was dead on.
After three weeks of abruptly summer-like weather, typical of the typically Quixotic California climate, the ground finally dried sufficiently to allow any sort of testing. Catherine called and made an appointment to have one of the city engineers come out and examine the slab. But before he could arrive, another, seemingly unrelated, crisis struck.
It began simply enough.
Midday Saturday was a lazy time, school work done for the week, chores done, and nothing much to do. The four children were playing in the back bedroom, immersed in their own fantasy worlds of toys and books.
Willard was watching football in the family room. Catherine was puttering around in the kitchen.
In the middle of a particularly exciting play, Willard glanced toward the door from the entry way, almost as if he had been called. Burt was standing there, expectantly, as if he had something to say.
“What?” Willard was irritated at the interruption, even though the boy had said nothing yet. His voice was sharp, his expression almost angry. “What?”
Burt remained silent for a second, then faded back into the duskiness as he slipped into the living room. Willard watched until his son disappeared, his forehead creased and his eyes narrowed, even though he was not aware of it.
That was his usual expression nowadays.
A moment or so later, he heard Burt’s thin voice in the kitchen. He couldn’t catch the words. Catherine responded, then Burt.
Willard settled back into the couch again, intent on the game.
Catherine came to the door between the kitchen and the family room.
“Burt says he can hear a funny noise.”
“Hmmm,” Willard said.
“He says it’s coming from the bathroom. Maybe you should…”
In the recesses of the house, Suze screamed, Will, Jr., yelped as if in surprise, and Sams, not to be outdone, started crying.
“Oh, for…! What’s going on now!” Willard was up and striding toward the hallway before Catherine even left the kitchen.
“It better be something important,” Willard muttered as he turned the corner in the hall and glanced toward the back bedroom doors.
The bathroom door, situated on the opposite side of the hall, midway between the open doors to Suze’s room and the boys’ room, was closed. The hall was dimly lit, as usual, but it seemed like the carpet at the end of the hall was far darker than it should be.
And Willard could hear a distinctive gurgling from the bathroom.
“Oh shit!” He stamped down the hall, his footsteps echoing his incipient anger. It couldn’t be…
It was.
He shoved the bathroom door open, but already he had heard the squish of water beneath his feet as he crossed the sodden carpet, so he wasn’t surprised when he flicked the light on to see water spilling over the top of the toilet bowl. The floor tiles were an inch deep in the stuff, and the runoff was apparently following the path of least resistance, out the door, across the hall, and into the boy’s room.
The toilet was spewing gallons of water, it seemed, fortunately clear enough but tinged faintly with not-quite green, not-quite brown against the white porcelain He sniffed reflexively, testing the air. Something…faint, but unidentifiable. Repellent in its own way, but definitely not sewage.
Willard ran over to the toilet, knelt on the flooded floor, cursed under his breath as his knees went suddenly cold and wet, and struggled to twist the ball valve and shut off the flow. It resisted for a couple of moments, while time the water continued to gush over the toilet rim, onto him, onto the floor.
“Catherine,” he yelled, still fighting the valve. “Catherine! Towels. Quick!”
Behind him, he could hear the linen closet door screak open, then shut, then the soft thump as Catherine threw towels over the threshold in a futile attempt to hold back the flood. Too little, too late, Willard thought.
Finally, with a thick, unpleasant squeal, the valve turned and the water slowly tapered off, then stopped completely.
He stood, dripping from the knees down, hands chilled to the bone, face flushed with anger and frustration. What next?
“The boys’ carpet is wet about halfway across the room, but the other bedrooms are dry,” Catherine reported while laying another layer of towels in the hall.
Willard stood in the boys’ doorway. The dark brown carpet was almost black in a quarter circle that extended from the door as far as the closet. The boy’s bunk beds stood partially in the circle, as did their dresser. Sams’ little box bed seemed dry, and there didn’t seem to be any problem with the low table underneath the window that held a scattering of their toys, Yap’s cage, and assorted detritus of cast-off clothing.
“Okay, guys,” Willard said, sighing. “Let’s get busy.”
While Catherine mopped up the bathroom and the younger kids were relegated to the family room to watch a DVD, Willard, Will, Jr., and Burt began the tedious task of moving everything out of the bedroom-Sams’ bed; the dresser drawers, one by one; the toys and clothing that had been lying on the floor and were now either sopping wet or still dry but to Catherine’s mind contaminated and therefore to be removed. With a curl of his lip, as if he smelled something extremely distasteful, Burt dumped wet things into a plastic laundry basket just beyond the damp edge of the hall carpet. Will, Jr., stripped all of the beds and, careful not to let any edges trail, hauled the bedding by the armful into the family room to toss it in a corner behind the couch.
The only problem came when he entered the family room carrying Sams’ blanket, crossed the room, and tossed the grubby, smelly thing into the washer.
“Nooo,” Sams screamed, and Catherine had to race in from the back and comfort him, reassuring him that the blanket was only going to be gone a little while.
“Gone away, like Yip, forever?” Sams demanded.
“No, sweetie, not like Yip. You’ll have it back fresh and clean before the movie’s over.”
It helped, but Sams spent the rest of the hour standing guard over the washer, then the dryer, until finally his blanket emerged safe and sound. He curled up on the corner of the couch, sating edging in his mouth, and promptly fell asleep.
That was probably for the best, since tempers were rapidly becoming shorter and shorter, and he was out of the way, at least.
A sharp yelp came from the back bedroom.
Catherine raced back to find Willard standing in the center of the room, water squishing out around the soles of his shoes. He was nursing a bloody finger, his good hand holding the injured one away from his body to keep his shirt from getting stained. The wound had already bled profusely enough to stain his hand red and drip onto the floor. Sodden as it was with the overflowing water, the carpet seemed to absorb the drops almost immediately, as if drinking them.
“What happened?” Catherine took one look and turned around to retrieve the first aid kit from the top shelf of the linen closet. She grabbed a dry hand towel as well-all of the larger ones were spread on the floor to draw up the water.
“I caught my finger between the bedpost and the tip of the screwdriver when I tried to loosen the back bolts on Will’s bunk, and sliced myself all to hell.” He extended his hands so Catherine could see the injury better. “I’m going to have to dismantle the whole bed to get it out of here. We’re going to have to take the carpet and the padding out as well. They’re too wet to dry back here without molding or something.”
Catherine muttered soothing non-words as she worked on his finger, wiping away the blood and cleaning the slash.
“It’s not too deep, it just bled like crazy,” Willard assured her absently while scanning the floor. Finally she finished wrapping the wound in a thick gauze bandage. Actually, the injury looked fairly serious. They might have to get Willard to the hospital, she thought.
“Come on out and sit down,” Catherine said, tugging gently at his sleeve. “You can’t do this alone, and Will’s too little to be much good at moving the heavier furniture. I’ll see if any of the neighbors can help.”