Hero Quest Chapter 2 part 4

The clogged sink was waiting for him. After knocking, John stood back a few steps.  He smiled, holding the tools in his hands.  This was another opportunity to be a hero - that was, if he succeeded, and with these old pipes that was not a guarantee.  Most of the time with projects like this the only thing that was certain was that he would soon be on his way to the hardware store. The odds were that it would take more than one trip.  A bleary-eyed looking woman answered the door. “I heard you had a clogged sink.” 

“Yeah,” she said thickly. Slowly the woman stepped back.  Clothes were strewn about and toys cluttered the room.  Crusted food sat on a plate on the table, obviously from the night before.  The room was darkened except for some light coming through the glass in the bathroom where John was heading.  It was fairly obvious that the baby had recently loaded a diaper; at least he hoped it had been recently.  Suddenly coming to her senses, the woman in an apologetic voice said, “The baby was up all night.  I’m sorry for the mess.  I really meant to have this cleaned up by now.  I guess that I fell asleep after my daughter got off to school this morning.” 

“That’s ok.  I know that normally your room isn’t like this.” John stepped over a small pile of clothes and began dismantling the pipes under the sink.  “What’s wrong with Ethan?” 

“I don’t really know.  It seems that every single time that he and his sister have visits with daddy he doesn’t want to go to sleep.” 

“Court-ordered visits, I’m guessing?” 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t let that jerk anywhere near my baby.”  The woman began getting agitated just talking about it.  “Can you believe that they gave him visitation?” 

“I don’t really know him.”  John replied mildly.

“You would have read about him in the papers.  About ten years ago Tyler was put in jail for abusing a neighbor girl.”  Words began to flow out of her like water from a faucet. “He did his time and when he got out I met him at church.  He told me about what had happened and had me convinced that the little girl had made the whole thing up.  I mean, he told me that at church, so he couldn’t be lying, could he?”  She didn’t really pause to let John comment or answer, he listened as water poured out of the sink into the bucket.  “Doesn’t really matter, I guess, because I believed him.  Stupid me, I fell in love.   I was raised in the church and always wanted a Christian man.  We were waiting on his divorce to come through so that Tyler and I could be married.  It was taking a long time so we moved in together to save a few bucks.  That’s when Ethan came along.”  She seemed to run out of words.

John pulled a toothbrush out of the sink along with large globs of hair.  “I think I found the problem.  Do you want your toothbrush back or do you want a fresh one?  I can arrange that for you if you want.”  John smiled.