I pulled the missing shoe from beneath the couch and immediately felt something catch against my fingers.
For one glorious second, I thought I had won.
The shoe existed.
We could finally leave.
Milk, bread, bananas.
Maybe, if the universe showed unusual mercy, we could complete the entire trip without anyone needing to use a grocery-store bathroom.
Then I saw what had been shoved behind the shoe.
My phone charger.
The charger I had spent half the morning looking for.
I held it up.
Behind me, both children became suspiciously fascinated by the floor.
“Interesting,” I said.
Silence.
I looked at the child with one sock and one newly recovered shoe.
“Do you know how this got under the couch?”
“No.”
The answer arrived so quickly it practically collided with the question.
I turned toward the other child.
“Do you?”
A very slow head shake.
I looked at the charger again.
There was a cracker crumb stuck to the cord.
I did not need a detective.
I needed milk.
I put the charger on the table, handed over the shoe, and said, “Put it on.”
Then I picked up my keys.
That should have been the end of it.
It wasn’t.
The shoe went on the wrong foot.
I watched it happen.
I considered intervening.
Then I decided this was a problem for Future Me.
“Door,” I said.
One child opened it.
The other suddenly froze.
“I need the bathroom.”
Of course.
I looked toward the ceiling as if someone up there might be keeping records.
Twenty-eight minutes earlier, I had announced that we were leaving.
In that time, nobody had needed the bathroom.
Nobody had been thirsty.
Nobody had urgently required a stuffed animal.
Nobody had been missing anything except, apparently, common purpose.
The moment the front door opened, every biological and emotional need in the house activated at once.
“Go,” I said.
The child disappeared down the hallway.
The other one stood beside me and started swinging a backpack.
I stared at it.
“Why are you wearing a backpack?”
“I need it.”
“For what?”
A pause.
“My stuff.”
“What stuff?”
Another pause.
“Important stuff.”
