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Episode 5: Patch Adams M.D. (Mad Doctor)

            Why’d Ash just leave? you asked, staring at their empty place at the table.

            Beats me, I replied. I guess they had somewhere else to be. Something else to discover.

            No, I meant why did they leave just now, you clarified.

            Oh. I don’t know.

            You folded your hands together, fingers making a tentative little steeple. I have a feeling they’ve just changed how this story’s going to go, you whispered.

            Oh, I know they have, I admitted.

            The house breathed differently after Ash left, like someone had closed a piano mid-song. It felt wrong. Not dramatically, catastrophically wrong, just… quieter in the way a theater feels after closing night, when the costumes are back on their wire hangers, and the stage lights have cooled to embers.

            Morning light crawled in reluctantly, as though embarrassed to be seen. Dust motes performed a tired waltz. The house’s usual din of laughter had evaporated sometime between moonset and dawn, leaving only the memory of noise clinging to the air like glitter in the grout. The walls seemed to press inward. Mork sat cross-legged on the living room rug, staring at static on the television as if it were a language only grief could translate. His antenna had wilted sometime in the night. Maggie leaned into his side, pressing her cheek to his space-suited shoulder, but he didn’t blink. I don’t think he could remember how. Beside them, some penguins flopped haphazardly on the floor, lying still under piles of playing cards, like they were bored of life and the grounding reality of flightless sorrow. In the kitchen, Mrs. Doubtfire polished the counter for the third hour in a row. It was spotless by breakfast. It was spotless by noon. It would be spotless forever. She hummed, but it was soft and cracked at the edges, like porcelain.

           “The house feels smaller today,” Maggie whispered over her bowl of Sugar Stars cereal, as though afraid the walls would overhear. No one corrected her because she was right. We got so used to noise, we forgot silence has a sound; and suddenly, there it was, ringing through every room Ash had never called home. A chair sat empty at the table. Ash’s forgotten canteen waited beside it, the tea long gone cold. Nobody touched it. Not yet. Not today.

           Robin stood alone at the sink, thumb tracing the rim of the mug with reverence, as though the cooled porcelain could still offer warmth if you asked kindly enough. His eyes glimmered, sapphire grief, softened by a practiced smile. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

           Mork wordlessly handed me a drawing Maggie had left on the sofa, marker lines of a house overflowing with color, bursting with it. A rainbow earthquake. I put it on the fridge, even though the magnets shook a little.

           “Thank you,” I told him. He nodded solemnly, as though I had entrusted him with the moon. Somewhere distant in the house, a floorboard sighed. The quiet wasn’t peaceful. It was expectation, sharpened to a point. It was the echo of laughter missing its second half. It was the ache of someone choosing not to walk through the front door. I lingered in the hallway for a long time, listening to nothing, waiting for the noise to remember us.

           One minute, I was rinsing the breakfast dishes in the sink, thinking about all the things I couldn’t fix. The next, the front door slammed, against the wall with the theatrical force of a one-man parade. Patch Adams burst in trailing streamers of neon colors and raw enthusiasm, lab coat flaring behind him like a circus tent caught in a divine wind.

           “Emergency!” he shouted, waving a clipboard that appeared to be more stickers than paper. “I felt it in the atmosphere! There’s a disturbance in the joy-field!”

Mork perked up at that, blinking away the television static.

           Mrs. Doubtfire gasped, hand to her chest. “Patch, dear, whatever is the matter?”

Patch didn’t hesitate. He marched right into the center of the living room, pivoted dramatically, and scanned each face that was propped up hopelessly in front of the TV like a doctor in a medical drama about to deliver bad news. He declared:

          “We’ve got a full-blown case of existential ennui!” Silence. Patch slowly lowered his clipboard. “Oh. Oh no. It’s worse than I thought.” Patch paced a groove into the living room carpet and then marched to the front porch. We followed him out to catch the fresh air. “We need an intervention,” he insisted, tugging on a pair of latex gloves patterned with smiley faces. “Therapeutic nonsense, recreational compassion, radical silliness!”

          Sean Maguire stepped quietly out of the front doorway. He looked at Patch the way a good therapist looks at someone whose shoes are full of grief.

          “Patch,” Sean said softly, “maybe you don’t have to fix anything today.” Patch blinked, offended. He stood utterly still, and then something fell out of him and hit the floor in a soft, tired clatter.

          “I watched Peter Pan try to fly this morning,” he murmured. Sean’s brow furrowed. Patch stared at his own hands as if they were the memory. “He stood on the rooftop, trying to think happy thoughts ‘til he was blue in the face, really trying, and he lept—” Maggie gasped, clinging to my shirt. “—and landed on his ass so hard the Lost Boys felt it on the other side of the storybook.” Silence.

          “O-oh my God,” I said, “Is he ok?”

          “Yeah,” Patch said, “Luckily, Jack was there to break his fall.” Everyone winced in pity at the thought of the two boy-men colliding. “But that’s not the point,” Patch whispered, eyes burning. “He tried to believe. He tried to believe as hard as he could… and not even his blessed little heart could meet him halfway.” He clutched his clipboard to his chest like a life preserver. “So don’t ask me to sit still while joy collapses. If I can help… if I can make one person in this house laugh again… I have to do something.” Sean exhaled, empathy, not surrender. He opened his mouth to speak again, maybe a few words about responsibility, but Mork suddenly stood straighter, like he’d been waiting for his cue the whole time.

         “The joy-field did collapse yesterday,” he offered, solemn, sincere, a little panicked. “I felt it. Right behind my left ear. Or possibly in my elbow. Hard to recall.”

         Patch wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Thank you,” he told Mork.

         Mrs. Doubtfire dabbed her eyes with a tea towel. “We ought to call someone.”

         Sean lifted a finger, as if to remind everyone they had a free, live-in therapist, but Patch shouted out into the empty street, “DOCTOR! WE NEED A DOCTOR! WE NEED A CONSULT! GODDAMN IT, ARE THERE ANY DOCTORS IN THIS TOWN?!” The neighbors turned and stared, their lawn mowers idling and dogs yapping. A little boy on a bike paused in the middle of the street to make a face. Sean grabbed Patch by the shoulders and gently guided him back indoors. We all shuffled in after them in embarrassment.

        An hour or two passed without any public freakouts. Patch sat on the stairway as I passed by, pouting, bouncing one of Maggie’s rubber balls against the wall with a loud, heavy, rhythmic thump. That’s when a huge crash from the hallway upstairs made both of us jump. We leapt up, running into Professor Brainard’s room like two cops on a bust. His room was chaos, sparks sputtered from a makeshift console, Flubber oozed over faulty instrumentation like radioactive jam, and tension crackled in the air like static off a faulty god. Brainard stood at the center of his domain, wearing three pairs of safety goggles and holding what appeared to be a barometer duct-taped to a toaster.

        “It’s not my fault!” he cried the instant Patch and I appeared. “The numbers keep changing!”

        Patch stared at the mess. “What numbers?”

        Brainard pointed dramatically to a trembling contraption like a heart monitor having a nervous breakdown. “The depression coefficient!” He smacked the machine. “It keeps going up!”

       Patch, baffled and desperate, latched on like a drowning man grabbing a buoy. “You’re measuring depression?! I didn’t know you could do that!”

       “Of course I am!” Brainard barked, equally desperate. “I measure everything! How else would I know how bad the situation is?!” The machine whined, sputtered, smoked.

       Patch threw Sean a triumphant look as the therapist peeked in through the door. “See?! A professional! A good, caring physician who doesn’t ask permission and doesn’t waste valuable time!”

       “Uh… yeah, sure.” Brainard smiled, but it faltered quickly. Sean opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it and walked out.

       Patch threw an arm around Brainard with monumental relief. “At last!” he crowed, “A colleague!”

       Brainard blinked. “Colleague?”

       “Yes,” Patch declared, “Finally, another doctor who knows people!” Brainard cleared his throat violently. He made a motion to clarify, but Patch steamrolled him. “We are going to co-lead an operation,” he announced, overflowing with delighted purpose. “Codename: Projecy JOY 2.0.!”

       Brainard slowly lowered his thermos in despair. “Oh dear…” he mumbled.

       “First things first,” Patch said, dragging Brainard out of his own room by the crook of his arm. “We’ll need a better lab. Bedrooms are far too small, too personal, too many things that can contaminate experiments.” I followed the doctors’ frantic pace, tripping over my own feet.

       The doctors met Maggie as she was climbing up the staircase. “What are you doing?” she asked, curious.

       Patch knelt to her height with the gravity of a saint on a mission. “We’re going to fix everyone’s hearts,” he said. He tapped her nose, “with medicine.”

       Brainard bristled. “And engineering.”

       Patch nodded gravely. “And the occasional emotionally-baffling monologue.”

       “Sounds like a Tuesday,” Adrian Cronauer quipped as he hurried down the stairs. He nearly tripped Brainard, who knocked into Patch, who teetered toward falling, but clasped the railing with the entirety of his life force. Adrian clambered around the traffic jam and left without so much as a goodbye.

       Maggie nodded, looking at Patch with trust and belief. “Good luck!” she smiled. Patch smiled back, determined. Brainard shot me a look that said, ‘We’re gonna need it.’

       I followed Patch as he dragged Brainard all the way into the basement. The cellar had always breathed like a creature with insomnia, but that morning, its mood was unmistakably sour. The lights were too dim and tinted red, very much Seymour Parrish’s doing; the wallpaper peeled in quiet protest. The air hummed with the vinegar tang of photograph chemicals that had soaked too long in the concrete. Even Maggie refused to follow us, claiming the room “smelled sad.”

      Brainard shuffled in with the enthusiasm of a man who’d been promised a scientific mystery and instead received someone’s damp laundry room. He adjusted his glasses, peering at the racks of film negatives that hung like ghostly laundry in the chemical haze.

      Patch strode into the gloom, first, donning his red nose, which was practically flickered like a warning beacon. “Aha!” he declared, pointing an accusatory finger at the darkness, as though expecting it to confess. “Here’s a classic case of melancholic miasma! Stage four!”

      “Patch,” I pinched my nose. “You can’t diagnose a basement—”

      “I’m not,” Patch muttered, “I’m diagnosing him.” He pointed into the darkness.

      “No one’s there,” I said.

            Just then a thin, white figure materialized from behind the shelves. Brainard yelped, but it was just Seymour Parrish, camera clutched to his chest like a security blanket. His eyes blinked owlishly in the low light.

            “You’re standing in the way of my processing cycle,” he said, the way some people say hello.

            Patch placed both his hands dramatically on his hips. “Seymour, buddy, pal, amigo—this is not therapy.”

            Seymour frowned, deeply affronted. “I’m not doing therapy. I’m developing film.”

            “Exactly!” Patch exploded, flinging his arms wide. “You’re developing grief in developing fluid! There’s no world in which that’s healthy!”

            Brainard nodded knowingly, eager to contribute. “And your ventilation system is entirely inadequate for this kind of operation. Your nitrate levels—”

            “Not helping,” I murmured.

            Seymour bristled, hugging his camera closer. His voice dropped to a fragile mumble,

            “The light down here is… controlled. Predictable.”

            “Problems for another day,” Patch declared as he started to push Seymour up the stairs.

            “No!” Seymour protested, clawing at the railing like a Victorian ghost refusing exorcism, “I’m in the middle of—”

            “Upstairs, now!” Patch insisted with a single clap.

            “But the negatives—” Seymour tried.

            “Seymour, sweetheart,” I called up the stairs, “You’ve been down here for days. The only thing you’re developing at this point is a lawsuit from OSHA. At least let us clean this place up before you come back down.”

            “Go into the light!” Patch made a ghostly ‘ooo’ sound at Seymour’s pale visage. “Delicious, vitamin-rich, emotionally nutritious daylight!” He had finally, miraculously pushed Seymour over the threshold and into the living room. Seymour whirled around and snapped a photo in defiance, sending a blinded Patch tripping backwards into Brainard, who’d followed the circus up the stairs, and sent him tumbling halfway down the staircase.

            Luckily, Brainard popped back up with only a few scrapes. But I knew that if I stayed in that cellar, I would be these maniacal doctors’ next casualty. I dashed upstairs the very next chance I got.        

            I was hanging my laundry on the clothesline in the backyard when a piece of crumbled-up paper sticking out of the back pocket of my favorite jeans caught my eye. I sat on the porch steps and unfurled it, flipping it between my fingers. It was a flyer for a casting audition I had picked up outside of Pinebluff’s dying community theater. I breathed in a deep sigh of summer dust and the faint, smoky smell of whatever Alan Parrish was burning over a small fire in my grill. He nodded at me as if I were in on some sort of secret.

            “Frying coconut shavings,” he explained, “Smell keeps the giant tarantulas away.”

            “Got it,” I nodded. I went back to staring at my flyer. Its vibrant yellows felt emotionless, its weightlessness felt impossibly heavy. The printed words spoke of promises that sounded too much like fairy tales to have any merit. Spotlights, costumes, stories, and the applause. Oh, who can forget the applause?

            The screen door creaked open behind me, but I didn’t look up. Only one person in the house opened doors that cautiously.

            “May I join your watch?” Parry asked.

            I sighed, scooted over. “It’s not a watch. I’m just… thinking.”

            “Fooled me,” he smiled. “It looked like you were dreaming.” Parry settled beside me, cross-legged, make-shift robes bunching like he’d sat on an invisible throne. He clutched a paper grocery bag full of mismatched wildflowers and bottle caps he’d called ‘treasures.’ He peered at the audition flyer I had forgotten was in my hands. Then he gasped, “Oh! A proclamation!”

            “It’s a casting notice,” I muttered, embarrassed. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want anyone to know I had that flyer. That’s probably why I kept it such a secret that even I forgot about it.

            Parry tilted his head. “Isn’t a notice just a proclamation that hasn’t realized it’s royalty, yet?”

            I stifled an amused smile. “It’s nothing. Just the community theater doing a show that no one is going to see.”

            “Ah,” Parry said. “Hidden stages. The most sacred of all.” He tapped his chest. “That’s the kind of place where quests begin.”

            I groaned. “Please don’t call it a quest.”

            “But it is.” Parry leaned forward, sincerity shining in his eyes. “You’re standing at the mouth of the cave, trembling, wondering if there’s a worthy treasure inside.”

            “It’s just a Shakespeare thing, a dime a dozen,” I shook my head.

            “Now, listen here, madame,” Parry said, “I’m usually a fan of spoilers, but I think now’s an important time to hear one.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and smiled. “The treasure inside is a beautiful, shining shard of a magic mirror.”

            I blinked at him. “A shard? Why not the whole thing?”

            He softened. “Because people rarely ever find themselves in one piece.” My heart beat heavily, like it was stirring awake after a long lifetime of slumber. But then Parry giggled. “And even if that piece of you isn’t in that cave, community Shakespeare productions are one of the most dangerous treasures you can find.”

            I laughed. I stared at him a long time, until my smile melted. He sat there in companionable silence, waiting for me to speak.

            “But I haven’t acted since…” I began, unable to finish. My hands trembled at the thought of the chilly Chicago Spring wind. O’Hare airport. The faces of my parents that I saw off for the last time, and didn’t know it.

            “… since before your kingdom fell,” Parry nodded in gentle understanding.

            I swallowed. “Yeah.” That one word would have to suffice for it all. Parry didn’t pry. He simply looked at me with soft, earnest eyes, as if I were a painting only he knew how to see.

            “Do you fear the stage?” he asked.

            “I think… I fear liking it,” I admitted. “What if I want it back? What if I can’t handle it? What if I let people down? And then I’ll have left Maggie with more time being alone, and for what? For me to get my kicks only to come away with nothing? No, thank you. Not again.” Those last few words slipped out. I looked away from Parry, as if in apology.

            He considered this, then rummaged through his grocery bag. He produced a lopsided ring made of twine and a bottle-cap jewel.

            “This,” he declared, “is the Armor of Acceptable Failure.”

            I blinked, suppressing a giggle. “The what?”

            “It’s armor. Armor for moments when you fear making a fool of yourself,” Parry said, solemnly placing it in my hand. “Fools are sacred. Only fools dare to leap before the world says it’s safe.” I looked at the cheap, lovely thing. It was literally a piece of trash. “Did you know,” he said, “that bravery does not feel like a war cry? Mostly, it feels like a tiny tremor in your lungs, a quiver that says ‘maybe.’” I stared down the flyer, at the space where my name could end up. Parry looked toward the horizon, eyes shining. “In all the stories I know, the hero never waits until they feel ready.” He tapped my shoulder like an affectionate brother. “They go because something in them whispers they’re not done being alive.”

            My breath caught. The flyer felt heavier than ever. Behind us, the penguins stole a screw from the grill and waddled off as it collapsed, and a coal landed on Alan’s bare foot. He leapt up with a yelp.

            “I’ll think about it,” I said.

            Parry smiled. “Oh, please, accept this quest, Nora. I’ve yet to meet a more worthy hero than you.” He stood, offered me a hand. “Now, come inside. The others are about to vote on whether the toaster is haunted, and your presence is required.”

            I took his hand, partly for balance, mostly for the courage that poured out of him. I slipped the twine ring into my pocket. I didn’t throw it away.

            Later, I went back to check in on Patch and Brainard. The cellar had always smelled faintly of disapproval and burnt toast, but now that they had seized it, it radiated something far more dangerous: initiative. I knew this because when I opened the basement door, a bubble drifted up past my head, an iridescent sphere the size of a basketball, humming a note somewhere between a giggle and a Gregorian chant.

            “Oh, good!” Patch shouted from down below, voice echoing like a clown in a cathedral. “Our test subject has arrived!”

            “I’m not—” I began, but then I realized he hadn’t meant me. Osric cleared his throat from behind me and entered the basement with a flourish. He gave a little bow.

            “My dear Nora,” he bumbled. “I trust I need not inform you of the crimes of these two,” he sneered at the men scrambling back and forth at the bottom of the stairs, “ne'er-do-wells.”

            “Ne’er is pretty harsh,” I scoffed. “Patch and Brainard are just trying to help out, that’s all.”

            “Yes, that is very well and all,” Osric straightened his cravat, “but they are yelling into the vents and disturbing my beauty rest.”

            “I did no such thing!” Patch yelled from somewhere beyond the stairwell. There was a huge crash, followed by a long, Brainard sigh. Just then, Patch ran up the steps and grasped Osric’s wrist and pulled him down the stairs. “Come on, now, your majesty. You get to be the very first to experience the new Patch and Brainard’s Cure for Sadness!” He waved his hand at each word, his expression mirroring the flashing lights you might see on a busy city street. “Patent pending.” Osric opened his mouth to speak, but Patch clapped, and a huge, globe-sized bubble chose that exact moment to float by and explode over his face in a spray of glitter and lavender-scented steam. “You’ve been joy-misted,” the doctor announced proudly. Osric sputtered, specks of glitter stuck in his muttonchops and on his tongue. He immediately stomped up the steps with an indignant huff, probably second-guessing his decision to scrap the Order Club.

            “I don’t understand,” Patch said, “It didn’t work.” Behind him, Professor Philip Brainard tightened a bolt on a machine whose purpose I refused to guess. It had at least three antennae, a blinking red eye, and what looked suspiciously like my missing colander strapped to the top with duct tape.

            “It’s not ready!” Brainard yelped. “The laughter-index calibrator is still unstable!”

            Patch scoffed. “Happiness waits for no man, Phil! Especially not one with tenure.”

            “I’m going as fast as I can,” Brainard huffed, “but the machinery doesn’t want to budge on this. Maybe we should take a break?”

            “We can’t,” Patch declared, wheeling around to block me with a rolling whiteboard covered in multicolored equations. “We’re treating a house-wide case of Existential Ennui. Laughter levels have dropped 73% since yesterday. Seventy-three percent, Phil. You know how severe that is. That’s clinical.”

            “Yes, but—Patch—that seems—” Brainard tried, but Patch interrupted him. He grabbed Brainard by the shoulders so suddenly that three wrenches fell out of Brainard’s lab coat like nervous birds. The cellar lights flickered in sympathy.

            “Philip,” Patch said, eyes blazing with tender, clownish fury, “you have got to believe in yourself.”

             “I do—”

             “Hey,” Patch cupped his face, “LOOK AT ME.” Brainard had no choice but to stay totally and completely still, looking at Patch like a startled deer gazing into a glitter canon. “You’re not just building a medical device,” Patch’s voice wobbled like a sad violin string. “You’re building hope. Every bolt you tighten, every coil you solder, those are stitches in the quilt of human healing.”

             Brainard’s lip trembled through Patch’s grasp, “A quilt?”

            “A JOY QUILT!” Patch corrected.

            “Oh,” Brainard whispered, awed.

            Patch spun him toward the contraption with evangelical zeal. “Now listen to me. Depression is a dragon. And what do dragons fear?”

            Brainard looked genuinely stumped. “Uh, knights? Fire? Excess humidity?”

            “No!” Patch thundered. “They fear SCIENCE used for GOOD.”

            The machine hummed uneasily behind them, leaking a small puff of chartreuse smoke like it was trying to raise its hand and opt out.

            Patch pointed at Brainard dramatically. “You’re a doctor, of hearts, of souls, of messy human sadness! You have the power to build something that brings laughter back into this house!”

            Brainard gasped. “ME?”

            “Yes, YOU.” Patch shook him gently, rattling a stray bolt loose from the ceiling. “Now tell me, Philip Brainard: what are we going to do?”

            Brainard stood straighter. His hair frizzed with purpose. His goggles gleamed with manic reflection.

            “We are going to—” he whispered. Patch leaned closer. “—to HEAL DEPRESSION.” Patch swooned.

            I murmured, “Oh no.”

            And Brainard, electrified with pure, uncut purpose, thrust his fists skyward and roared:

            “SCIENCE!!!!”

            He flipped a switch. The lights dimmed. A projector whirred to life, casting swirling colors onto the concrete like the Northern Lights had gotten lost in my basement.

            From behind, Maggie peeked out from the bottom of the stairs, eyes wide, fingers gripping the edge like she was watching a meteor land in slow motion. “Is this safe?” she whispered.

            “No!” Brainard and Patch shouted at once.

            “Yes!” Mork added enthusiastically as he popped into the basement beside her. I immediately understood where she found the courage to venture down here. I pinched the bridge of my nose as a huge metal grinding noise echoed through the room. This house had destroyed my sense of self-preservation weeks ago. Patch straightened, suddenly solemn.

            He placed a hand over his heart, balloon animals huddled in his pockets like listening children. “Nora… when people are hurting, we do what we can. Even if it’s silly. Especially if it’s silly.”

            Brainard held up a remote with a trembling hand. “Our joy serum amplifies serotonin responses using an algorithm based on positive stimuli and…” He paused, squinting at the machine. “And probably some accidental plutonium.”

           “Plutonium?” I echoed.

           “Only a smidge,” he assured me, as if this made anything better.

           The machine whirred. Sparks crackled. Mork started humming “Ride of the Valkyries” into a kazoo. The whole basement felt like a manic séance.

           Patch shoved a bubble-helmet onto my head, one of those giant transparent globes that made me look like a rejected astronaut. “Breathe deeply. This version releases affirmations!”

          A soft voice filled the helmet: ‘You are doing your best, even though adulthood is a scam.’

          I blinked. “Okay, that’s actually—”

         ‘And your hair looks fabulous, even though you slept on it wrong.’

         “Patch!” I snapped.

         Patch winked. “Therapeutic truth, sweetheart.”

         Robin wandered in, leaning against the doorway with the weary patience of someone who had seen many metaphysical disasters and learned to pick his battles. “Is the basement supposed to be… singing?”

        “It’s a moral support hum,” Patch said.

        “It sounds like a kazoo melting,” Robin replied.

        Brainard hit another switch, and the machine began projecting shapes onto the ceiling—smiling stars, twirling marigolds, probably my electric bill crying for mercy. One of the stars winked at me. I was not certain this was intentional.

        Maggie edged closer, her voice quiet but certain. “It looks like a dream I had.”

        Patch knelt beside her, eyes softening. “Then we’re on the right track.”

        For a moment, the room held a fragile stillness. The colors played over our faces. Even the usual household chorus, the penguins’ squeaks, Andrew’s metal footsteps, Armand’s distant accusations of poor lighting, seemed to hush.

        And then Brainard proudly announced, “Initiating full sequence!”

       “No!” Patch shouted. But Brainard had already pressed the big glowing button. The machine inhaled. Everything glowed. My bubble-helmet began reciting slam poetry.

       Mork yelled “NANU!” and somersaulted into a pile of extension cords.

       Robin muttered, “I have a bad feeling about this.” Maggie squeezed my hand.

       And Patch, as the lights stuttered violently overhead, whispered with horror: “It wasn’t supposed to sound like that—” A low, tremoring rumble rolled through the basement floorboards. The walls seemed to inhale. The machine clicked ominously.Instantly, every machine in the cellar woke up like a startled zoo. The projector shot out a beam so bright it vaporized a nearby motivational poster. A metal arm extended from the machine and slapped Patch across the face with a rubber chicken. The floor vibrated. The lights strobed. Something in the walls made the sound of a very anxious blender.

      Brainard beamed with radiant, oblivious pride. “It’s working!”

      Patch screamed, “TURN IT OFF!”

      Brainard shouted, “I CAN’T! THE JOY QUILT IS SELF-ACTUALIZING!” A panel fell off the side of the machine and scuttled away like a guilty crab. And then everything, every wire, every switch, every bell and whirligig, began to shake in a single unified shudder, as though the universe was inhaling before belting a note so wrong it would echo across galaxies.

      Robin stepped backward toward the stairs. “Everyone, brace your souls.”

      Then—KABOOM! The machine exploded into a million bits and pieces, metal parts flying every which way.

      “Whoopsie,” Brainard whispered, before a ton of glittery, pink bubble solution fell over and drenched the whole room with a loud SPLORP! The cellar was filled with foam, sparks, and a smell that could only be described as “banana-flavored regret.”

            The cellar wheezed. Smoke curled off the wreckage like disappointed ghosts. Glitter dripped from the ceiling in slow, judgmental plops. Somewhere beneath the pink foam, a rubber chicken cried its final warbled squeak. Patch Adams rose from the debris like a phoenix who’d gotten into a craft store clearance bin. He wiped foam from his eyelashes and sucked in a ragged, heroic breath.

            “…we need more parts.”

           Brainard staggered to his feet, goggles cracked, hair frazzled to the point of minor radio reception. “Yes—yes! Replacement tubing, a new joy-conduit, a laughter spool—”

           “And a whole new mood stabilizer,” Patch added. “Preferably one that doesn’t scream.”

           Brainard rubbed his chin. “Screaming is a sign of healthy resistance.”

           “No,” Patch said firmly. “No more machines that resist joy.”

           Mork peeked out of a bubble mound, antenna half-lit. “The machine achieved sentience before exploding. That feels… impolite.”

           Robin, who had flattened himself against the stairs the moment he sensed narrative danger, sighed deeply. “Boys, maybe this whole joy machine thing has run its course.” Both doctors turned toward him with identical expressions of betrayal.

           “Robin,” Patch whispered, wounded, “joy never runs its course. It just… detours.”

           Brainard snapped his fingers. “EUREKA!”

           Patch jumped. “Yes! Yes, Phil! What is it?!”

           Brainard looked at the smoking husk of the joy machine, eyes wild with sudden inspiration. “We don’t need NEW parts. We need the right parts! Specialized parts! Rare parts!”

          “That’s what I just said—”

          “No,” Brainard declared, one finger raised to the heavens. “We need… MECHANICAL whimsy. Industrial-grade cheer. Titanium delight.”

          Patch blinked. “Phil, buddy, what are you—”

          Brainard grabbed Patch’s shoulders and whispered with reverence, “We need a robot.”

          Patch gasped. “We DO need a robot.”

          Mork clapped happily. “We have robots!”

          “Not like this one,” Brainard muttered, eyes glinting dangerously. “This one is… unique.” A dreadful silence fell. I looked from Patch to Brainard to Robin, who was mouthing please don’t at me in the only way a man who’d survived several franchise crossovers could.

         Maggie tugged my sleeve. “Who are they talking about?” But I already knew. We all knew.

        “Oh GOD,” I groaned. “You don’t mean—”

        Patch nodded gravely. “Fender.”

        From the living room, as if summoned by destiny, the faint sound of metal clattering and someone singing horribly off-key rang through the floorboards.

        Brainard straightened, resolute. “His left arm contains a gyroscopically-balanced humor actuator. If we could retrieve it—”

        “Borrow,” Patch corrected. “Borrow it.”

        Brainard wilted. “Right. Borrow.”

        Robin pinched the bridge of his nose. “You boys are talking about robbing a man of his limb.”

        “Temporarily!” Patch insisted. “We’ll give it back when joy returns!”

        “Probably,” Brainard added under his breath.

        “PHIL.”

        “DEFINITELY. Surely.”

        Robin gestured vaguely at the ceiling. “This is why the neighbors can’t visit.”

        Patch clapped the dust off his hands. “Alright, team! Operation Robotic Acquisition begins now!” Mork saluted with both hands. Maggie giggled behind hers like she’d been drafted into espionage.

        I threw my arms up. “Oh, this is going to end in litigation.”

        Patch grinned at me with the wild confidence of a man who believed wholeheartedly that lawsuits were fictional. “Not if we’re quick,” he said.

            We crept up the stairs like a bizarre parade. Patch in front, Brainard behind him with a wrench the size of a toddler, Mork humming a Mission Impossible theme that legally wasn’t exactly Mission Impossible, Maggie tiptoeing because everyone else was, and me wondering when I became an accessory to mechanical theft.

            Robin followed last, sighing in existential dread. “This is the dumbest thing you’ve done today,” he muttered.

            Patch glanced back at him. “Today isn’t over yet.”

            Brainard whispered, “Shh! He’s in the den!” We approached the doorway like it was a lion’s den. Inside, Fender was sitting cross-legged on the couch, polishing his detachable arm and humming a little tune that made the springs in his chest squeak rhythmically. Adrian hovered beside him, holding a screwdriver and trying to get Fender to stop rotating his wrist while he worked.

            “Hold still—Fender, seriously—there’s a wire loose—”

            “I know there’s a wire loose, Cap, that’s why you’re fixing it!”

            Patch whispered dramatically, “That’s the actuator. The joy node. The heart of our new machine.”

            Brainard nodded. “We must be swift. Precise. Subtle.”

            Patch took a deep breath.

            Then he sprinted into the den screaming, “MEDICAL EMERGENCY!”

            Adrian shrieked. Fender flung his arm into the air in surprise and it landed on the ceiling fan, spinning wildly like a possessed helicopter.

            Robin buried his face in his hands. “I hate this house.”

            Maggie gleefully yelled, “GET IT, PATCH!”

            Brainard leapt onto the coffee table, pointing at the rotating arm like it was a rare bird. “THERE! THE HUMOR ACTUATOR!”

            Patch grabbed a broom. “STAND BACK!”

            Adrian wailed, “WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!” but no one listened because chaos had become the family religion. Patch swiped at the fan. The arm flew off like a launched missile.

            Mork caught it midair with a flourish. “Nanu nanu.”

            Brainard pumped his fist. “SUCCESS!”

            Fender stared at us, horrified. “YOU STOLE MY ARM!”

            “Oh my God, guys,” Adrian huffed sarcastically, “You can’t just steal someone’s arm.”

            Patch held it up triumphantly to Fender. “Your arm is going to save the house!”

            “It was already attached to the person who saves the house every damn day!” Fender shouted.

            Adrian looked at me, pleading. “Nora! You have to stop them!”

            But Patch and Brainard were already sprinting toward the basement, laughing like two criminals who had successfully robbed a very confused robot.

            I sighed, patting Fender’s robbed shoulder. “Look, I promise they’ll give it back.”

            Fender glared. “In what condition?”

            Robin wandered past him. “Define ‘condition.’”

            Fender let out a metallic scream of despair.

            The cellar lights flickered ominously as Patch and Brainard barreled down the stairs, still clutching Fender’s arm like it was the Holy Grail and not a literal limb they had just committed grand theft robot to obtain.

            “PHIL!” Patch shouted breathlessly, skidding across a slick patch of glittery foam. “Prepare the joy conduits!”

            Brainard slammed the arm down onto the workbench with the reverence of a man presenting Excalibur. “Behold! The gyroscopically-balanced humor actuator!” He wiggled it. It made a faint whump sound, like a robot sighing.

            Patch gasped. “It’s even more beautiful up close.”

            Behind them, I trudged into the basement, dragging Robin, who was dragging Maggie, who was dragging Mork (who needed no dragging but was committed to solidarity).

            “What,” Robin asked flatly, eyes already tired of the future, “is the plan this time?”

            Patch threw his arms wide. “JOY QUILT: ROUND TWO!”

            Robin sighed. “Of course.”

            Brainard was already unscrewing part of the busted machine, humming manically. “Yes, yes, yes, the humor actuator fits perfectly! See? The intake valve—”

            “It doesn’t have an intake valve,” Patch pointed out.

            “It does now!” Brainard declared, jamming the arm into the machine at an angle that would have made any engineer burst into flames.

            Patch beamed at it like a proud parent watching a child glue macaroni to a tax document. “Phil, you’re a miracle worker.”

            Brainard emitted a noise that was half-giggle, half-builder ’s-war-cry. “SCIENCE!!”

            Just then, Fender limped dramatically into the room, Adrian close behind. The remaining arm waved in indignation.

            “You maniacs!” Fender bellowed. “Give it BACK!”

            Patch cheerfully shushed him. “After the procedure!”

            “It’s not a procedure!”

            “Yes, it is,” Patch insisted.

            “No, it isn’t, Patch,” I said gently. “You can’t call everything you do a procedure.”

            “Well, what else do you call it when doctors—” Robin loudly cleared his throat. Patch blinked. “—when doctors—” He turned to Brainard, hesitating for the first time. “—when doctors do science together.” Brainard’s smile flickered. Patch caught it. His voice shrank, “You’re a doctor.” Brainard froze. Silence. Brainard swallowed hard, like someone admitting mortality for the first time. Patch stared at him with betrayal. “Phil… what’s your official medical specialty again?”

            Brainard froze. He glanced at me, Robin, Patch, and at the smoking machine behind him. “…theoretical?” he carefully pronounced.

            Patch nodded slowly. “Uh-huh. And… theoretical medicine is…?”

            Brainard swallowed. “Not… medicine.”

            Silence dropped like an anvil. Patch stared at him, eyes widening, growing more horrified by the second.

            “Phil… are you not a medical doctor?”

            Brainard wilted. “I have several doctorates.”

            Patch stepped closer, voice trembling. “In medicine?”

            “In science, and… physics. And robotics. And um… sports analytics?”

            “SPORTS?! PHIL!” Patch’s voice broke. “I CALLED YOU A COLLEAGUE!”

           Brainard threw his hands up. “I panicked! You were so enthusiastic!”

            “But you let me talk to you like… like we were equals!”

            “I didn’t know how to stop you!”

            “YOU COULD HAVE SAID ‘I’M NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR.’ THAT WOULD HAVE DONE IT.”

            Mork raised a hand. “Patch, in his defense, you didn’t really leave him pauses.”

            Patch whirled around. “MORK, SWEETHEART, NOT NOW.”

            Fender stomped forward, as much as a robot missing an arm can stomp. “CAN WE PLEASE FOCUS ON THE FACT THAT I AM MISSING A LIMB?”

           “Working on it!” Patch snapped, glaring at Brainard. “Phil. You lied to me.”

           Brainard’s voice wavered. “I didn’t lie. I… allowed a… misinterpretation to flourish.”

           “That’s a lie with extra steps!”

           Robin stepped in gently. “Patch—” But it was too late. The machine behind them let out a long, foreboding vroom.

           Patch turned. “Phil… what did you do?”

           Brainard blinked, very small. “Initiated pre-joy ignition.”

           “Without telling me?!”

           “I panicked again!”

           The machine spasmed.

           Fender screamed, “THAT’S MY ARM, YOU ABSOLUTE WRENCH-TWISTERS—”

           Then the machine inhaled. Everything inhaled. The walls bowed inward like they were reconsidering their life choices.

           Robin grabbed Maggie. “DOWN.” The JOY QUILT v2 shrieked with the sound of a malfunctioning kazoo and a thousand children laughing backwards. Then, a bolt of pure neon chaos shot from the machine, ricocheted off a pipe, slapped Patch in the face, bounced off Mork’s antenna, hit the ceiling, hit Patch again for spite, and then detonated inside Brainard’s thermos. The explosion was not pink this time. It was every color of the Lisa Frank spectrum weaponized by God. Foam blasted upward. Glitter rained like toxic snow. A bubble the size of a small car rolled across the room and absorbed a folding chair. The machine coughed, then it gently fell over. Fender’s detached arm flew out, bounced off Patch’s head, did a somersault, and landed neatly back onto Fender’s shoulder socket with a magnetic click.

          Fender blinked. “Oh. That actually felt nice.”

          Patch slowly rose from the rubble, hair smoking, eyelashes sparkling. He inhaled. Exhaled. Put a hand on his heart as he surveyed the JOY QUILT, which was now nothing but a pile of bolts beyond repair.

          Patch choked, looking to Brainard in dependence. “So, you—you can fix it, right?! With… SCIENCE!”

          Brainard panicked. “No. Good heavens. I barely understand it. At this point, it’s a disaster to be observed!”

          Patch twitched like a snapped candelabra. Then the machine gave one last, dramatic beep and died in a puff of glittery smoke. The basement lights flickered out. Patch and Brainard stared at each other through the gloom and realized, simultaneously, neither of them knew how to save anyone, including themselves. 

          “PHILIP BRAINARD, YOU ARE GROUNDED,” Patch yelled.

          Brainard whimpered. “But I’m an adult—”

          “GROUND—ED.”

          Robin murmured, “That’s fair.”

          Patch shook glitter out of his ears, eyes wild. “You and I are having a talk about ethics, honesty, and WHAT THE WORD ‘DOCTOR’ MEANS.”

          Brainard nodded, already sobbing. “Yes, Patch.”

          “And NO MORE SCIENCE.”

          Brainard wailed. “PATCH NO—”

          Patch raised a finger. Brainard immediately hushed. The basement sizzled.

          A bubble drifted by and whispered in a disturbingly sultry voice, “You’re doing your best.”

          Patch twitched. And then he screamed, barreling up the stairs and into the living room.

          “Come on, kids, let’s go watch more cartoons,” Robin feigned cheerfulness. Mork and Maggie let out a repetitive chant for Animaniacs reruns. They flopped onto the couch and pressed the ‘check out’ button on the TV remote. Their expressions blanked as Patch Adams marched through the house like it was the cardiac ward and someone had just called in a code blue. But the emergency was nowhere to be seen.

          He turned to Genie, frantically tried to tell him a joke,

         “Hey, Genie! Genie, what’s a balloon’s least favorite kind of music?”

         “Lay it on me, Doc,” Genie droned uncharacteristically.

         Patch snickered, “Pop!” But Patch’s light dimmed at the edges when Genie didn’t react. No comedic insult, no impish transformation into a prop, no sound effects, glitter explosions, or even a ‘Doc, please.’ Genie quickly ducked back into his lamp sanctuary, which was perched protectively on the side table beside Sean Maguire’s favorite, big, plush La-Z-Boy chair. Patch turned to tell another joke to Sean. “…So the clown says, ‘Why the long face?’ And the horse says…” Sean didn’t finish his sip of coffee. He didn’t even lift his eyes. Genie blinked, mouth stretched in something almost like laughter, but it dissolved into a sigh before it reached sound. Patch stared at them both, confused. “That was the punchline,” he whispered, like he was breaking terrible news.

         Sean put a hand on his shoulder. “Patch—” he said gently, as though approaching a wounded animal. Patch flinched, comfort injury. He spun around, desperate, scanning the room for a needy audience. Maggie and Mork sat on the floor in front of the television, staring, not laughing, not talking, not fighting. Just… watching colors, lights, and shapes move. Patch moved toward them with forced cheer.

        “Hey! Hey, hey, hey—kiddo, spaceman, I’ve got new material! Something snappy! Something silly! Something uproariously—” Nothing. Not even a glance. Mork didn’t ping. Maggie didn’t smile. Patch’s voice cracked around a brightness too thin to stand on. “…Guys?” Patch’s eyes filled fast as he realized the gravity of the situation. The weight of depression was winning, and he, the great doctor of happiness, had been defeated. Confusion curdled into panic. “No, no, no… you don’t understand, this is what I DO. I can fix this. I CAN FIX THIS.” Silence pushed back. He looked at Sean, at Genie, at the kids. “Why won’t it work? Why won’t ANY OF IT WORK?!” His laugh ruptured into something hollow. Then Patch Adams, defender of joy, prophet of laughter, dropped the rubber chicken, sat down on the floor beside Maggie and Mork, and stared at the static with them. Genie dimmed beside the doorway. Sean sat down beside Patch quietly. Not to cheer him up, just so Patch didn’t spiral alone.

       Patch hadn’t moved in twenty minutes. Sean sat beside him like a lighthouse in fog. He didn’t speak. He didn’t lecture. He just looked at Patch the way you look at a dog that’s been running in circles so fast it forgot where the ground is. Sean stepped down into the wreckage with the calm of a man walking on holy ground—or hazardous waste, which honestly wasn’t far off here. He approached Patch slowly, like Patch was a skittish flamingo with unresolved issues.

       “Patch,” he murmured, “love, joy, compassion—those aren’t things you force with machines, or noise, or endless jokes. You know that. You taught that.”

       Patch froze, just for a second, like someone hit pause on a very emotional DVD.

       Sean continued, voice low, warm, impossible to argue with, “You’re not failing because you can’t fix the house. You’re struggling because you won’t sit with what’s hurting in you.”

       Patch’s mouth trembled. “Something is hurting. Someone tried to fly today. Someone tried so hard. And he fell. And I—” His voice cracked into a harsh laugh. “What good am I if I can’t keep people laughing? If I can’t keep people… up?”

       Sean stepped closer. “People fall, Patch. That’s life. Even Peter Pan has gravity some days.”

       Patch sank down onto a crate, breathing like his lungs had forgotten the choreography.

       Brainard emerged from the basement, wiped his goggles, voice small. “I didn’t mean to make it worse.”

       Sean stood beside him. “Phil, you weren’t trying to deceive him. You were trying to matter. Both of you are trying so hard to be useful, you forgot that presence counts, too.”

       Maggie tugged Robin’s sleeve. “What’s presence?”

       Robin whispered, “It’s when a grown-up doesn’t try to fix you. They just stay.”

       Patch’s shoulders shook. Sean rested a hand on his back, steady, grounding, real.

       “You don’t have to save everyone,” Sean said softly. “You don’t even have to save anyone today. You just need to… sit with the mess. With all the feelings. With each other.”

       Patch stared at his hands, shaky, glitter-smeared, trembling with too much heart and not enough places to put it.

       Then, he whispered, barely audible, “But that silence terrifies me.”

       Sean nodded. “I know. But silence isn’t failure, Patch. Silence is when the heart finally catches up.”

       Patch swallowed, eyes glossy. “I don’t want to catch up. It hurts.”

       Sean squeezed his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said softly. “It does. But you don’t have to hurt alone.” The house exhaled, walls creaking, foam settling, a single bubble floating up from the basement popping like a period at the end of a sentence. Maggie crawled over and sat beside Patch without saying a word. Mork folded himself awkwardly nearby. Brainard sniffled and nudged closer. Robin leaned against the wall, arms crossed but eyes warm. Patch looked around at them, this odd, broken, miraculous little found family, and finally, finally let his shoulders drop.

      “Ok,” he whispered.

      Sean smiled. “Good.”

      And for the first time since Ash walked out that door, the house felt like it remembered how to breathe. Then it happened. A few tears slipped out of Patch’s eyes, and his sob echoed through the room. Sean gripped his shoulder. Maggie dabbed his face with a tissue. Mork’s eyes welled up. Robin looked away.

      “Ash,” Patch shook his head, “should have stayed.” He sat with his grief, but with the family around him, he could finally stop denying his hurt and running away from its cure.

     The house had been too quiet for too long. Not the peaceful kind of quiet, the kind that listens to itself too hard, afraid of every creak. But tonight, it hummed. Low, tentative, like it was warming up its vocal cords. Upstairs, someone, probably Mrs. Doubtfire, had opened all the windows to let fresh air in. Downstairs, the basement no longer smelled like burnt foam and emotional instability, just coffee and a faint tang of leftover glitter. I stood in the living room doorway, clutching a folded sheet of paper like it might explode. Robin spotted me first.

     “You’re holding that like it’s a court summons,” he said gently.

     “It kind of feels like one,” I breathed.

     Patch, sitting cross-legged on the sofa with Maggie leaning against him, perked up. “Oh! Is that the autopsy report on our emotional crisis? Because I didn’t order that, but—”

     “It’s from the community theatre,” I blurted. Every head turned. Mork gasped so dramatically that a plant fell off a shelf. Andrew froze in the middle of polishing the windows. Brainard dropped a wrench, which clattered across the hardwood and narrowly missed Flubber, which squeaked in offense.

     Robin stepped closer. “Kiddo… what’s it say?”

     I unfolded the letter with shaking hands. My voice caught, but I powered through.

     “I got the understudy role for Ophelia,” I whispered. Then louder, “And they made me props master. I'm gonna be in Hamlet.”

     For a heartbeat, the house was utterly still.

     Then Patch launched himself upward like he’d been rocket-boosted.

    “UNDERSTUDY? PROPS MASTER? WE’VE GOT A DOUBLE-DOCTORATE OF THE ARTS!!”

    Maggie squealed. Mork attempted a cartwheel and immediately regretted it.

    Brainard shouted, “Theatre! My second least-dangerous field!” and Flubber ricocheted around the room like celebratory confetti.

    Robin didn’t say anything at first; he simply pulled me into a hug that was warm and steady and proud in a way that made my eyes sting.

    “You found a stage,” he murmured. “Even if it’s sideways and backwards. That counts.”

    I laughed into his shoulder, shaky but real. “It feels like… a beginning.”

    “It is,” Robin promised.

    From the corner, Parry stepped forward. He looked wrung out, like the day had taken his ribs and used them as a washboard.

    “Nora,” he said softly. “I owe you an apology.”

    I blinked. “For what?”

    “For everything,” he said. “For pulling Ash into this house without thinking. For letting them leave without helping them stay. For letting the whole place drown in their sadness. I should’ve—”

    “No,” I interrupted. “Parry, no. You were trying to be kind.”

    Parry’s eyes flickered like candlelight. “Kindness without wisdom is dangerous. I just wanted to save someone. I didn’t realize how badly it could hurt our home.”

    Robin stepped in, gentle but firm. “Parry… grief isn’t a toxin. It doesn’t poison on contact. You didn’t bring sadness into this house. You just opened the door for a person who needed somewhere to land.”

    Parry swallowed, guilt trembling in his voice. “I just wanted them to know they’re… seen.”

    I touched his arm. “You did. That’s why it still hurts. But it’ll settle. Houses heal, too.”

    Parry exhaled shakily, and for the first time all day, he looked lighter.

    Later, Brainard approached Patch with what suspiciously looked like blueprints.

    “I’ve been working on a non-invasive emotional stabilization prototype,” he announced proudly.

    Patch backed away instantly. “Is it powered by optimism, or does it require optimism to survive its use?”

    Brainard beamed. “It runs on interpretive dance and electrolytes!”

    “Absolutely not,” Patch declared. “No more machines. The last one nearly turned my heart into a lava lamp.” Flubber bounced helpfully. Patch gently kicked it away. Robin hid a smile behind his hand. The house felt alive. Chaotic. Improvised. Healing.

   But something was wrong

   It wasn’t until the celebration had begun to mellow that I noticed it. A chair at the dining table, the heavy oak one with clawed feet and a carved presidential seal gouged into the back, sat empty, untouched, still.

   “Hey,” I said quietly. “Has anyone seen Teddy today?”

   The house fell silent again.

   Mrs. Doubtfire looked around. “Why, he wasn’t at breakfast…”

   Mork frowned. “Nor at second breakfast…” Then, the front door blew open like the house had just been raided by enthusiasm itself. Teddy Roosevelt strode in, boots thundering, coat flapping, mustache bristling with heroic purpose.

   “HOW’S DEMOCRACY FARING?” he boomed, hands on hips. Everyone jumped. Flubber hid under a napkin. Mrs. Doubtfire clutched her pearls. Robin calmly reached over and steadied my drink before it toppled.

   I stared at him, deadpan. “Teddy… where have you been?”

  Teddy inhaled dramatically, clearly ready to launch into a speech about adventure, courage, and perhaps moose. “It is,” he declared, “a long story.”

  I crossed my arms. “Great. Then we’re going to have a long talk, later. Because this keeps happening, and it’s becoming a problem.”

  Teddy froze like someone had shot him with the world’s gentlest bullet.

  "Ah.”

  Patch leaned toward Brainard. “Is he in trouble?”

  Brainard whispered back, “Oh yes. Yes indeed.” Robin hid a smile. Mork saluted in solidarity. Mrs. Doubtfire placed a casserole in front of Teddy like a peace offering.

  Teddy cleared his throat, visibly cowed. “I shall… recount my travels after supper.”

  I nodded, still stern, but I softened. “Good. Sit down.”

  And with that, the house, noisy, mismatched, recovering, settled around the table. We shared dinner. We shared space. We shared quiet, too, the good kind, the kind that didn’t hurt. Because tonight, nobody left. Tonight, everyone came home.