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The problem started on day three.
Not the actual project. That came later.
The real problem was that Jack had been gone for three days. Which, according to Robby, was not a problem at all.
According to everyone else, Robby was lying. “I am not sulking.”
“You just sighed at a spatula.”
Robby looked up from where he was standing in the kitchen trying to reheat the meals that Jack had lovingly prepared for them.
Trinity sat at the table eating cereal because it was safe. Dennis was beside her with three textbooks open and Victoria was attempting to study while also watching the argument unfold.
“I did not sigh at a spatula.”
“You absolutely did,” Victoria said.
“It wasn’t even a sad sigh,” Trinity added. “It was a yearning sigh.”
Robby stared at them. The audacity. “I’m fifty-two years old.”
“Exactly,” Trinity replied. “You’ve reached the age where you stare wistfully out of windows.”
Dennis nodded solemnly. “Dad behaviour.”
Robby pointed at him immediately. “You don’t get to join in.”
Dennis looked delighted by this.
Three days. Three days and suddenly the entire house had become insufferable.
The kitchen felt too quiet. The downstairs bathroom light had somehow stopped working and nobody knew where Jack kept the replacement bulbs. The herb garden needed watering. The weird rattling noise in the laundry room had returned.
And, most importantly, nobody could find the good scissors. The good scissors had apparently vanished with Jack.
“Have any of you actually looked for them?” Robby asked.
“We have,” Victoria replied.
“No you haven’t.”
“We opened three drawers.”
“That isn’t looking.”
“That’s all Jack does.”
Robby hated that she had a point.
The conference itself was entirely reasonable. Some trauma surgery thing in Chicago. Panels. Lectures. Networking.
Jack had been annoyingly excited about it. Robby had been supportive because he was a loving husband. A loving husband who was currently eating lunch alone because his idiot spouse was three states away.
His phone buzzed. Immediately everyone looked up.
Robby narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Trinity asked.
“No.”
“It’s definitely him.”
Robby sighed and looked down.
Jack ❤️
Trinity made a noise so dramatic it should’ve required medical intervention. “Oh my God.”
“Don’t.”
“You have a special emoji.”
“You all have special emojis.”
Dennis immediately sat upright. “We do?”
“You are not seeing my contacts. Everyone stop being weird.”
The phone rang again.
Jack ❤️
“Answer your husband,” Trinity ordered.
Robby glared at her. Then answered anyway on speakerphone. “Hello.”
Jack’s voice filled the kitchen immediately through speakerphone. “Hi honey.”
The room collectively melted. Including Robby. Which was deeply annoying. “Hey.”
“Miss me?”
“Moderately.”
“Liar.”
“Jack,” Robby said patiently, “I’m surrounded by feral witnesses.”
“Hi kids!”
Four people responded automatically. “Hi Jack.”
Robby pinched the bridge of his nose. Traitors.
“How’s Chicago?” Victoria asked.
“Boring. Everybody here keeps wanting to discuss evidence-based medicine.”
“That’s literally why you’re there.”
“Exactly. Terrible planning.”
Dennis laughed.
Robby leaned back against the counter listening to Jack talk while the others immediately hijacked the conversation.
It happened every evening. A video call. Updates from the conference. Questions about food.
The first day involved Jack showing them how horrible his accessible room is. Yesterday he’d called purely to show them a very large dog he’d met in the lobby.
The house felt lighter during the calls. Then heavier afterwards. Nobody mentioned that part.
Jack was halfway through describing a disastrous keynote speaker when he suddenly paused.
“Wait.”
The entire kitchen went still. Robby immediately recognised that tone. “What?”
“Has anyone watered my tomatoes?”
Silence. Everyone froze simultaneously.
“Oh no.” Jack’s voice was flat, already mourning the loss of his vegetable patch.
“We watered them,” Trinity said immediately.
“You sounded guilty before you even finished the sentence.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Jack addressed his next victim. “Dennis.”
Dennis sat up straighter. “I’ve never seen those tomatoes in my life.”
“You helped me plant them.”
“I don’t recall that.”
“Victoria?”
Victoria didn’t even look up from her textbook. “I refuse to participate in this investigation without my legal representative.”
Jack gasped dramatically. “Michael.”
Robby laughed. “Oh no, don’t drag me into this.”
“Honey, have they murdered my garden?”
The four guilty parties immediately began talking over one another.
“We’ve been busy-”
“In our defence-”
“The weather’s been weird-”
“Technically plants are resilient-”
“Children.” Jack called, causing the room to fall silent. “Go water my tomatoes.”
Three chairs scraped backwards simultaneously.
“Fine.”
“We’re going.”
“This is emotional blackmail.”
“Tell the tomatoes I love them.” Jack called after them.
The stampede toward the back door began immediately.
Within seconds only Robby remained in the kitchen.
The sudden quiet felt strange. Comfortable. Robby leaned back against the counter. “Your children are terrified of you.”
“They should be.”
For a second neither spoke. Three days wasn’t long. Not really. Still. The kitchen felt emptier without Jack standing in it.
Jack’s voice was soft when he next spoke. “You okay, honey?”
Robby huffed a laugh. “Of course.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe.”
“I miss you too.”
Something warm settled low in Robby’s chest.
Outside, somewhere in the garden, Trinity immediately shouted: “WHY ARE THERE SO MANY WEEDS?”
Followed by Dennis yelling: “DON’T PULL THAT!”
And Victoria screaming: “OH MY GOD, SHE PULLED IT.”
Jack sighed deeply. “Huh.”
“What?”
“I think my garden’s in danger.”
—-
By the time Robby made it outside ten minutes later, the situation had somehow deteriorated.
This was not surprising.
The garden stretched behind the house in a long, slightly wild rectangle that backed onto an alleyway. Most of it was Jack’s domain.
Vegetables. Herbs. A collection of plants that apparently required different soil types and watering schedules because Jack enjoyed making life difficult.
Usually it looked charming. However it was currently being overtaken by three “medical professionals” with no clue what they were doing.
“What happened?” Robby asked.
Victoria pointed immediately. “Trinity.”
“I thought it was a weed.”
“It was basil.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“It was growing in the herb garden.”
“That means nothing to me.”
Dennis was kneeling beside one of the tomato plants looking deeply concerned. “Do tomatoes normally lean like this?”
Robby squinted. “No.”
“Huh.”
“That doesn’t sound encouraging.”
“It isn’t.”
Dennis sighed heavily. “Sorry, Jack.” The apology was directed toward the plant. Robby chose not to comment.
The afternoon sun hung warm overhead. Somewhere nearby a lawnmower droned lazily. For a moment the scene felt oddly peaceful despite the ongoing horticultural crimes.
Then Victoria frowned. “Wait.”
Everybody looked over.
She was standing beside one of the large wooden raised beds that lined the back fence.
Jack had built them years ago. Long before the house became what it was now.
Long before Dennis and Trinity and Victoria had appeared carrying overnight bags and emotional baggage.
Victoria nudged one of the wooden boards cautiously with her trainer. The entire side shifted. A screw dropped out. And landed in the dirt.
“Oh.”
Trinity walked over. Poked it. The wood crumbled slightly.
Dennis joined them. “This doesn’t seem ideal.”
“No kidding.”
Robby wandered over more slowly. One look told him everything he needed to know. The beds were old. Not dangerous exactly. Just tired.
Years of weather had warped the wood. Several boards had split. One corner leaned outward at an angle that suggested gravity was winning.
Jack had mentioned replacing them. Repeatedly.
Usually followed by:
When I get a weekend.
Unfortunately Jack’s weekends had spent the last year being consumed by trauma calls and conferences and TEMS shifts and adopting baby doctors.
“Yankl’s been complaining about these for months,” Robby admitted.
“Why hasn’t he fixed them?” Dennis asked.
Robby looked at him. “Dennis.”
“Right.”
Jack’s to-do list existed in a constant state of expansion. The man collected projects like other people collected hobbies.
Victoria crouched beside one of the beds. “That’s kind of sad.”
“What is?”
She gestured vaguely toward the garden. “He likes this stuff.”
She was right. Jack genuinely loved it. Not the vegetables. Not really. The building. The fixing. The tinkering. The satisfaction of making something work again.
Trinity was staring thoughtfully at the raised bed now. Which immediately made Robby nervous. “Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking.”
“That seems unfair.”
“Every time you get that look, something catches fire.”
Dennis nodded. “She did set the coffee maker on fire that one time.”
“How?”
“Nobody knows.”
Trinity ignored them completely. Her eyes remained fixed on the rotting wood. Then slowly: “What if…”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“No.”
“What if we fixed it?”
Robby closed his eyes. There it was. The idea.
Dennis blinked. “Us?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t know how.”
“Neither did Jack at some point.”
“That’s objectively not true,” Victoria said. “He emerged from the womb carrying a toolbox and an emergency med kit.”
“Exactly.”
Victoria sighed. “That doesn’t support your argument.” But she was smiling slightly now.
Dennis looked between the beds. Then toward the house. Then back again. “Would he like it?”
The question settled over the group. For a second nobody joked. Nobody argued.
Because underneath all of it sat the simple truth: They missed him. The house missed him. Even the garden missed him.
Robby especially missed him.
Trinity looked toward the leaning raised bed. “We could surprise him.”
“Oh God,” Robby muttered.
“Think about it.”
“I am. That’s why I’m worried.”
“He’s always doing stuff for us.”
That shut Robby up. Because she wasn’t wrong. The house itself was evidence of that.
The repaired shelves for Trinity to put her old gymnastic trophies. The rocking chair on the back porch for Victoria. The hooks by the entrance for everyone’s bags. The extra bookshelves for Dennis. The guest rooms turned bedrooms.
Jack built things because it was how he loved people.
And for the first time, the kids all looked at something he’d been meaning to fix and thought ‘Maybe we could do this for him.’
That was exactly how the disaster began.
—-
The first indication that the project might be doomed arrived approximately six minutes after they entered the hardware store.
“Right what do we need?.” Trinity asked.
Everyone paused. Trinity looked at Dennis. Dennis looked at Victoria. Victoria looked at Robby. Robby looked at the ceiling. Nobody spoke.
“Oh my God,” Victoria said.
“We can guess.”
“No,” Dennis replied immediately. “No we cannot.”
“We literally work in medicine. We are objectively smart people.”
“That somehow makes this worse.”
The automatic doors slid shut behind them while shoppers pushed carts past carrying lumber and bags of soil.
Around them stretched row after row of things none of them understood.
Wood.
Nails.
Screws.
Power tools.
Robby had the sudden horrible realisation that his husband knew what all of these were for.
Not just generally. Specifically. Jack could probably identify screw sizes from twenty feet away. Robby couldn’t even remember what type of wood the raised beds were made from.
“Okay,” Trinity announced. “New plan.”
“You don’t have a first plan.”
“Details.”
Victoria was already pulling out her phone. “We should call Jack.”
“No!” Three heads turned toward Robby. “No,” he repeated.
“Why?”
“Because then he’ll know.”
“He’ll know eventually.”
“Yes, but ideally after we’ve completed at least step one.”
Dennis looked around uncertainly. “What was step one?”
Nobody knew. That felt concerning.
A cheerful employee appeared beside them. “Can I help you folks find anything?”
The group visibly brightened. Finally. An adult.
“Yes,” Robby said. “We need wood.”
The employee waited. Robby waited. The employee waited longer.
“What kind of wood?”
The confidence evaporated instantly.
Trinity stepped forward. “Garden wood?”
The employee blinked. “Garden… wood?”
“You know.” She gestured vaguely. “Outside wood.”
Victoria closed her eyes and Dennis looked like he wanted the floor to open beneath him.
The employee, to his credit, remained professional. “What are you building?”
All four of them answered differently.
“A raised bed.”
“A planter.”
“A garden thing.”
“A plant house.”
The employee stared. Then slowly: “Okay.”
A remarkable amount of patience was contained within that single word. Ten minutes later they were standing in the lumber aisle. This had not improved matters.
“Why are there so many woods?” Trinity asked.
“Trees,” Victoria replied.
“Helpful.”
“No problem.”
Robby examined a plank. It looked exactly like every other plank. “How does Jack know?”
“Know what?”
“Any of this.”
Dennis considered. “I think he can just sense it.”
“That doesn’t sound scientific.”
“Neither does him renovating an entire house while working full-time.”
The employee returned carrying a tape measure. “Do you know the dimensions?”
Silence. Again. The employee looked upward briefly as though asking for strength.
“We could estimate,” Trinity offered.
“No,” Dennis said immediately.
The employee pointed at Dennis. “Him. Listen to him.”
For once, Dennis looked delighted to be the sensible one. Unfortunately that lasted all of thirty seconds. Because once they finally worked out rough dimensions from photos on their phones, they reached the next obstacle.
Screws. There were approximately six million types. At least. Possibly more.
“Why are there different screws?” Trinity asked.
“Because they do different jobs.”
“What jobs?”
The employee looked at her. Then looked at the wall of screws. Then looked back.
“You know what? I’ll pick.”
By the time they finally reached the checkout, Robby was pushing a trolley containing:
- lumber
- screws
- brackets
- soil
- gloves
- two tape measures because somebody lost the first one
- gardening twine
- something called wood preservative
The total appeared on the screen. Robby blinked. Then blinked again. “That’s absurd.”
Victoria leaned sideways to look. “Oh my God.”
Dennis looked alarmed. “Should we put some back?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Robby sighed deeply. Because unfortunately he knew exactly what Jack would say. If you’re going to do a project, do it properly. The memory made something warm settle briefly in his chest.
Then the cashier announced the total again. The warmth disappeared immediately. “Yankl is going to kill me.”
“You’re spending his money on a gift for him,” Trinity pointed out.
“That feels worse somehow.”
The cashier handed over the receipt. It was long enough to qualify as literature.
Outside, they stood beside the car staring at the mountain of supplies they’d somehow acquired.
Nobody spoke. Finally Victoria asked, “Do we actually know how to build this?”
Robby looked at the lumber. The lumber looked back. “Well,” he said.
And that was not a reassuring start to any sentence.
—-
The next problem was that none of the wood fit in the car. This should probably have been obvious sooner.
Instead, the realisation arrived twenty minutes after leaving the hardware store while four highly educated adults stood in the car park staring at several very long planks.
“Huh,” Dennis said.
Trinity poked one of the boards. “What if we angle it?”
“We did angle it.”
“What if we angle it more?”
Eventually they paid extra for delivery. This felt like a defeat.
Further problems arrived when the wood reached the house. Because now they actually had to build something. The pile of lumber sat in the garden looking alarmingly professional. The four of them did not.
Robby stood with his hands on his hips surveying the materials. “How hard can it be?”
“Robby,” Victoria said carefully.
“Yes?”
“You saying that has never once led to a positive outcome.”
“Rude.”
Before Robby could defend himself further, Dennis held up a sheet of instructions he’d printed out from the home office. “Should we read these?”
Trinity physically took them from his hands and folded them in half. “We’re doctors.”
Dennis looked horrified. Victoria looked equally horrified.
Robby looked like he regretted starting this.
—-
An hour later, nothing was built.
They had, however:
- misplaced a hammer
- lost an entire box of screws
- argued about basic geometry
- accidentally built one side panel backwards
The hammer was eventually discovered hanging from Robby’s belt. Nobody commented on this. Mostly because they were afraid he’d become defensive.
The screws never reappeared. Their disappearance remained one of the great mysteries of the Abbot-Robinavitch cd household.
“Okay,” Trinity said.
“Okay,” Robby agreed.
“Why doesn’t this fit?”
The four of them stared at two pieces of wood that absolutely should have fit together. They did not.
Victoria checked the measurements. Then checked them again. Then looked up slowly. “Who cut this?”
Everyone looked at Dennis. Dennis looked personally attacked. “Why is it automatically me?”
“Because you’re holding the saw.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.” Unfortunately it proved quite a lot. The board was two inches too short. A silence settled over the garden. Dennis examined his handiwork. “Oh.”
The next issue involved power tools. Jack owned many. Far too many. An entire workshop lived behind the garage filled with carefully organised equipment.
Normally this was wonderful. Today it felt like entering a wizard’s tower.
“Which one is the drill?” Trinity asked.
Victoria pointed confidently at a tool.
“That’s a sander.”
“How do you know?”
“It says sander.”
“Right.”
The drill was eventually located. Then nobody knew how to use it.
“Jack makes this look easy,” Trinity complained.
Robby attempted the first screw. The drill immediately lurched sideways. The screw entered the wood at what could only be described as an ‘artistic’ angle.
Everyone stared. Robby stared back. “Nobody saw that.”
“We all saw that.”
“Then forget it.”
—-
By late afternoon they had succeeded in creating something. Unfortunately nobody knew what it was.
The original plan had involved four straight sides, matching corners and structural integrity.
The reality was less ambitious. One side sat noticeably higher than the others. Another leaned outward slightly. Several brackets appeared to exist purely for emotional support.
Victoria stepped back to assess their progress. “It looks drunk.”
“It does not.”
“It absolutely does.”
Dennis nodded. “It’s listing to port.”
“It’s a garden bed, not a ship.”
“Then why does it look seasick?”
Robby pinched the bridge of his nose. This was becoming increasingly familiar. Because this was exactly what happened whenever Jack left. The children became feral. And apparently Robby wasn’t helping. He was leading them.
The last problem arrived in the form of weather. The sky darkened. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance.
Everyone froze.
“No.”
“No.”
“Absolutely not.”
The first raindrop landed directly in the middle of their pile of tools.
Trinity pointed accusingly at the sky. “We’re doing something nice!”
The weather remained unsympathetic.
Within thirty seconds they were sprinting toward the house carrying tools and wood and screws and wounded pride
Robby nearly slipped on the patio. Dennis saved the drill. Victoria saved the instructions they’d previously ignored. Trinity saved absolutely nothing.
“Every disaster movie starts like this,” she announced as they tumbled through the back door.
“You know,” Robby said, dripping rainwater across the kitchen floor.
“What?”
“I’m starting to understand why Jack usually does this alone.”
All four of them could practically hear Jack Abbot laughing at them from another city.
—-
The next morning began with optimism.
“We can fix it.”
“Can we?”
“We can.”
“Based on what evidence?”
Trinity ignored Victoria completely.
Outside, the raised bed sat in the morning sunshine looking somehow worse than it had the previous evening.
The rain had not been kind. One corner had settled lower into the soil overnight. A supporting bracket hung at an angle that suggested it had given up. And nobody wanted to discuss the fact that one entire side appeared to be bowing outward.
Robby stood on the patio drinking coffee and squinting at it. “Huh.”
“Huh?” Dennis echoed nervously.
“It definitely wasn’t doing that yesterday.”
“It has gotten worse,I think.”
“Well that’s more concerning.”
By lunchtime they had attempted:
- reinforcing the corners
- adding more screws
- removing some screws
- re-reading the instructions
- ignoring the instructions again
Nothing helped. In fact, several interventions appeared to have actively worsened the situation.
The garden bed now possessed what Victoria privately described as structural opinions.
“Okay,” Robby announced finally. “We stop.”
Everyone looked relieved. “We stop?”
“We stop.”
Dennis looked toward the garden bed. Then toward the sky. Then back again. “Good.”
Because the thing was objectively awful. Not charmingly awful. Not homemade awful. Awful awful.
The kind of project that would make Jack physically itch. Unfortunately, there was now very little time left before he saw it.
—-
By six o’clock everyone was nervous. Nobody admitted it. But nervous.
Jack’s flight had landed an hour ago. He was on his way home.
The house hummed with the strange anticipatory energy that always arrived before someone returned from a trip. Victoria kept looking out the window. Dennis was pacing. Trinity kept rearranging things for no reason. Robby pretended he wasn’t checking his phone every four minutes.
Then headlights swept across the front windows. The entire house froze.
“Oh God.”
“Nobody panic.”
“We should panic.”
“We should’ve burned it.”
“It’s too late now.”
The front door opened. Immediately followed by: “Hello?” Jack’s voice carried through the hallway.
And just like that, all four of them smiled. Because regardless of the garden bed situation, Jack was home.
A moment later he appeared in the kitchen dragging a suitcase behind him. Travel-worn and tired. Home.
“There he is,” Robby said warmly.
Jack’s face softened instantly. “There you are.”
The kiss happened automatically. Quick. Easy. Familiar.
The kids immediately made exaggerated disgusted noises.
“Children,” Jack said without looking away from Robby. “I was gone for a week.”
“Traumatising.”
“You’ll survive.”
Dennis hugged him next. Then Trinity. Then Victoria. Jack greeted all three like he’d only been gone a day instead of a week. Which somehow made the house feel complete again.
Then he frowned slightly. “Why do you all look guilty?”
Silence.
“Michael.”
Robby looked away. Jack narrowed his eyes. “Oh no.”
—-
Five minutes later they were standing in the garden.
Jack stopped. The family stopped with him. Nobody spoke.
The raised bed sat in the evening sunlight looking like a monument to poor decision-making. One side leaned. The measurements didn’t match. There were visible screws everywhere. And somehow, despite starting as a rectangle, it had developed a suspiciously hexagonal quality.
Jack stared. Long enough that Dennis visibly began sweating. Trinity crossed her arms. Victoria looked prepared to flee the country. Robby suddenly found the tomato plants fascinating.
Still Jack said nothing. He just continued staring. Slowly. Carefully. Like a man attempting to understand a crime scene. Then he walked forward. Crouched. Touched one of the boards. Examined a bracket. Discovered three different screw sizes.
His eyebrows climbed steadily higher. “Interesting.”
“Nobody likes that word,” Victoria muttered.
Jack stood again. Looked at the bed. Looked at the family. Then back at the bed. “Michael.”
Robby winced. “Yes?”
“Why is there a load-bearing zip tie?”
“…it was an emergency.”
Jack closed his eyes. Dennis made a strangled noise.
Trinity immediately lost control of her laughter. “You said it was temporary!”
“It was supposed to be!”
Jack looked at the zip tie again. Then at the suspiciously unsupported corner beneath it. Then at the entire structure.
A smile started.
Small at first. Then bigger. Until suddenly he was laughing. Not polite laughing. Actual laughing. The kind that bent him slightly at the waist.
The family stared.
“You like it?” Dennis asked hopefully.
Jack wiped at one eye. “Oh sweetheart.”
Which was not a reassuring answer.
“We wanted it to be good,” Victoria admitted.
“You kept talking about replacing the old one,” Trinity added.
“We thought you’d like it,” Dennis finished.
The laughter faded. The smile didn’t. Jack looked around at all of them. His family. His husband. His accidental collection of youths. Then back at the disaster they’d created.
“Kids,” he said warmly. “This is the best gift you’ve ever given me.”
Everyone relaxed. For exactly one second. Then Jack grinned.
“Because now I get to fix it.”
The collective outrage was immediate.
“JACK!”
“THAT’S SO RUDE!”
“WE SPENT TWO DAYS ON THAT!”
Jack pointed triumphantly at the garden bed. “Honey, you spent two days creating a fascinating woodworking mystery.”
Robby laughed despite himself. Jack slipped an arm around his waist, still smiling as he looked out at the catastrophic raised bed.
Tomorrow he’d fix it. Probably. Maybe.
After all, there were several structural crimes to investigate first.
But tonight, standing in the garden surrounded by people who’d spent days trying to build something for him simply because they missed him, Jack found he didn’t particularly care how bad it looked.
The gift had never really been the garden bed. It was the fact that when something needed fixing, they’d thought of him.
And honestly?
That was pretty perfect.