Even though we’re not open yet, I take the first phone call of the day at 7:20, because I know my employees are busy finishing last-minute pre-opening prep.

“Maudlin Falls Mercantile and Feed,” I answer. “How may I direct your call?” I mean, we don’t really have a sophisticated phone system. We have four lines, and we put the caller on hold and then page for someone to pick it up, depending on who’s in on any given day.

“Oh, yes!” the frantic woman gasps. “Thank god! Are you open?”

“We open at 7:30, and—”

“Please tell me you have drain snakes!”

I prop the handset between my shoulder and ear as I swivel my chair so I can pull up stock on my desktop computer. I have a laptop that goes with me between here and home but this one stays here and when I’m working I usually have it open to our internal system for just this reason.

“Yes, ma’am. I have two different styles in stock.”

“Great, I—Johnny, I swear, if you don’t get away from that toilet right now, I will make you dig a hole in the backyard and do your business there for the rest of the year!”

I struggle not to burst out laughing. Wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’ve dealt with a parent needing to dig a toy out of a toilet.

Won’t even be the first time this month. “Ma’am, do you need me to have this delivered to you?”

“Can you? Oh, my goodness, that would be amazing, thank you!”

“No worries. What happened, if I might ask?”

She starts to tell me, bursting into tears halfway through the story. Her ten-year-old son got mad at his little brother for breaking one of his game controllers, so he flushed the other boy’s favorite superhero action figure.

Which is now stopping far more than crime.

And she’s a single mom.

Something tickles my mind. She sounds really familiar. “Is this Kelly Ayers?”

She sniffles. “Yes?”

I’m glad I’m the one who took this call. “This is Tommy. Tom Levesque. I’ll grab a few things and be right over.” I don’t even need to ask her address—she lives two houses down from me. Her parents were friends with my parents. Fortunately, they left her their house when they died, because her ex-husband divorced her for another woman and is currently dodging paying child support.

She’s barely getting by. The only reason she’s surviving and has a roof over her head is because her parents didn’t have a mortgage.

“Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry, Tommy. I didn’t recognize your voice. I—” She sniffles again. “I don’t get paid until Friday.”

“We’ll figure it out, hon. It’s okay. I’ll be right over.”

“Thank you so much!” Once I end the call I grab my work cell, update the mobile payment app, and then head downstairs to pick out a couple of extra things. I’m not going to sell her a snake—I have one at home. But in case I have to pull the toilet to get the toy out of the drain, I’ll need a new wax ring. So I get that and then let everyone know I’m heading out for a little while, and why.

Twenty minutes later, I’m on my knees in Kelly’s sons’ bathroom in front of the toilet. She’s crying and sounds like she’s close to breaking. Before I got there, she sent her sons to school with the neighbor and the neighbor’s daughter, and now she’s free to speak her mind.

“I love my kids, don’t get me wrong. I’m just so…tired.” She sobs and I can’t exactly comfort her right now. Not when I’ve got protective gloves up to my armpits and I’m ladling less than pristine water out of her toilet into an old bucket with a plastic butter tub.

“It’s okay, Kel. I don’t mind helping you out. How’s work going?”

She sniffles again. “It’s okay. They reduced my load last month due to budget cuts but at least I still have a job. So that’s something, I suppose.”

She works from home for a medical billing company. You’d think that’d be a growth industry. Problem is, the regional company was sold to a national chain a few months back and they started downsizing and consolidating almost immediately. Rumors have been flying that the several town citizens who depend upon the company in some way or another will likely suffer as a result.

Like Kelly, a single mother who, in nearly any other situation, would be facing dire choices. She has severe pain and chronic health issues as a result of the car accident that killed her parents and seriously injured her, too. Fortunately, her sons were at school, not in the car with them, when it happened.

“Are you going to be okay? Financially, I mean?”

She nods and blows her nose. “For now. I’ve been really careful with my money. I’m worried more about health insurance for me and the boys if I lose my job. We mostly live off my pay, because I keep everything else in savings, or retirement accounts, or their college accounts. I don’t want to touch any of those unless it’s a dire emergency.” Her gaze turns dark. “If Dumbass would pay me what he owes in back child support, and keep up with the payments, that would be one worry off my plate.”

“Attorney?”

“He can’t do any more than he has. My ex ducks the process servers. He’s living with a girlfriend.”

“Can’t they dock his pay?”

“Eventually, if we can track down where he’s working. The other problem is that he’s apparently working for cash under the table with buddies of his.”

I keep her talking as I work because I can sense she needs an ear. Not to mention it gives me something to think about besides what I’m doing.