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In that sense he sometimes regretted setting up his own practice. He wouldn’t have minded working at a hospital, or even in a group practice with other doctors. Sometimes he dreamed of meeting his colleagues in the canteen and talking about what was on TV last night around the water cooler or the coffee machine. What he had, instead, was Vesta, who, more often than not,could be grumpy and annoying. And unlike some receptionists of colleagues he sometimes met at conferences or seminars, she didn’t even bring him his coffee in the morning, something she strongly felt he should do himself.

He glanced around the office, then walked out, closing the door behind him. He walked home, whistling a happy tune as he did, and remembered the idea that had occurred to him earlier in the day, about launching a singing career. He needed a hobby, so why not singing? He could maybe start small, by doing a couple of shows at local eateries, and gauge the response. If he was good enough he could even audition forThe Voice orAmerican Idol orAmerica’s Got Talent and get some visibility that way. He didn’t want to become a star. All he wanted was to meet some nice people and have some fun.

So when he arrived home and let himself in with his key, the first thing he did was move down into the basement to check out the space he’d chosen to launch his singing career. When he arrived, he saw that someone had knocked out part of the back wall, and remembered how Marge had told him about the plumbing issues. He hoped the problem had been fixed. He glanced around and imagined building a small stage and installing a state-of-the-art sound system. If only he could convince colleagues like Denby Jennsen in Happy Bays and Cary Horsfield in Hampton Keys to join him, they could even form a band. The Singing Doctors. It would just be about the fun and the camaraderie, of course. And as he stood there, dreaming of a roseate future in which all four coaches ofThe Voice turned their chairs for The Singing Doctors, suddenly Vesta walked in from the next part of the basement, and growled, “Out of my way, landlubber.”

She was carrying boxes of rice and dumped them on the floor in the corner.

“Hey, Vesta,” he said. “So what’s cooking?”

She merely directed a curious eye at the ceiling.“What do you think? If we reinforced this ceiling, do you think it could withstand a nuclear blast?”

His eyes traveled up to the ceiling, which was plastered but not exactly nuclear-blast-proofed.“Um… why?” he asked, though it was probably a stupid question.

“To survive the nuclear winter, numbnuts. What do you think? Now I figure if we’re going to survive in here, you, me and Marge, we gotta dig deeper. Create more space.”

“Dig d… deeper?” he asked, staring at his mother-in-law the way he’d been staring at her for what seemed like his entire life.

“Sure. And if you want to add Odelia and Chase, we’ll probably need to go even deeper. Though I figure screw ‘em. They can dig their own bunker next door. What do you reckon?”

“Bunker? Next door?”

“Oh, don’t just stand there like a chump. Give me a hand with the potatoes.”

And she dumped a bag of potatoes into his arms.

He now saw she’d probably bought up the store’s entire stock of spuds.

“So is this for a party?” he asked. “Are you organizing a surprise party?”

“Haven’t you been listening? I’m building a bunker. To survive the nuclear winter, though it could also be a flood, at the rate the oceans are rising, or a tsunami, or a tornado. Take your pick. Or volcanoes. If Yellowstone explodes, you know we’re all screwed, right? So better get cracking, bud, and count your lucky stars we have a house to call our own. Think about the poor bastards who live in an apartment. They’ll be wiped out first. So where do you think we should start drilling?”

When Marge arrived home ten minutes later, it was a pale and visibly distraught Tex who emerged from the basement. The first thing she thought was that the skeleton was still down there, and she now remembered she’d totally forgotten to tell him about that. But when her husband uttered the word Vesta, she knew it wasn’t the skeleton that had scared the living daylights out of him, but her mother. Now why wasn’t she surprised?

Chapter 17

“Brutus, you have to get me out of here,” Harriet said, not for the first time.

“I know, sugar muffin, but I can’t. Your head seems to be really, really stuck in there.”

“Damn mouse,” Harriet grumbled. “If I get my paws on that horrible creature, I’ll tear her limb from limb and then stomp on her remains. Ouch!” she yelled when Brutus had grabbed hold of her butt and tried pulling her in a straight line away from the wall.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I think we need a helping paw here.”

“No way. Uh-uh. I’m not going to suffer the indignation of anyone finding out about this,” she said decidedly. “No one can know this happened, Brutus. Promise me.”