Adrift.

On wide open seas.

I don’t think we’re going to make it.

All three of us are on the same futon, surrounded by sharks.

We have paddles—a plastic rake missing one tooth, a plastic shovel, and a matching yellow hoe. These are little use.

Inexplicably, we have begun chumming the water to, as Jakey puts it, “Feed the sharks.”

Heather holds the basket of plastic food from Jakey’s kitchen and he tosses one piece at a time onto the carpet to feed the sharks. Plastic lettuce here, a plastic T-bone steak there. Asparagus. An ice cream sandwich. These sharks are eating well.

Then Heather tosses a piece of plastic broccoli and it rolls out the doorway and to the far side of the kitchen.

Jakey says, “not over there!” He scoots off the futon and runs out of the playroom to retrieve it. I wait until he grasps the broccoli and has just turned to come back before I shout.

“Shaaaarrrrrrk!

His blue eyes open wide. He motors, those little legs pistoning in triple time, and when he hurls himself back into our arms on the futon I feel his heart hammering through his rib cage against me.

He cackles. He can’t catch his breath through the excitement and laughter.

He is back on the futon again. Floating. Safe.

For now.