Rick pulled more. A tangled ball of “flushable” wipes—which are never flushable—wrapped around the roots like a wet Christmas garland. The water in the basement gave a final, defeated sigh and drained. The toilet upstairs burped, then settled into a quiet, functional silence.
“All good,” Dave said. And for now, in the fragile truce between a family and its plumbing, it was.
Twenty minutes later, the basement sink coughed up a fistful of gray suds. Then the washing machine, mid-cycle, gave a shudder and vomited a geyser of soapy water across the concrete floor. Dave’s wife, Lena, came down the stairs with a laundry basket and stopped cold.
“Tell me you’re fixing it.”
