- Chapter 19.
With Marina back working long days at her law office
and Tom writing his novel late into the night
all while raising three kids,
they were both running on fumes.
Fortunately, Marina's father, Roberto, had just arrived
last night from San Diego to help out.
Hey, Papi.
- Morning, Papi.
- You're up early.
- I fixed your porch light for you.
- Oh, I didn't know it was broken.
- Well, it isn't anymore.
- [clears throat] Right.
- You know, Tom could do that.
- Yeah, I put together this table right here.
- Oh. [table creaking]
- Oh, that kind of--
it's actually-- it's never done that before.
- Thank you so much for helping out.
The twins, they usually go down for their first nap at 10:00,
but Alejandro, he needs to be rocked to sleep.
You know what? Just keep them alive.
- You need any money?
- No, thank you. I'm fine.
- Okay. - Okay.
- Well, that was some quality Roberto time.
- Yeah, that might be the longest conversation
we've had in ten years. - That's kind of sad.
- Look, I know he's not exactly warm
or good with kids.
The only game he would play with me
when I was little was called "Shh."
I always won.
- That's actually kind of smart.
- Look, it's just for a week, okay?
Now that he is retired and with Mom gone,
wow, five years now, he needs to keep busy.
- In terms of that week,
is that seven days starting today,
or is it, like, technically last night?
- Bye. - Okay.
Oh, hey.
- Can you slip this into Marina's purse?
You look like you hold her purse a lot.
- What? Come on. I'm not a purse-holding guy.
- I would give anything
to be able to hold my wife's purse again.
- Right, that's--yes. Hmm.
Do you know how many this is?
It's seven.
Seven more days.
[upbeat music]
- ♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
[laughter]
- So, Roberto, how's retirement?
- It's good.
- How is San Diego?
- Fine.
- This is a good time.
We're all having fun.
Funny story.
I'm actually dating Denise's sister, JoJo.
Yeah, she's kind of, like, a social media influencer.
- I don't know what that is.
- No one does.
She would be here, but there's a teacher strike in Colorado,
so she's there passing out CBD gummies on her livestream.
- [chuckles] At least she's making money.
- Tom makes money, Papi. - Yeah.
I just have to finish writing my book, sell it,
get an advance, and in few years,
the semiannual royalties will start rolling in, so...
money made.
- That's nice, Tom.
Here, you're gonna need this.
- Oh. - Okay.
- I'll try to slip this back into his pocket
without him noticing.
- Yeah, I'm gonna go check on Camila,
and while I'm in her room, I'm just gonna
stay in there forever.
- It's so great Camila has her own room.
Kelvin and Shamiah are on top of each other every day.
- Hey, me and Tom shared a room growing up, and look at us.
Yeah, you should do something about that.
- Yeah. I mean, maybe it is time to move.
We are a two-income family now.
- But can you afford it?
- Well, we've been visualizing abundance.
- Yeah, that sounds, you know,
like, super real, but, you know,
Maybe you could look into some type of financial planning.
- Ooh, yes. Like a spreadsheet. - Ooh.
- I've always wanted to use a spreadsheet.
- Yeah, and we can say things like,
"We crunched the numbers." - Yeah. "We crunched them."
And then, "Are we in the red? What does red even mean?"
- Yeah. "Red light, green light."
- Yeah. - [clears throat]
- Are you well?
- I just think it's a bummer that you don't know anyone
who could help you crunch.
You know, like, a guy who's good with numbers.
Maybe a dude with a smoking-hot bod.
- What does that have to with it?
- I just work hard to maintain this,
and no one's said anything in a while.
- Okay, Connor, would you like to help us figure out
if we can afford to move?
- Please would be nice.
- No, I'm not doing that. - No, come on.
I really wanna do this so bad.
Please?
- Okay, here are our most recent bank statements.
- You have to promise not to laugh.
- Sarah, come on. You know I can't do that.
Laughter is involuntary.
- Oh, I already regret this.
- I appreciate you guys trusting me with this.
And, Denise, you hide it well, but I know deep down,
you're still a little skeptical that I'm dating your sister.
- I am. - It's okay.
Don't deny it. - I'm not.
I think it's a horrible idea and it's gonna end badly.
- Well, this is my chance
to prove that she's with a responsible adult.
Lupe? Ahh. Thank you.
- When did you--
- These are not prescription. He just likes how they look.
- Okay. Smart.
Not keeping a lot of money tied up
in a low-interest savings account.
That's good. - Yeah, that was intentional.
- So where are you keeping it?
- Keeping what? - The rest of the money.
- There's no rest. That's it.
- [laughs] - Connor.
- It's--it's involuntary.
Look, I guess I'm just a little shocked.
I have more money in my couch cushions.
That was a joke. My couch cushions are pristine.
- Okay, we get it. We're comically poor.
We make soup from shoes.
- When I open my wallet, a lone moth flies out.
- We have clouds of dirt that follow us around.
- Sometimes we walk around in barrels.
- We just need to know if we can afford a bigger apartment.
- Um, no. No, you cannot.
I honestly don't know how you can afford to live now.
- Oh, well, some credit cards let you to transfer a balance.
- Oh, my God. Stop.
Look, if you need money, I'm happy to help you out.
- Thank you, Connor. But we can do this on our own.
- Okay.
- So we can't pay for more space,
but maybe we can make more space.
We could use a good decluttering.
- Ooh. Yeah. Me too.
- Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing.
Such a mess.
- Yeah. I mean, look at all these papers.
- Those are ours.
- And I'll feel much better when they're gone.
What can I say? I'm a minimalist.
- You have three sports cars.
- And a four-car garage.
If anything, I'm under-carred.
I may not be able to help you fix your finances,
but I can help with this.
- He is ruthless with clutter.
Did you know he only has three shirts?
- That can't be true.
- Sometimes I let him organize my purse
just as a little treat.
- I've organized these by date.
- Can you come by tomorrow?
- Hey. - Hi.
- I can do this. Do you need to go write?
- No. Actually, I got a ton of writing done.
Whole chapter, in fact.
It's about how in third grade, I was walking in the woods
and I saw a dead bird.
That's not-- - I can read it when it's done.
- Okay, yeah, you can read it when I'm done.
But the point is, your dad took the kids all day.
He even put them down. - Really? My dad?
He must have complained about government corruption
until they passed out from boredom.
So the kids are down,
and we have nothing else to do at 8:30 on a Friday night?
- Looks that way.
- Wow, I can't remember the last time that happened.
Should we...
go to bed?
- I'm not that tired.
Maybe we should finally watch "Squid Game."
Oh, "go to bed," go to bed. Yes, I'd love to go to bed.
- Hi.
- [coughing]
- Okay. This isn't ideal.
- No. Should we go out to the car?
- It's like we're teenagers
trying to not let my dad catch us.
- Sneaking around is kind of hot.
- We could pretend
you're picking me up for the big dance.
- Oh, yeah, and I'm the coolest guy in school
'cause I got a brand-new minivan.
- [groans]
- Morning.
- You let me sleep in?
- Ah, come on, you looked so peaceful.
- That seat belt left a mark.
- Did it?
But you know what? It was worth it.
[Roberto speaking indistinctly] - What was that?
- It's your dad, he's playing with the kids again.
I had no idea he did voices.
- What are you talking about? What voices?
- I am Rata the rat,
and somebody ate my cheese.
Don't tell Rata that I ate his cheese,
or I will be in the doghouse.
- What am I looking at? - A puppet show.
Rata's actually a pretty well-defined character.
Fascinating backstory. He and the dog are brothers.
- I don't understand. - Well...
obviously one of them is adopted.
- At least we can both agree, we both hate cats.
- He bought them a puppet theater?
- No, he made it himself. Got up at 5:30.
- Wow. When I was a kid, I begged him to make me
this little castle playhouse, and nothing.
- Come on, isn't this a good thing?
He's playing with his grandkids.
- Of course.
Yeah, no, it's great. It's so great.
- Right this way, Your Majesty.
- They're having a tea party?
- There we go.
- Oh, don't worry, he'll go back to the puppet show.
He just likes to leave us wanting more.
- Who's ready to declutter?
- Oh, you brought your own trash bags.
- I have a preferred brand.
Triple-ply, they really take a punch.
- That sounds kind of intense. - All right.
We are gonna streamline your operation.
If I can do it for a Slovakian diet pill company,
I can do it for you,
and hopefully with fewer lawsuits.
[laughs]
All right, should we start in the bedroom?
- Maybe we don't need to start in the bedroom.
- I don't think there's a need to start out in the bedroom.
- Yeah, I'm gonna need a bigger bag.
I mean, you guys gotta have some space in here somewhere.
Why are there dishes in here? - The kitchen's a little tight.
- But this is the bedroom.
What do we have here?
A drawer full of winter boots.
- The front closet is a little tight.
- And you gotta have a full drawer of CDs.
- The whole place is a little tight.
But if we take what's in here and put it out there,
then out there is a mess.
- Where do you put your clothes?
- In the closet.
- I feel like you're gonna judge us.
- I'm not gonna judge you. Come on.
And I lied. What is wrong with you?
- Connor. - Sorry. It's just a lot.
But that's why I'm here.
- Okay, yeah, we might be a little cluttered,
but we can't just throw everything away.
It's so wasteful.
- Maybe we can sell some stuff online.
- That's what I'm talking about.
Denise came to play. All right.
So what do you have under here?
What is this, eight tracks?
- Ooh, no, no, no! - Oh, that's private!
Okay, so we have a sex life.
- I'm just impressed by the variety.
- Oh, Mom, after school, can Grandpa take us to the zoo?
- Oh, I don't know.
He already took you on a pony ride,
and you played hide-and-seek for three hours.
I bet he's too tired for the zoo.
- Well, your mother's probably right.
I would be too tired.
Unless we stop for ice cream first.
- Yes! Best yayo ever.
- Who are you? - I'm Yayo.
- Do you need breakfast? - No, Yayo's making pancakes.
- Oh. He doesn't know how to do that.
I'll make you some French toast.
- But I'm making pancakes.
- You've never made pancakes.
- Ooh, Yayo's making pancakes.
- Chocolate chip okay? - Uh, yeah.
- Okay, Papi, just put down the whisk, okay?
You're not a pancake guy.
You're a sit-down-quietly- with-the-paper guy
or, "Everyone outside, I've had a long day," guy.
You're not and you will never be a pancake guy.
- Oh, those actually look pretty good.
- All right, yeah, they look-- they look fluffy and light.
But I bet they taste...
delicate and moist and--
wow, is that vanilla?
- Mm, gives it kind of a zing, you know.
- So, what, you've always known how to make these?
You just--you never did?
- Okay, let's calm down, not say anything we'll regret.
Just take a deep breath,
and maybe share some bites of that pancake.
- Where were my pancakes? Huh? Where was my tea party?
- Honey, I was always working.
- I'm working. I'm working now.
And I still have time for French toast.
- Ooh, we having French toast too?
- Because I make time, Papi.
I guess it wasn't important enough to you.
Have fun at the zoo.
- [sighs]
- Hey...
I'm not mad at you, so...
Okay.
- All right. I'm back.
How we doing?
- So good. We sold, like, five things.
- Great. - We also bought a few things.
- How many things? - Like, ten things.
- But look how cute this vase is.
- Yeah, and we got an umbrella
that says, "Rain today, flowers tomorrow."
- Guys, the goal was to declutter,
not re-clutter.
- But the deals are so good.
- Look, I didn't wanna do this 'cause it can get intense.
But I have my own decluttering system.
It's like Marie Kondo, except it kicks ass.
Instead of asking if something brings you joy,
you have three seconds to justify it, or it's gone.
- Yeah, I don't think we really need that.
- Bag of loose screws. Justify this.
- They are screws, and they screw things.
- Gone.
Justify this.
- It's my fav-- one of favorite hats.
I wear it every nine years.
- Gone.
Justify this. - Easy. Favorite book.
- Mm-hmm.
But what about this?
- That is also my favorite book.
- But why do you have three copies?
- Well, in case we lose the first two copies.
- Hey. Fixing the sink, huh?
Sinks, am I right?
They're like... toilets for food.
Look, this is awkward for me too,
but I think there's something we should talk about.
- Is this about what I saw in the car last night?
- Oh, my God, you saw us?
That was not what that looked like.
Marina and I were rearranging the seats for a road trip
last night for an hour, listening to Portishead.
- I mean the check engine light was on.
- Oh, okay.
I was talking about how upset Marina was this morning.
- Yeah, I know.
I thought that playing with the kids would make her happy.
- Well, it did, but I think she wishes
she could've had some of that with you too.
- Look, Tom, I see myself as a provider.
Always have.
I worked at the factory.
I made car doors for years, and that put a roof
over our heads and food on the table.
- That's totally understandable.
- Look at you.
You barely provide for your family.
Your house is falling apart.
Your family constantly laughs at you.
But does that make you any less a man?
- So are you gonna answer that,
or do you want me to answer that?
- Look Tom, I know I'm hard on you.
But in many ways, I admire you.
- Wait. Really?
Seriously? What do you mean? Like, can you list it?
- You're ruining it. - Yeah, no, I know.
I was ruining it when I was saying it.
- Tom, you don't even know what you have.
You have a connection to your family, to your children.
That's something I never had.
Even when I was home, I was never there for them.
I just left that responsibility to Marina's mother.
I'm retired, and my wife is gone.
And I realize now that I should've spent less time
working on the house and more time
working on the people who lived in the house.
- Wow.
I--I didn't know you felt that way.
I didn't know you could feel.
[both chuckle]
- Yeah.
Look, I messed up with my children,
and I don't wanna mess up with my grandchildren.
- Well, here's the thing.
What if it's not too late for you and Marina?
- Yeah, well...
Maybe.
Hey, can you finish this? I--I gotta do something.
- Yeah.
Wait, sorry. What is this?
- Okay, justify this.
- We've been doing this for so long.
- And you've justified almost everything.
No one still fits in this jacket.
- True, but that's what Shamiah was wearing
when we first met her.
She was almost six. - Five and ten months.
- She didn't take it off for a week.
- This was before we adopted her and Kel
and we were still fostering them.
And she didn't know if she was gonna stay.
- Yeah.
- Okay. How 'bout this?
You hate video games. Justify this.
- Well, yeah, but that was Kelvin's.
I mean, when he switched schools,
he didn't have any friends,
and so we learned to play it with him.
- Yeah, we got really good.
- We got super good at it, yeah.
- All right, I will put this with the jacket
and Denise's grandma's gravy boat.
- Grandma Iris loved her gravy.
It didn't love her, though. Rest in peace.
- You guys are justifying almost everything.
If you want this to work, you have to be ruthless.
Oh, my God, is this Benny Bear?
- Yeah, remember, you gave him to me that summer
that I was really nervous about going to camp.
You know, it's been so long, I guess we can toss it.
- You can't throw away
Benjamin Bearworth, attorney at claw.
Are you kidding me? Look at this little briefcase.
- Yeah. - What?
Okay, I guess we're done here.
- Wait, but we still have so much stuff.
- Yeah, and you should keep all of it.
Look, the Justify This System, patent pending,
is foolproof but only when it comes to financial value.
It was never designed to handle...
- Emotions? - Sure.
- Honestly, it just seemed
like a bunch of pointing and yelling.
- Your place isn't packed
because you're weirdo hoarders.
It's packed with memories.
You're right, I can't throw out any of this stuff.
- Thanks for trying to help.
- It's too bad.
Thought we could really free up some space.
- Yeah. - You still could.
- I appreciate you holding on to this stuff for us.
- Yeah, we'll have room for it one day.
- These are memories. You can't toss memories.
But you can put them somewhere
where I won't be able to see them.
- I'll put them in that room you can never find.
- I can never find that room.
- Hey, Con, thank you again for your help.
And we just thought that you might wanna
hang on to this little guy.
- Ah, thanks. - What do you think?
Yeah? - Whatever.
- [chuckles]
- I should probably just hang on to him for safekeeping.
- Hey, there she is.
- Hey. - How you feeling?
- Embarrassed.
I've been beating myself up all day at work.
I can't believe I snapped at him like that.
- Well, he did make pancakes. I mean, he crossed a line.
- It's just, I'm watching my kids get something
from my dad that I never got from him.
It's so dumb. What am I, jealous of my kids?
- Hey, come on, I'm jealous of the twins all the time.
All they do is eat, sleep, and poop.
It's literally heaven.
- I guess at least the kids are getting the new,
improved version of my dad.
[knock at door]
- [speaking Spanish]
- Wow, Papi.
- I'm sorry I didn't have time to paint it.
- [speaking Spanish]
- You wanna see inside? - Yes.
- Okay.
- [gasps] - [mimics mechanical whirring]
- [laughs]
Are we having a tea party?
- Well, I thought that maybe you would like something
a little stronger than tea.
- Wow, you know me really well.
- [chuckles]
Okay.
- I can't believe you did all of this for me.
- Well, I should have done it a lot sooner, muñequita.
I'm sorry.
- I'm sorry, too, about before.
I mean, you have done so much for me.
You taught me how to be strong and independent
and sometimes, according to Tom, intimidating.
- I've seen him intimidated by a squirrel, so...
- I mean, you didn't have time for all of this.
You were working.
It's not a complaint. I get it.
I work hard too. I guess I got that from you.
- Yes.
When I see you with your kids, how you are with them...
You got a whole lot from your mother too.
I think that you're the best of both of us.
- Gracias, Papi.
- More tea, Your Majesty?
- Oh, yes, in my delicate little teacup, please.
Keep it coming, keep it coming. Top it up.
- [gasps] It looks so much better in here.
- And we have drawers.
- We have drawers. Aw.
Where's Kelvin? Dinner's almost ready.
- In the den. - The den.
I like the sound of that.
- Can I help you? - It's dinnertime.
- I'll take it in here.
[video game blipping]
- Get out of the closet.
- I'm Dave. Open up.
- I said Dave's not here.
- Our dad never did puppet shows for us.
- Yeah, he did.
Remember when he gave us the sex talk?
Wait, was that just for me?
Oh, man.
- I'm Tommy.
And I'm so scared, I'm going to pee my pants.
[laughter]
- Sorry. What is this show called?
- "Tommy the Cowardly Kitty."
- Any chance it's about a kitty cat that
learns to be brave in the end?
- No, he just keeps crying and hiding.
- I'm Tommy, and I can't even fix my own sink.
- Oh, come on. [laughter]