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I smell smoke before I even reach the front door of my house.
My day started at 12:15 this morning—or was it yesterday morning? I can’t even remember—so my brain offers up the dumbest theory available first:
The house is burning down.
I hurl myself inside in a panic. Inside. As in, I go into what I believe to be a house fire.
I am not smart right now. Between the longest workday ever and the traffic on the Belt Parkway, with everybody and their mother doing some extremely last-minute gift shopping, I’m fried from top to bottom.
But it’s not a fire. Well, not a fire like I was imagining.
Connor is at the kitchen sink with his sleeves shoved up past the elbow, feeding paper into a tidy little fire in the basin. He hears the door and turns the tap on. The fire dies with a hiss. By the time he turns around, he’s smiling like this is perfectly normal behavior.
“Hey, Dee.” He dries his hands on a dish towel. “You’re home early. I thought you said you were staying late tonight.”
“I did stay late. It’s almost seven.”
“Right.” He’s standing weirdly between me and whatever’s in the sink. “Right, no, of course.”
I try to peer around him. “What are you burning?”
“Year-end junk,” he blurts hastily. “Old tax stuff. I’ve been meaning to clear the office out and I finally found some time to get it done.”
“Oh, yeah?”
He nods. “Yeah. The accountant told me I could shred the whole box two years back and I never got around to it. No time like the present, am I right?”
An important fact about my husband is that he’s a hoarder. In ten years of marriage, Connor has never thrown anything away.
I put my bag down, hang my coat up, and walk over toward him, though I keep the island between us.
“Long day?” he says.
“Longest.” I roll one ankle and something in it pops. “Three hundred orders. I did nineteen dozen cookies before the sun came up.”
“You’re a machine.”
“No, I’m a blob.” I crane my neck to look at the sink again. “Kinda like how that looks, actually.”
The basin is full of gray paste. Whatever it was, it’s soup now. There’s a scorch ring on my stainless steel and a bonfire smell coming up out of the drain.
Again, he rushes to explain. “Gotta burn this stuff. You can’t put this kind of thing in recycling, you know? Identity theft is a huge thing now.” He tosses the towel in the trash. “Besides, do you know what a shredder costs?”
“Like thirty dollars.”
“For a good one? A cross-cut? Well, whatever. This is easier.” He laughs at nothing in particular. “Anyway, have you eaten? I can make you something.”
I yawn and shrug. “I’ll just heat up some leftovers.”
“No, no, seriously. You’ve been on your feet since the middle of the night. I’ve got this.”
Connor is not a bad man to live with in the day-to-day sense. He’s funny at parties. He remembers people’s kids’ names. But in ten years of marriage, he has cooked me dinner without a birthday or an apology attached to it, maybe... six times?
This isn’t how I imagined lucky number seven.
Vivian must’ve gotten to him. I’m not surprised. I’m sure she texted him right away.
fuck, the videos got uploaded on accident. but i think i deleted everything. dont freak out
