Chapter 12
The deputy's cruiser had been gone ten minutes and the house still smelled like potato salad and glass cleaner.
I stood at the kitchen island with the report number he'd left on a little carbon slip. It was white and thin and it kept curling at the edge. Daniel had set his phone down on the counter next to it, screen dark. The backyard was empty. The grill was still smoking a little, lid open, and someone — my cousin Mike, I think — had turned the gas off but left the tongs across the grate. Chairs were scattered. A red plastic cup had tipped over on the patio and was rolling every time the wind pushed it.
My sister came in from the sliding door holding a trash bag. She didn't ask if we were okay. She just said, "You want me to start in here?"
Daniel looked at me first. He didn't answer for her. He waited.
I nodded. "Yeah. We should get this up before it stains."
The salad had dried at the edges. The rug in front of the sink — the one I'd bought at Target last fall because it matched the cabinets — had a pale yellow smear ground into it with little chunks of potato and flecks of green. The glass bowl had shattered into three big curved pieces and a hundred smaller ones that caught the light. The wooden spoon was gone.
Daniel got the broom from the pantry. I got the dustpan. We didn't talk about how to do it. He swept and I held the pan low to the tile. It should have been simple. It wasn't.
Every stroke made that soft scraping sound and I kept flinching when a shard jumped. His tattooed arms were tight as he worked, the gray polo pulling at his shoulders. He was being careful around my feet. I was in socks now — I'd kicked off the heels after the deputy left — and he kept angling the broom away from me.
"Slow," I said quietly. It wasn't a criticism. My voice just came out thin.
He slowed.
We got the big pieces first. He picked the largest curve of glass up with his bare hand and I almost said something, but he carried it to the trash bag my sister held open and dropped it in without looking at me. The second piece had salad still stuck inside it. He tipped it and it slid out with a wet sound.
My sister crouched and started picking up the smaller shards near the island leg with a paper towel. "I've got this corner," she said.
For a few minutes the only sound was the broom and the tick of glass hitting the dustpan. Outside, a car door shut. Another one. Guests leaving without saying goodbye properly. I could hear my nephew crying by the driveway and someone trying to soothe him.
Daniel swept under the edge of the rug and the broom caught on something. He lifted the corner.
The wooden spoon was there, face down, the whole handle covered in salad. It must have slid when the bowl hit. I stared at it.
"I couldn't find it," I said. My throat did something strange. "I kept looking for it."
Daniel bent and picked it up with two fingers. He didn't wipe it. He just held it over the trash bag and let the excess drip, then set it on the counter on a paper towel. His watch caught the light from the sliding door. He didn't say anything about it. He just went back to sweeping.
When we had most of the glass up, my sister stood with the bag. "I'll take this out to the bin," she said. "And the rug — you want me to take it outside and hose it?"
I shook my head. "Leave it. I'll deal with it tomorrow."
She looked between us. Daniel's hand was on the broom handle, knuckles pale, but he wasn't moving anymore. The kitchen looked almost normal except for that stain and the spoon.
She set the bag down by the back door. "Do you want me to take the kids tonight?" she asked me, quieter now. "Just for tonight. My house. They've got their overnight bags in my car anyway from yesterday. I can have them back by lunch tomorrow."
I looked at Daniel. He didn't jump in. That was new. A month ago he would have answered for us.
I needed her to offer it. I needed someone to make the house empty so we didn't have to perform being okay for anyone else.
"Would you?" I asked.
"Of course," she said. She squeezed my arm. She didn't squeeze Daniel's. She just nodded to him. "Call me if you need anything. Anything at all."
She went to get the kids from the living room where they'd been watching a tablet with the volume low. I heard her whispering to them, their small feet on the hardwood, the front door opening and closing. Then the car starting in the driveway and pulling away.
The house went silent in a way it hadn't been all day.
Daniel leaned the broom against the island. He picked up his phone, then set it back down. He turned it over so the screen was up this time.
"Can you delete it?" I asked. My voice was barely there. I had to clear my throat. "The doorbell history. The checks. Can you delete it and show me?"
He didn't pretend he didn't know what I meant. He didn't explain why he'd started checking it after the gala. He just picked up the phone, unlocked it, and opened the app.
He held it so I could see. The list of motion clips, timestamps, thumbnails of our front porch. He scrolled to the filter, tapped History, then Manage, then Delete All Activity. A confirmation popped up. Are you sure? He looked at me to make sure I was watching. I nodded.
He tapped Delete. The screen went white, then empty. No clips. No history. He turned the phone sideways so I could see there was nothing left to restore. Then he set it on the island between us and stepped back, hands empty.
"I deleted it," he said. "It's gone."
I stared at the empty screen. I felt something loosen behind my ribs. Not forgiveness. Not yet. Just air getting in.
May you like
"Thank you," I said.
We stood there in the clean-ish kitchen with the stained rug and the dirty spoon on the paper towel and the empty house around us. Outside, the light was finally going soft. Monday was still coming. But for the first time since he'd thrown that bowl, there was nothing left on the floor we hadn't picked up together.
