Moving Out

I woke up already over my to-do list that day. Pick up the U-Haul and wrap up at the house before I turn it over to the realtor, but now I was sidetracked by the lone bottle of syrup in the fridge door. I looked at it then the orange box of baking soda sitting at the back of the top shelf. Baking soda is a weird product, you can use it to bake and absorb smell. Like who was the first person to decide it was good for making fridges smell less bad? I remembered buying it, the week after the Nags Head trip.

Abby and I had been in the house six months, and decided to go on a beach trip, not that we could afford it. We splurged. That was the week the old fridge decided to go kaput. Well, it was later determined to be the compressor but kaput regardless. When we got home the ice cream had become a Neapolitan puddle on the floor and the milk was on its way to being yogurt.

I had to empty the refrigerator then too, surprisingly the baking soda in that fridge had kept the level of rank to a respectable level. We went a week on takeout before the new french door we ordered was delivered, when the delivery guys took the old one the dust bunny colony was astonishing. Mommy and Daddy dust Rabbit had been busy back there. Two months of overtime is what it took to pay the thing off, bought it on credit. Six months same as cash.

"Whatever"

It doesn't matter, Abby was as gone as the food in the garbage can. She said she needed "space" or at least that was the pretext. The dog must've needed space as well cause he went too. She was unhappy that I was gone working all of the time, paying for the house and whatever it needed, so she didn't have to work extra. I left work early one day as a surprise, we needed a date or just to enjoy each other. I walked in while she was enjoying someone else on the couch.

They were cuddled under the blanket we bought at the surf shop in Nags Head. The dude was petting the dog while they watched TV. Abby leapt up and tried to explain, I couldn't take my eyes off the man's feet on the coffee table. Rude. Drinking from my favorite cup, a promotional cup I got at a movie theater. The movie wasn't that good, but the cup held a lot of liquid.

Why blame the dog? He didn't know any better. He just wanted attention. Abby however should have known better. She needed attention yes, but like this? I backed out of the door and headed back for the car, she came to the porch yelling for me to come back. I just slid into the car and drove off. I was numb, not in a dramatic way but really how does one process something like that so quickly. My phone was going off in one long buzz between the calls and texts. I ignored it, I didn't want to be bothered by her or anyone else. I wanted Taco Bell. A Crunchwrap Supreme, or two, and a Pepsi. So I went to get one, and I ate it in the parking lot.

The thought dissolved with the chirp of a smoke detector.

BEEPBEEPBEEP

"Really?"

The smoke alarm battery must've been dying and I'm here trying to cool the house with the refrigerator. I pushed the door closed and went to search for the rogue detector.

BEEPBEEPBEEP

Four laps around the main floor I realized that it was upstairs. Awesome. It was near the peak of the vaulted ceiling in the bedroom. Back downstairs. Grab a broom and the step ladder. Back upstairs.

From the top of the three foot step ladder I swatted at the smoke detector with the broom. A nine volt piñata, twelve swats and it came down. It landed on the carpet sending the battery flying. I bent to pick it up, bed post indentation caught my eye.

Abby had said that she hadn't talked to the guy, whose name was Tim, in three weeks. They were just friends. She was sorry. I came home one night, the dog was asleep on the couch. Snoring so loud I heard it on the porch. Abby was upstairs in the bedroom, she met me at the door and kissed me before I could even say "Hi." It had been three months since we had been intimate, so naturally I was a willing participant. After the deed, we lay in the dark talking and joking about nonsense, I missed that. Then she mentioned the possibility of kids. It was a weird topic, we both decided that we weren't going to have kids, probably. I didn't say anything, I was just glad that we were loving each other again, so I thought. No more late night talks about needs, wants or TIM.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, I looked away from the carpet dent. It was the realtor. They were coming to take pictures of the house, I just wanted rid of it to be honest. I don't care what it sells for. I told them I would leave the key under the door mat and hung up.

The truth had been that Abby hadn't seen Tim in three weeks but she was still calling him. I figured this out when I looked at the cell phone bill online. She had texted him five hundred times and called him 26 times within three weeks. The time stamps made me think about all the times she had to get off the phone because she was busy, I mean she wasn't lying. She was talking to him. I confronted her that night when she got home, she denied — of course, she had to. See, I had the receipts though. So I whipped them out, after that it was all apologies. I was done though. She had lied in a big way.

I put my phone back in my pocket and went downstairs. I checked to make sure everything was out of all of the rooms and snatched up my trash bag. I opened the refrigerator again, tossed the syrup in the bag, and the baking soda for good measure. I grabbed my keys from the counter and headed for the door. I scanned the living room — a house always looks so sad when it's empty, I think. I pulled the door closed and put the house keys under the mat. Actually I always loved that mat so I took it, it is a cowboy cat and it says 'Meowdy'. I climbed into the U-Haul parked at the curb, and drove to Taco Bell.