“Eat first. You have to be clearheaded for this. There’s glass and nails everywhere.”
I nodded, leaning on the wall myself. Taking the time to enjoy this raisin bread wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I turned to face the door so I could look at the nature.
It was a strange image, this undisturbed beauty framed by the glass shards of the broken door. The tall, proud trunks of the trees, the playful little swings of wildflowers—how superior it all was and how perfect! I turned back to survey the wreckage around me. Nature had always been perfect; it was humans who were flawed and messy.
Once I finished my bread, I grabbed the broom and got to sweeping. It didn’t take long to sweep all the plaster, glass, nails, and odds and ends of God knew what into a pile in the corner. As I surveyed my work, I couldn’t help but have a proud smile on my face.
“Nice job,” Blake said, coming up behind me. “But that’s just the beginning. Take a look at this.”
I followed him into the next room, which was actually more of a dump than the first room. Its floor was pure bottles—wine bottles, beer bottles, coke bottles—some of which looked half full.
Blake shifted some with his foot, and a sliver of purple carpet emerged.
“This’ll make a good bedroom once we’re finished.”
I lifted my broom. “Want me to?”
“Could you? I still want to check out the rest of the house, especially the bathroom.”
“No worries,” I replied.
“Just wait a second first though, okay?” he said.
I nodded, and he returned with a handful of plastic bags.
“Throw them in here and we’ll put them out back once you’re finished.”
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“Okay,” I said, and I got to work.
At first, cleaning up the bottles was annoying. My body wasn’t used to standing and bending so much, and my mind swirled with angry questions. How long was this going to take, and what was the point of it anyway? How long did I think I could hide out here from Angelo?
But as time went on, I felt an odd little satisfaction in seeing the islands of purple carpet join into full continents, then into huge bodies of cleared space until there was only the odd bottle left. I almost felt upset when I got to the last series of bottles.
I leaned over, and my arm was gripped.
“Ahhh!” I screamed.
Ripping myself free, I twisted around to see a hand grabbing at me through a hole in the wall.
Then there was laughter.
“Sorry,” Blake said, coming from around the corner, still laughing. “That was mean.”
I shoved him. “You jerk!”
“Wow, you got way more done than I would’ve thought,” he said.
He looked genuinely impressed, though I was already stomping into the hallway.
“Claire…” he said.
“Wait there,” I commanded.
In the hallway, I spotted the hole leading to the bottle room.
I pushed my hand through, said, “Hey, Blake, look over here!” and gave him the finger. Now it was my turn to return to the room, laughing.
Laughing himself, Blake said, “I was just going to say that you got way more done than I would’ve thought, being a housewife and all.”
I glared at him.
“When did I tell you I was a housewife?”
He shrugged. “Lucky guess.”
I sighed, picking up one plastic bag of bottles and then another.
“I guess it was me being woefully out of shape that gave it away, right?”
“Yeah, and…” His voice died off.
He glanced at me and then away.
“Never mind.”
“No. Tell me.”
“Well, just how…well-kept you are.”
I froze and found myself reddening.
And here I had thought Blake and I were bonding. Really, he was just busy judging me some more.
“You were right,” I said, grabbing another bag. “You shouldn’t have said anything.”
I strode out of there, out to the back. I slammed the bags down, enjoying the loud clank the bottles made. When I went back in, Blake was at the top of the stairs.
“Upstairs is pretty unusable. Looks like a few steps away from collapsing entirely. Let’s stick to the main floor.”
“Okay,” I said, not looking at him.
“Also, I packed some extra clothes, like a few shirts, that you can wear. We can wash our clothes tomorrow too, if you want.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Okay.”
The rest of the day was full of more odd jobs: cleaning up the rest of the debris, setting up the fire pit outside, bringing our sleeping bag inside.