I smiled because patients say strange, beautiful things on pain medication.
But when my shift ended at 7:19 a.m., and I drove through the fog toward Lake Norman, his sentence sat beside me in the passenger seat like a warning.
When I pulled into my driveway, I noticed the first clue before I even turned off the car.
Fresh tire tracks cut through the side lawn.
Then two cigarette butts near the side porch.
Then a gas station receipt trapped under the
welcome mat, dated three weeks earlier.
Inside, the house smelled wrong.
Not bad. Worse than bad.
Used.
Someone else’s perfume floated in the living room, powdery and floral. The throw blanket on my couch was folded in a way I never folded it. A wine glass sat upside down by the sink, and I did not drink wine. In the refrigerator, a half-empty jar of pickles had a sticky note on it.
