A man sits across from me, wrist wrapped in a bloodied rag. His knee bounces like it’s keeping time with a jackhammer. “Worried I hit the artery,” he says when he catches me staring. I tell him they would’ve rushed him in. “No one’s leaving you to bleed out,” I say. Seeming satisfied, he asks what I’m doing here.
I’m waiting to hear if Kristen will keep her arm. If I had to guess I’d say it’s fifty-fifty. I don’t know. What I know isn’t good. I know after prying it from beneath the refrigerator I’d fucked up unloading from the truck, it seemed like the bones from her elbow to wrist went missing. But I don’t say any of this. I say, “My wife’s had an accident.” I tell him, “I’m waiting on an update.” What I don’t say is they rushed Kristen in. Now my knee’s bouncing, keeping time with his.
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Recently remodeled 2 bedroom, 2 bath house. All new flooring. Large back deck. Comes with a washer/dryer combo and all kitchen appliances except a refrigerator. Book a viewing today!
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I told Kristen she’d never be 100% satisfied with any home. After reading the listing, she got hung up on the refrigerator. It’s a brutal seller’s market, so I pushed for a tour ASAP. In the grand scheme, what’s one missing appliance? The place ticked tons of boxes: a fifties bungalow in a neighborhood we loved close to Delano, to the WAM, to the Dillons. Everything we wanted.
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Each time the swing doors open I expect to see a doctor looking for me. Several doctors have walked out who’ve called several different names: “Mrs. Forbes,” “Mr. Nguyen,” “Mr. Allen,” “Ms. Bumbalova.” I check my phone — forty-five minutes and they still haven’t called mine. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. Bad, I guess, because I’m hungry. I wonder if I have time to run to the vending machine for a candy bar.
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We thought we ate everything, but forgot about the frozen stuff — lucky, since the day after moving into the new house, we got snowed in. I suggested putting the stuff out on the deck. Out there Kristen said it looked trashy. I said what’s trashy about using nature to our advantage? In the morning it turned out it was the other way around. The waffles were torn to shreds, same with the bag of gyoza, gluten-free pizza, the cauliflower rice. My money was on raccoons, given the collection of tiny humanlike paw prints pressed into the snow. “The roads better be better tomorrow,” she said.
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At the warehouse, I told Kristen, “Nothing fancy.” “Can it at least make ice?” she said, smiling, flipping me off. We settled on a reasonable refrigerator, though Kristen joked it was fancy, since it made both crushed and cubed ice. Men loaded it into the bed of my truck and after tying it down, we headed home. At home, I backed up, the tailgate fitting almost flush with the porch. Kristen unstrapped the fridge while I rolled the dolly from the garage. After shimmying its steel plate beneath it, I said, “Be my eyes.” The tailgate didn’t sit as flush as I thought, the wheels got stuck. I pushed, but it wouldn’t budge. Kristen stood on the porch in front of the fridge, which was the back of the fridge. She tried helping, grabbing hold, pulling. I told her I had it covered. “It doesn’t seem like you do,” she said. “I’ll get it, goddammit,” I said, and with everything I had, pushed. It went over, just not the way either of us ever expected.
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