"There's a casserole in the oven," said the Post-It on the door. I left the note where it was and pushed, but the door was blocked by a swollen duffel bag. Deborah was always leaving her shit everywhere. I kicked it out of the way and went into the house.
"There's beer in the fridge," said another note stuck to the dining table. Why she didn't stick it to the fridge itself, I'll never know, because when I went to get one, I saw her there, on the kitchen floor, in a pool of blood.
I jumped. I shouted. Deborah!
I felt for a pulse, a breath; I listened for a moan or a rattle.
But Deborah was dead.
I waited in the front yard for the EMS to arrive. The night was humid; the air filled my lungs like cotton, and I felt like I was being taxidermied alive.
They carried her out on a stretcher, covered in a white sheet just like you see in the movies. The sauce stained one end of it and dripped a single thick drop onto the concrete porch when they clonked down the step. Cardiac arrest. I couldn't cry. She hadn't even finished my casserole.
The cops questioned me about the sauce, the notes, and the body, of course. They seemed perturbed that I wasn't more upset. I wasn't acting like a husband-in-distress. What can I say? I told them I'm cool under pressure. You shoulda been a cop, one of them said back. I shook my head and said, I hate cops.
I meant it, but I didn't mean to say it. But he just laughed, while the other cop spit on my shoe. We'll be in touch, they said, just like in the movies.
After everyone was gone, I went back inside to clean up the sauce, then went upstairs to take a shower.
On the bathroom mirror, I found the third and final note: "Have a nice life, fuck-face, you'll never see me again."
I guess she was right, just not in the way she meant it.
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