My deltoids and pecs are twice as sore as they were yesterday, and something’s wrong with my hamstring, and it’s monsoon season, apparently, but if Elizabeth mentions the weather again, I’m going to scream. Weather chatter is good for humoring cashiers or old men or acquaintances at mandatory networking events. Elizabeth and I should be digging deeper, discussing topics like What to Do When Your Houseguest Goes Missing, despite the fact that, days ago, I never wanted to hear our houseguest’s name again. Even now—even in his absence, his vanishing—he’s manipulating my time, staking space in my mind, so screw him. And anyway, I’ve got nothing to hide. I did him a favor. He thanked me. Maybe he’s on his way back from visiting that clinic in Tijuana, and he’ll say, “Dr. Hart, great news! False alarm.” So maybe I should go ahead and pack his things and change the locks before he has a chance to reboot his shenanigans, except that I’m supposed to be moving on already. I have work to do, a life to maintain, weather patterns to monitor.

The rain finally lets up on my drive home from work, but it’s only a tease of a reprieve from this Chicken Little feeling I can’t quite kick, because even when the sky clears and brightens the world, as soon as I pull my car into the garage, my internal world dulls all over again. More damage, more hassles: a dark streak of water staining the floor draws a line to the northeast corner of the ceiling, where a leak has sprung.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumble, launching damage control, clearing the storage crates away from the mildew trail in-the-making, hoping the crates aren’t filled with electronics, documents, photographs.

Elizabeth panics when I knock on her office door to tell her there’s an emergency, but she’s almost relieved when I say it’s a leak, so I call it a flood to make it sound serious so she’ll take me seriously. She starts hounding me with questions—How deep is it? Do we need a pump? What about outlets? Should we kill the breaker?—and I tell her to settle down. “There’s no standing water,” I say, “but it’s a mess. Do you have that contractor’s number? It’s probably the damn gutters.”

She’s opening drawers to search for the phone number on old bills, when she says, “I told you we needed to have them cleaned,” without looking up.

“You were free to arrange the cleaners yourself.”

“You said you’d deal with it, remember?”