When Tori returned home from her first junket to the art center her husband was at work. She carefully unwrapped the beautiful hand-blown magic ball. She looked around but couldn’t decide where to hang it. It really didn’t go with any of her boring, Early American décor. She had to think about the last time they bought any new furniture. It had been years. Some of the furniture had come with the house and it still remained, probably because they could never agree on what style to purchase. He didn’t seem to care unless it was her idea. Then he would decide he didn’t like it. When she asked him what he wanted, he’d shrug. “Anything but that,” referring to her idea. She managed to get slipcovers for the sofa without any negative repercussions. Come to think of it, he never even mentioned it. She thought about buying new living-room furniture without him, then dealing with his objections, but it wasn’t worth it. He would just sulk for days, and things were tight enough. After thinking about their inability to agree on most things domestic, that’s when she decided to wrap the ball in its original tissue and place it back in the pretty shopping bag. She was going to stash it in her closet until, well, until she decided where it should go. For the moment, it was going to be her little secret.

She set the origami crane on the buffet chest in the dining room. She wondered if he would even notice it.

Tori went into the kitchen to fix herself some dinner only to find dirty dishes in the sink and the casserole dish from the stew sitting on the counter. She tossed the remains onto another plate and planned to pop it in the microwave after she began the ritual of cleaning up after him. She knew he wasn’t a bad guy. Just selfish and lazy. Must be a genetic defect with the Y chromosome. She chuckled. That seemed to be the main complaint she heard from other women as well.

She was surprised to see he had left a note, smudged of course, but it said Thanks! She couldn’t remember the last time he wrote down anything for her.

Before she pressed the start button on the food-zapping machine, she decided to change her clothes. When she went into the bedroom, she found a second note:

I’ll be staying at Jack’s tonight after my shift so we can get an early start tomorrow.