“We can’t open the door of that thing,” I protest, breathing into the sleeve of my sweater. “Cam, can’t we just throw it all away in one fell swoop?”

“I don’t think the appliance company will haul it away with the food still inside,” he says. “Unfortunately, we have to clear it out. You can do it. I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”

“I work in a bar. Of course, I’ve seen worse. Maybe.”

I hurry around the house, opening all the windows and doors, flipping on overhead fans. I even drag out the big box fan I use in the summertime.

I don’t have A/C.

With the fan on full blast and with both of us wearing gloves and armed with trash bags, Cam and I hurry to empty the fridge and freezer of all their contents.

“I’ll never look at turkey the same again,” I say as I try to breathe through my mouth.

“I don’t think I’ll eat stew anytime soon, either,” Cam agrees as we hurry out to the dumpster with the first few bags, then rush back inside to fill two more. “That’s it. Let’s haul these out, and then we’ll muscle this thing out to the porch.”

I hurry behind him and toss away the food. When we’re back inside, Cam and I manage to work the fridge out of its space between the wall and my kitchen counter and get it out onto the front porch.

“It already smells better in here,” I say with a sigh. “But it might take a day or two to get back to normal.”

“I bet it’s much better in a couple of hours. We’ll spray some air freshener.”

“Should we haul the garbage somewhere?” I ask. “It’s going to smell up the neighborhood.”

“When is your garbage day?”

“Not until Tuesday, and today’s Thursday.”

Cam cringes. “I’ll call the garbage company and ask if they’ll make a special trip over here in the morning.”

“They do stuff like that?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to ask them.”

Cam pulls out his phone to make the call, and I go hunt down the air freshener.

I spray every room. According to the bottle, my house is going to smell like a spring meadow. And it will if it’s the last thing I do.

“Good news,” Cam says when he finds me in the office, spraying. “They’ll come by today on their last route.”

“Well, that’s handy. Thanks.”

“I know you’ve been hard at work spraying that stuff, but now the house just smells like a rotten meadow.”

I sigh in defeat. “Yuck.”

“It’s okay. We’ll stay at my place tonight, and we’ll leave the windows open all night to air it out. It’s safe here, it’ll be okay.”