She rescued the abandoned lilies on the front step, carried them into the kitchen, and snipped off the ends of their stems. She emptied the old water into the sink and refilled the vase, ripped open the little plastic packet of flower food, and sprinkled it in for good measure. Then she carried the vase of flowers to the entryway and placed them on the mirrored entry armoire, which needed dusting. She glanced around and wrinkled her nose. Dusting was the least of it. There were half-spent liquor bottles, takeout containers, partially emptied pizza boxes. Even with the window wide open, the smell of stale booze and musty air permeated the place. As with his office, there was an inordinate amount of crumpled balls of paper and Post-its scribbled on and discarded or made into paper airplanes that littered the living room. There was an especially heavy profusion surrounding the metal wastepaper basket, which was full to overflowing. She could see dust bunnies congregating in the corners of the rooms and under the furniture. A vacuuming would help, but a thorough carpet cleaning would be even better. She felt momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer volume of housework that needed doing in the entry and living room alone. She found a roll of large garbage bags under the kitchen sink and returned to the living room. “Eww . . .” Someone had thrown up behind the sofa. She stared at the mess a little bit longer, then straightened her spine, shoved her squeamishness aside, cleaned up the vomit, then turned her focus toward making inroads with the rest of the mess.

Since Sarah was already on a garbage run, she made the rounds through the remainder of the house. By the time she was done, there were two bags stuffed full of garbage, another of recyclable paper, and a final one of empty booze bottles. She lugged it all to the back door off the kitchen, turned the dead bolt, so the door couldn’t swing shut and lock her out. She found a plethora of garbage cans in a shed off the garage and deposited the contents of her garbage bags in their proper containers.

She swung by her apartment and checked on Charlie, who was sleeping contentedly on her bed, then returned to the house. Sarah found the cleaning supplies in a cupboard in the utility room, rolled up her sleeves, turned the stereo on, music blasting, and set to work.

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