Page 37 of Sweet Ruin

The upstairs bathroom has a line. The downstairs one has Aunt Sherry in it, singing sea shanties at the top of her lungs while her husband tries to shush her.

Welp, those won’t work.

So I take the pantry.

There’s nothing in there but my mother’s dry goods and the vacuum. It’ll have to do.

I check that nobody’s watching me. Then I open the door, slip in, and pull it shut behind me.

Dark. Warm. Quiet. Safe.

I don’t turn on the light since I don’t want to draw attention. If I do, I’ll inevitably get pressed into service once again, carrying a folding table somewhere all by myself.

Haul-It-All Delilah is closed for business.

I put my back against the shelves and breathe in through my nose.

“Okay,” I whisper. “From the top. It starts like this: ‘I’m sure you all came expecting a very merry Dorsey family Christmas… I’ve got some bad news for you in that regard.’“

Then we get into the fun stuff. The receipts in order, with tidy little explanations that will paint a nice picture for the slow-to-understand or the hard of hearing.

I remember a rule from a creative writing class I took in high school.

Tell your audience what you’re gonna tell them.

Tell it to them.

Then tell them what you just told them.

So that’s exactly what I plan to do. It all comes to a rushing head as I finish with one triumphant, disgusted crescendo.

“So there you have it. My husband has been sleeping with my sister for over a year. The night of my father’s funeral, they lied so they could go fuck some more. And now, my husband has given away my life’s work as collateral for money I never saw a penny of. How’s that for holiday cheer?”

I exhale the last of the tension. I did it. It came out exactly how I wanted it to. It was maybe even good. Vicious and heartfelt, if nothing else.

“Alright,” I whisper to myself. “You can do this.”

I reach for the doorknob.

But then I freeze.

Because, from behind me—as in, from inside of the dark pantry—someone has started to clap.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

I turn around.

There’s a man standing back there.

He’s tall enough that the top shelf is at his shoulder. His ankle-length coat is still on. The only light is being squeezed through the tiny sliver under the door, so I can’t see much of him, but I do see that his eyes are so violently green that they sparkle even in the dark.

One thing’s for sure: This man is not family.

He’s not a cousin or one of Connor’s skeezy uncles.