Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“I do.”
“So then I thought, I better take Chilly and Dobby and get out of the house, but I thought I should check the fire again, and I opened the oven a little, and it ignited all over again, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. And not from the smoke but from the chemical rubber smell.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding a bit worried at that point.
“I ran outside with our two furry people, and I called the fire department, and they were, like, okay, we got it, we’re on our way now.”
“Oh, baby.”
“Yeah, it was crazy. And two firetrucks came, Sam, and they brought in this really big, what appeared to be a giant fire extinguisher. But it looked weird, and I don’t know if it was water or a chemical agent, but, like, everything is wet in our kitchen at the moment.”
“Okay,” he rushed out.
“But fun story, the oven is not completely done. It just needs a really good scrubbing.”
“And a new handle.”
“Well, yes.”
“But you had them take it out?”
“Yeah. I think Bertha and I have come to the end of our relationship.”
“I see.”
“You know, they had to pull off the handle to get it through the back door. That feels a bit ironic, don’t you think?”
“Love––”
“I did have them reattach the handle before they took it to the curb.”
“Christ. There’s a lesson in this, though. Do not bake with an ice ring around your neck.”
“But I didn’t bake.”
“Well, you opened the oven and it was hot.”
“Fair. That’s fair. This fire is my fault.”
“But the fire didn’t go anywhere else but the oven.”
“That is true.”
“So when I get home, I’ll bring all the box fans up from the basement and we’ll blow the rubber smell out of the house.”
“The firemen opened all the windows, which of course is doing nothing to help our air conditioner work in this heat, but they did check the house and said that the oxygen levels are okay, so it’s safe to be in there.”
“Good,” he soothed me. “I’ll be there shortly. Hang in there, Pyro.”
“Sam!” I gasped, going for horrified. The problem was, he started chuckling, and I really liked the sound, and then I started crying.
“You were scared.”
“I was scared.”
“Almost there,” he promised, and hung up.
When he got home, he came through the back gate, scooped up Dobby, who ran to greet him, talked to the firemen, got the news—probably far more succinctly than I had managed—and then shook all their hands and thanked them. After that, he put Dobby down, jogged over to me, and the second I stood up, yanked me into his arms. Nothing better than being held tight and having your forehead kissed. I cried a bit then, and he told me everything was fine and how brave I was and how proud he was.
“Holy crap,” he said when we finally got into the kitchen. “This is so much better than I imagined.”
“It is?” I was astounded.
“Yeah, I thought we’d be cleaning for hours, but no, we just gotta wipe down and mop. No wonder people like firemen so much.”
I smiled at him.
“And look, what was under the stove? Not much. Amazing. This speaks to how clean you keep our house.”
“You help me, weirdo.”
“Yeah, I know, but still. And now we also know where Dobby keeps his toys.”
“I don’t think he keeps them there. I suspect Chilly puts them under there because he doesn’t like all the squeaking.”
“I would agree,” he said and laughed.
“Those are done, though,” I mentioned, gesturing at the various animal and food toys.
“Oh yeah, we’ll have to get him all new ones.”
“Chilly will be thrilled.”
Now, two interesting facts. First, someone came and took Bertha in the middle of the night. She was out there, ready to be picked up by a shelter the following morning—I had called around and offered my stove—but when I woke up, poof. Gone. So I made a donation to the shelter instead but thought whoever grabbed Bertha will be scrubbing for days. I did wonder what they would do about the handle.
Second, all the downstairs HVAC filters were completely black, oily, and gross, and Sam spent time, with Jake helping him when he came home, after I told him my chilling tale—which he never interrupted the telling of, by the way—changing them all out.
“Jake listened to the whole thing,” I told my husband.
“And then?”
“Well, he asked about the pie, of course, but that was gone.”
Sam chuckled.
“But he didn’t interrupt the telling.”
“That’s because Hannah tells a story just like you do, and he knows better than to question her on fear for his life.”
“Ha-ha, you’re very funny.”
“But it’s true.”
Jake and I went oven shopping the next morning, and he got on FaceTime with Sam instead of me doing it, which was smart. Jake was better with spewing out facts than me. And of course he had precisely measured, so when they delivered the oven the following day, it slid in perfectly.