Chapter 1

The door clicked behind Andre with a satisfying snap as he walked into his home.
Sprinting on tiny feet, his son leapt into his arms. Andre scooped him up, body sore from too much time spent in meetings and Zoom calls, but tension easing out of him by the second.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, as he swooshed the boy around the room and deposited him on the couch.

“He’s going to get dizzy and not be able to eat dinner, you keep doing that,” admonished Imani. His wife of eight years, only recently switched to part-time from her position at a lobbying firm in the city, had been reveling in her far more flexible lifestyle. Andre had never thought she was anything less than radiant, even when she was working eighty hour weeks, but the extra time for Pilates and a healthier lifestyle had left her looking happier and more relaxed then she’d been in ages. And while he had never expected it of her, she was enthused to be able to spend more time with their son- and their daughter, due in only a couple of months. He swept across the room to kiss her.

“So, stranger, am I going to be seeing more of you? Or are you sweeping back into the district after dinner?”

“No. The merger is done,” Andre smiled with a satisfied, if exhausted, look on his face. “I might not even go in at all next week. I would like to spend some time out back, though.”

Imani looked slightly annoyed about this- but didn’t say anything. They had built an incredible life together. While she didn’t adore her husband’s ‘project,’ they’d worked it out as a couple years ago. He was an attentive father, a loving husband, and an amazing partner. Imani had never been anything but proud of her husband, and could forgive him his one indulgence. As time passed, she’d even sampled the project a couple of times herself.

Andre spent most of his evening in cozy domesticity. He enjoyed his wife’s impressive attempt at a classic she-crab soup. He read to his son and tucked him in. He and his wife watched one of the more forgettable new Marvel movies. Imani was feeling a little too cramped for sex, but he massaged her feet and they chatted while she got ready for bed.

At ten pm he walked to the attached garage of his home, and unloaded groceries from a walk-in, restaurant style refrigerator. He had played football in college, and even now, as a partner at his firm, he had never neglected his physical health. Even still, the sheer amount of food was too much for him to carry; he loaded up a cart with victuals, packages, and bags. Pulling the cart behind him, he strode purposefully across the yard of his Silver Springs home, where they had moved to when they had enough money to

buy a place and escape renting in DC.
And it had come with the guest house on the property. That had been a deciding factor.
He didn’t bother to knock, of course. It was his property. As was its inhabitant. He strode into the home, pulling the cart behind him.

While the main house was decorated with tasteful, understated style, chic rather than comfortable, the guest house had only one consideration: comfort. The couch was shabby and ugly, but it was ungodly comfy to laze on, the kind of couch you just melted into. The mini-fridges on either side of it looked like they belonged in college apartments- but they were unusually big models for ‘mini’ fridges.

The coffee table was covered with weed smoking paraphernalia, a tray filled with the roaches of joints, and ash spilled all over the table , pizza boxes, Chinese food containers, fast-food wrappers, the metallic plastic of chocolate bars packaging by the dozen, empty cans (and cases) of beer. The maid service had been here this morning.

Contemplative, intelligent artwork from D.C. artists hung on the walls in the house; posters of the more buff sort of male celebrities adorned the guest house.
Imani had tried to convince Andre not to install a television at all in the main house; he had wanted to still be able to watch college football. They had compromised with an understated, small unit in the lounge, keeping the living room screen free. The guest house, on the other hand, had massive TVs in every room; one of the ‘sexy people on an island’ reality shows was on the living room, which he quietly switched off- porn played in the kitchen. He left it on as he pulled the cart into that room.

The counters of the kitchen were the same situation as the coffee table- more empty containers, microwavable meals, bags of chips, cookies, and other ready to eat snacks, consumed to the last crumb. Jars of frosting, mayonnaise, lard, soda bottles, more cans of beer, store-bought pastries and cakes, packages of deli meat all lay empty and discarded throughout the counter space. Eight empty packages of bacon were in the sink. He was honestly impressed to know that the resident had actually cooked something, although judging from the fact that there weren’t any pans out, he guessed she’d opted to use one of the two industrial microwaves, situated at wheelchair height, in the kitchen rather than properly fry the meat.

Or she had eaten them raw, he wouldn’t have been surprised.