IT'S DARK BY THE time I get home; the soupy dark of an early Canadian winter evening that feels premature given nobody's had supper yet. It's Friday, which doesn't have the same feverish feeling it used to when Friday meant the end of a hectic week—glad of the small respite ahead, but already dreading that it will go too fast. Now that I'm my own boss, Fridays mean only that Tim, our thirteen-year-old, has an evening coding class, and my husband and I have control of the television for a change.
I open the door and step inside, noting immediately that there's something funny about the lighting. It's weirdly dim in here. There's an orangey glow flickering down the hallway. Shaking my coat off and hanging my tote on one of the many hooks that line the front hall, my nose picks up a strange smell in the air. Is that smoke? In fact, yes, sniffing again, the air feels a little thick. I inhale deeply and cough. My eyes start watering. Yes, there's definitely smoke hanging in the air. Oh my god... is our house on fire?!
I have a doomsday vision of my husband, trapped upstairs and overcome by smoke, while our house burns itself to the ground around his paralyzed body.
"Vic!" I call out hysterically, my inner arm covering my nose and mouth. "Vic! Just tell me where you are! I'll drag you out to safety!"
I stand on the bottom stair, ears straining, desperately trying not to think of that episode in This Is Us where they all barely escape a house fire, and the husband goes back in to save the dog only to end up dying of smoke inhalation hours later. Please God, let me not die of smoke inhalation while valiantly dragging my unconscious husband from a raging inferno!
"Vic!" I scream again, still from the entranceway, unsure I want to go upstairs in case I get trapped up there myself.
"Stop shouting!" I hear him call back. Oh thank God! He's still conscious. I'm not sure I was really capable of pulling a 6-foot man down the stairs and out of a burning building to safety. "I'm in the living room," he says.
From the orangey flicker, I assume that's exactly where the fire is raging.
"Vic! We need to get out! Don't put yourself in danger!" I plead, but wondering what valuables (besides my husband) I should be thinking of saving if I have a few minutes. Family photo albums? Baby teeth collections? My favourite suede jacket?
Vic emerges from the living room doorway, looking slightly dishevelled but otherwise intact.
"Why are you hiding your face?"
"Smoke inhalation!" I shout, muffled behind my arm. "Silent killer!"
He runs his hand through his hair and shuffles his feet. "Oh, right. Sorry about the smoke. I lit the fireplace. Forgot to open the flue first."
"And the living room's on fire now?"
"What? No. I mean, yes, for a second there—just a little. But then I remembered about the flue and everything's okay now. Fire's back in the fireplace where it's supposed to be."
Oh. I decide I can drop my protective arm and sniff at the air again hesitantly. We haven't used the fireplace once since we bought this house ten years ago. I'm surprised a family of raccoons isn't squatting in the chimney.
"Since when do we use the fireplace? Do we even have wood?" I ask with a skeptical look.
"Since Tim's out and we have the house to ourselves, I decided it would be nice to open a bottle of wine and enjoy it with my wife in front of a cozy fire, that's when."
My skeptical look morphs into an impressed one.
"Surprisingly romantic for an old guy," I say, pushing past him to see this fire my handsome husband has lit in my honour. "I can't believe you went to all this trouble! Are you trying to seduce me?"
Sure enough, there's evidence of fire having escaped the bounds of the grate. Blackish scorch marks lick up the marbled face, and the mantle is all bubbled. But I try to look past that.
There's a bottle of prosecco chilling in a silver ice bucket that I didn't even know we had. Two glasses. A gorgeous wooden board of cheese and baguette. The stereo is rippling with jazz (the good kind, not the elevator-music kind), and the fire, now totally under control, is crackling.
"Mr. MacKenzie," I say breathily, unbuttoning my coffee-stained shirt slowly and moving toward him. "Consider me seduced."
NO MORE THAN FIFTEEN minutes later, we lie panting on the rug in front of the fire. When you've been married for two decades, these things don't take very long. Marital congress doesn't need awkward preamble. You're able, really, to get straight to the point. Maybe that doesn't sound romantic, but there's something to be said for efficiency.
"Now, would you like some cheese?" he asks, leaning on his elbow and looking down at me with a smile. "I'm worried the fire is going to make it go all gooey."
I nod and stretch luxuriously across the Turkish-style rug, trying to ignore the juice stains and bits of food flotsam that come with family life. "Yes, please. And a glass of that bubbly too!"
"Your wish is my command," says my gorgeous, naked husband. He sits up, pulling the prosecco out of the ice with a swoosh. How lucky am I? I think. Dear God, I love him.
I'm considering getting him to pop more than the cork when an unholy screech fills the room.
"GROSS! OH MY GOD, GROSS! WHY DON'T YOU GUYS HAVE CLOTHES ON?" Our daughter's traumatized voice recedes as she thumps away from the living room door and up the stairs to her room.
Vic and I look at each other, open-mouthed with embarrassment, just as the cork finally pops out of the bottle and Prosecco fizzes over onto the rug.
"Shit," I say, pulling the throw blanket off the couch. "I forgot to tell you. Maeve's home from university."