The plumber was late. Again. Sarah drummed her nails against the chipped countertop, the sound grating against her already fraying nerves. Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air, each one a tiny, mocking reminder of the cleaning she’d been putting off. Now, she had a leak and a delayed plumber. She huffed, the breath catching in her chest.
"He said he'd be here an hour ago," she muttered, grabbing the phone again and redialing the plumbing company. The recorded message droned on, promising excellent service, which, clearly, was a bald-faced lie.
A gruff voice on the other end finally answered. Sarah exploded in a torrent of words, expressing her extreme displeasure at the late arrival. The man on the phone mumbled an apology, a bland assurance that he was on his way. She slammed the phone down, the force of the action making the framed picture of her wedding day wobble precariously on the wall. She wished she had bought a house that wasn’t built in the 1920s.
A detective, a few hours later, knocked on the door. It turned out, some unsavory business happened in her kitchen, about 50 years ago. She had a sudden, overwhelming urge to scrub the floor, a physical manifestation of her mounting frustration.