A Fishy End

Chapter 39

Sarah was reading by the light of her new bedside lamp when it went out. "What happened?" she asked her husband, who was next to her in bed, working on his laptop.

Rick peered at something on the screen before answering. "Wi-Fi went down as well." He peered at their door. A sliver of light spilled under it. "Hall light's still on, so it's not a power outage." He climbed out of bed and pulled a robe over his boxers and T-shirt. "Must be breaker three."

Sarah snorted. Rick hadn't noticed her new hairdo, of course, or her new perfume. But he could recall which outlets went with which breaker.

She pulled a robe around herself and followed him out of the room.

"Dad, the Internet is down," Padme called from the bedroom that she shared with Amala.

In the kitchen, the sink was running. Two fish flopped in the sink. Sarah had all but stopped being surprised by the sudden appearance of fish in their sink, in the bathtub, and at least once, in the toilet.

These fish had blocked the drain, and the sink was overflowing, water spreading across the floor like a minor sea. Rick's feet slapped wetly on the linoleum as he crossed the kitchen and shut the water off. "Who left the water running?" he groused. Sarah merely shrugged. The kids were in their bedroom, and she didn't recall any of them going into the kitchen since supper.

Rick found a flashlight in the cupboard and headed for the basement stairs. Sarah crossed the water gingerly and followed him. The water ran under the basement door and dripped off the unfinished staircase. The sink must have been on for some time.

"All the water threw a breaker," Rick said.

"In that case you'd better not—"

Rick flipped the switch, still standing in a puddle. He turned and looked back at her.

"You might get electrocuted," she finished.

He gave her a look but didn't answer. He came back, his wide feet slapping along the wet concrete. He'd never been a particularly big, athletic type, but he looked like he was wider than usual. More hunched over too. His face, in the faded light, looked puffy, his eyes watery. She could have sworn, when he looked to one side, that there were creases at the side of his neck.

"What are we going to do about the water down here?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It should go down the storm drain eventually. I'd worry about upstairs. The basement should be fine."

She nodded. He was right; it was an unfinished basement anyway, and the stuff they stored down here were all up on shelves. She went upstairs and started mopping the kitchen. Rick followed her shortly afterward, grabbing a knife in the cupboard. He began to fillet the fish. He threw the guts in a garbage bag and took it out to the garage.

When Sarah had finished the mopping, she crossed to the sink. It was then that she noticed her Krishna statue was on its side again, this time with the Dagon statue perched precariously on top of it. A moment of anger surged through her. She snatched up the Dagon statue. Its weight was enough to give her pause. Some dark impulse shot through her as she held it. What has Krishna done for me? She looked at the Krishna statue, lying on its side. Has he given me untold wealth?

She'd had the Krishna statue since her wedding day. She'd prayed to him far longer. He'd brought her much: a husband, three healthy kids, years of relative happiness.

But he hadn't brought untold riches. Only now did she have that. She had a new smartphone, top of the line. There was a new car in their driveway—the driveway of the house they now owned outright. Each of the kids had new laptops, again top of the line. All because of Dagon.

She placed Dagon in the center of the shelf. She looked at Krishna again. She couldn't bear to think of putting it away, but she moved it to the back, behind the new gold statue. She turned and headed toward the bedroom.