Since Elba left that morning, my hand, the one I slammed into the wall, has been swelling. It’s now almost twice the size of the other, inflamed, but it feels stronger than ever. I set a pot of spaghetti to boil, and wash and chop the mushrooms, stirring them into a vodka sauce, and though the aroma is inviting I don’t dare taste it. All I see, all I feel, is red. I go out to the balcony to feed the dog again but he’s gone. I peer over the edge, wondering if he jumped down to the woods. I strain the spaghetti and stir in the sauce, then pour it into a nondescript container and put it in the fridge. When I go to the ATM the next day the bum is there and I hesitate for a moment but when I see his eyes the heat floods me again and I smile and hand him the container. The spaghetti is delicious, he says. He wishes I’d brought more. I watch as he licks the container clean, the sauce clinging to his hoary cheeks, and when he hands it back to me I can’t help but smile.

Since I gave the bum the spaghetti yesterday my hand seems to have returned to normal. Elba is coming over tonight and I’m sitting on my living room couch trying to finish our scrapbook, pasting photos of Elba next to our house blueprints. The eyeless elephant sits across from me on the piano bench in front of a low-end digital piano. I glue in the last picture, Elba and I camping for our two-year anniversary, and set the scrapbook next to the elephant. I start to smile when I hear a bark. I freeze. It sounds a second time, then a third, and I get up off the couch and slide open the balcony door. I blink several times at the dog. He peers at me with eyes that at this hour look like two chilling, connected orbs of some woodland sprite. I slide the screen door shut and grab a flashlight from the kitchen and walk back to the balcony. I shine the light on the dog and he jumps up in excitement and then runs to grab something cached behind my three-quarters-dead pot of mums. My hand heats and cramps into a claw as he turns back and rushes towards me. He grins, a small, hard apple clenched between his teeth. I know then that he blames me. That I am guilty.