Free The Clear-Out by Deborah Ellis

CHAPTER ONE
    Duncan came home from playing golf to find that his wife had lost her mind.
    He came into the house through the back door. He took his shoes off and dropped them on the mat. His wife, Tess, tidied up all the shoes ten times a day.
    As Duncan entered the kitchen, he looked at the chalkboard on the wall for messages. One of his golf buddies had called to pull out of their game the next day. Duncan thought about making some phone calls to find another player. First, though, he checked the kitchen clock. It was almost time for Wide World of Golf to start on TV.
    “How did I live for all those years without the Golf Channel?” he often said. He thought it again now as he reached into the fridge for a can of beer. With his foot, he pushed the cat, Mr. Snuffles, out of his way.
    Duncan went into the living room and right to the sofa. He could sit, pick up the remote, and take a swig of beer, all in one smooth move. He put his feet up on the coffee table, clicked the TV on, and turned the volume up. Another perfect day.
    And then he saw the dining room.
    Or what used to be the dining room.
    The dining room had doorways into both the kitchen and the living room. When he sat on the sofa, Duncan could usually see the dining room table. He could also see the big china cabinet. In it, Tess kept their good china and their wedding gifts from nearly forty years ago. She kept all the little glass animals he had given her over the years in the china cabinet, too.
    But today, Duncan couldn’t see any of it.
    Today, he was looking at a dark wall that blocked the doorway.
    “Tess!” he called out. He had to shout to make himself heard over the sound of the TV.
    His wife didn’t answer.
    “Tess!” He turned the TV down. He knew his wife was in the house. Where else would she be? But she didn’t answer.
    Duncan swore, put his beer down on a coaster on the table, and got up off the sofa.
    “Tess!”
    To get into the dining room, he had to go back through the kitchen. He couldn’t believe what he saw.
    The dining room table was gone. The china cabinet doors were open. There was nothing inside the cupboard. No china. No wedding gifts, still wrapped in plastic. No little glass animals.
    Duncan was gripped with a sudden fear: they had been robbed. Thugs had burst in and stolen almost everything from their dining room. But, in that case, what had they done with his wife? “Tess! Tess!”
    His voice took on a new panic. Where was his wife?
    “There’s no need to shout.”
    He spun around to see Tess coming up the basement stairs into the kitchen. She carried a large cardboard box.
    “Where were you? I was calling.”
    “As you can see, I was in the basement.”
    “You didn’t answer me.”
    “I am answering you now.”
    He didn’t like her tone. It was calm. She was not the least bit upset that he was upset.
    “What have you done to the dining room? Give me that.” He put his hands out to take the cardboard box from her. “You shouldn’t be carrying things up the stairs. You could have fallen, and then what would you have done?”
    “Gotten back up, I expect.”
    Tess did not give the box to Duncan. She just went past him into the dining room.
    “You’ve made an awful mess,” Duncan said. “I hope you don’t expect me to put everything back the way it was!”
    Tess did not answer him. She set the box down and stretched her back.
    She smiled.
    But she was smiling at the mess. Not at him.
    “I’m making a library,” she finally said.
    “A library? Don’t be foolish. There’s a library downtown.”
    “I want my own.”
    “Well, I want my dining room back.”
    All she said to that was, “You’re missing Wide World of Golf.”
    He was, too, and that did not improve his mood.
    “The table is downstairs,” she said. “The china and everything else is packed away safely, and it’s all downstairs, too.”
    “You couldn’t take that big table downstairs.”
    “It came apart. I took the legs off.”
    “You