When Ron Fell

It started out as a mistake. 

They were walking through a house that was for sale asking the realtor about square footage and utility bills and how old the roof is and stuff like that when a decorative owl caught her eye. The husband was looking out over the yard and asking the agent about acreage when she grabbed it to determine what it was made of. It was heavier than she anticipated so she thought maybe it was pewter but it also could have been nickel. 

Then her husband fell down the basement steps. From the top step. Ten steps in all. That kinda racket scares the shit out of you actually. Imagine a flesh covered bowling ball topping out at 200 LB’s falling down your basement steps. Not exactly quiet and not exactly un-fucking frightening. So when she ran over to the top of the basement stairs it didn’t register that she stuck the owl in her jacket pocket. She didn’t notice it when she saw her husband’s tibia poking under his skin like an eager mole of calcium, she didn’t notice it in the ambulance ride to the hospital while he whimpered like only a grown man who had fallen down the steps of a house for sale can whimper. 

She noticed it weeks later when she took the jacket off the hanger and wondered about the weight. Huh. The owl from the house where Ron fell. Well she wasn’t about to call the agent after the colossal embarrassment of dragging your husband from a showing because he fell down the basement steps. And she wasn’t about to visit the owners and explain that she mistakenly put the owl in her pocket. Who was going to believe that? It was a lose lose situation; so she perched that owl in her closet. It looked good in there. She smiled at it. Even if it was de facto stolen.

The next house they looked at it was obvious that Ron wouldn’t be going up or down any stairs as he was on crutches. And for some reason, being alone, in the bedrooms and the closets, and the bathrooms, while Ron and the agent du jour talked about this and that, she stole shit.