Thursday? It couldn’t already be Thursday again! But He knew it was so by the familiar scents of cinnamon, clove and browned butter that did their weekly dance about the cottage. It was a smell that used to bring him such pleasure but now only filled him with a sense of dread. He remembered the words she had spoken the last time she had made this same after-dinner treat (for it was number twenty on his list of weekly demands that she had faithfully completed for sixteen years now). He had been at her again because the pie wasn’t just the right amount of hot that he liked after eating the certain variety of beans that he had just eaten. She had looked at him with tired eyes and said, “I wish you could understand how much of myself I put into all I do for you – how can I ever make you understand what that feels like?”
The seeds inside him began to tremble as he saw her approach once again. The tiredness in her eyes had been replaced by a menacing gleam as she said, “I’ve found a way, Harold. I’ve found a way!”