It was barely 7AM and Helen was already driving herself crazy. She hadn’t slept in days. Hadn’t eaten, bathed, or bothered to run her fingers through her hair since she came to find her beloved home reduced to ash. She still hadn’t heard from her husband since before the fire, who was on yet another fatally-timed trip with his business partner somewhere without reliable cell reception, and the radio silence had her spinning. The only solace she had was in the form of a mostly-burned up folder containing various tax documents and receipts she’d found near the final flames that took away her home. She’d been staring at them for so long, so many days now, that she was certain she was seeing patterns where maybe there were none. “Someone’s lying to me, I know this for sure. I’m just not sure why they’re lying, or exactly what they’re lying about, or even how long this has all been going on… Okay, so what I really know is next to nothing, but I think it’s starting to add up and this all seems very fish-“ Helen was interrupted mid-sentence by a waiter loudly clearing his throat. He was dressed unusually chic for someone working at a dingy dive restaurant, and he was standing a little too close considering her eyesight was at crotch level. Opting to crane her neck to look him in the face instead, Helen said, “I’m sorry, are you waiting for me to order? If so, I’ll take an unending supply of black coffee and some personal space, thanks.” And with that, she immediately went back to muttering to herself over a mess of rustled up papers and wrinkled receipts. The man took a step back and laughed. “I’m not here to take your order and I’m not your waiter. I’m the owner. I came over here to ask why you’ve been scaring off all my regular customers the past two days by talking to yourself about conspiracies and god knows what else. Don’t you have a home or a padded cell you should be doing this in?” As rude as the words coming out of his mouth were, he managed to say it with a beguiling smirk while sitting down at the table next to her. Begrudgingly, Helen forced a smile and asked him his name. “It’s Marcelo, and you haven’t answered my question.” Helen shuffled her wrinkled and torn pages together, attempting but failing to control their unruliness before stuffing them into an equally dismantled folder and setting it aside. Sighing, she said, “If you must know, no. I have nowhere better to be, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be here. I came here to use your Wi-Fi because it’s free and there’s never anyone in here so I thought I’d be left alone.” Sucking air in through his teeth, Marcelo said, “Ouch! While I’m sorry to intrude on your privacy in my wildly unsuccessful establishment, I’ve decided I can’t sit idly by while you spout nonsense about your husband and his partner planning something as ridiculous as nuclear war or whatever in their downtime.” Helen’s jaw dropped. “I… I didn’t realize I’d been talking loud enough for anyone to hear me.” Again, Marcelo laughed. “At first, I tried to mind my business. But now that you’ve clearly been up for days without sleeping and have gone down a rabbit hole that would rival Alice in Wonderland, I can’t sit back and watch you continue to grasp at conspiracy straws any longer.” Helen, getting defensive, said, “Wait, I don’t think I need some stranger to come in and-“ Marcelo put his hands up and said, “Sorry, that probably sounded harsher than I intended. A lot of what I say does.” Rubbing the back of his neck in a kind of humanizing gesture, he continued, “What I should have said was since I’m familiar with what you’re going through, maybe you’d like an outsider’s perspective on the situation.” Despite his demeanor softening, Helen scoffed. “No offense,” she said now with her own sarcastic smirk, “but I can’t imagine a lowly restaurant owner would be the right person to help me with something that goes this deep” Marcelo shrugged and said, “I thought you might say something like that”, and stood up. Before he walked away, he handed Helen a napkin with writing on it. It said, “Your husband burned your house down. He’s fucking his business partner.” At this, Helen laughed incredulously and called out, “Oh yeah? It’s really as simple as that, huh? And how would you know?” Turning toward her one last time, he said, “Let’s just say I’m a guardian angel… one who was paid to burn the house down with you in it, but didn’t.” And with that, he walked out of the restaurant’s front doors. Furious, Helen sprang to her feet in an attempt to run after Marcelo but due to lack of food or lack of sleep or most likely both, she collapsed. When she came to, Marcelo was long gone and a concerned waitress was kneeling beside her. “Where’s Marcelo? Can you tell me where I can find him?” The waitress raised her brow and said, “Who’s Marcelo?” Confused, Helen pleaded, “The owner of this place! I need to find him, please.” Looking puzzled, the waitress explained, “The owners are a lesbian couple and they almost never come in here.”