The Expedition

I opened the refrigerator looking for cherry preserves.

That was my first mistake.

Not the looking. The optimism.

The refrigerator in our house operates under a governing philosophy I have come to understand the way you understand weather — not something you argue with, just something you dress for. My wife believes, with the conviction of someone who has never once been proven wrong about this, that everything is either salvageable, recyclable, or belongs to the larger and more elastic category of “we might use that one day.” This philosophy extends to every room in the house that does not contain a toilet. The bathroom, apparently, is where things go to be finished. Everything else is recoverable.

The refrigerator is the cathedral of this belief.

I stood there in the cold light conducting what I can only describe as a reconnaissance operation. The first shelf presented a row of condiments whose expiration dates I did not check because some questions are not worth the answer and prolonged squinting hurts. There was a jar of something that was either Sucker Punch pickles or a science project, the label turned to the wall like it had something to hide. There was half an onion on a small plate covered with plastic wrap, sitting there with the dignity of something that expected to be used by Tuesday and had since made its peace with a longer stay.

Second shelf. A bowl. Plastic wrap across the top pulled tight in a way that suggested intention. I did not lift the wrap. You learn. Whatever is under there was put under there by someone who had a plan for it, and that plan and I are strangers.

There was a container from a restaurant. I recognized the logo. I stood there for a moment trying to remember when we had eaten there last, and then trying to remember if we had eaten there recently, and then trying to remember if that particular restaurant still existed. These are not small questions. Restaurants come and go. The container had outlasted my certainty.

There was a pitcher of something I was fairly confident was tea, though I was not so confident I was going to test it. There was a lemon, cut, face down on a saucer, which is either the beginning of something or the very end of it, and from where I was standing, I could not tell which.

Somewhere in there, I was reasonably certain, were cherry preserves. Finding them was another matter entirely. That would require Josh Gates and a film crew and probably a production budget.

I was not equipped for this.

What I was equipped with were witnesses.

Captain and Morgan operate on a principle as old as dogs themselves. When the refrigerator door opens, you sit. You look famished. You make eye contact that communicates both urgency and patience simultaneously, which is a difficult thing to pull off and they have perfected it. The Boyz were in position before I even registered what I was looking at. Two golden retrievers sitting at the threshold of the kitchen with the focused attention of animals who have done the math and like where it comes out.

They were rooting against me.

I understand that now.

Cherry preserves are not on their approved list, and they knew it. If I found the jar and, following standard protocol, offered it to my designated taste-testers for a preliminary smell . . . which is the system we have, an ancient and reliable system . . . they would have called it. A slow withdrawal. A look of practiced concern. “This one’s gone, Kep. Don’t risk it. I’m just saying.” And I would have believed them, because I always believe them, because the alternative is eating something unidentified from a refrigerator that defeated Josh Gates.

They had a contingency for every outcome except one.

Cheese.

Cheese is in the door. Cheese requires no expedition. Cheese is simply there, reliable and flat and mine, and the moment I reached for it Captain stood up and Morgan made a sound that was not quite a word but was definitely a sentence. I pulled out three slices. I ate one. I gave them each one. We stood there in the kitchen in the cold light from the open refrigerator, chewing, satisfied.

The cherry preserves are still in there somewhere. I’m sure of it.