I Owe You An Apology

I need to start by saying I’m sorry.

Truly, sincerely sorry.

I know that phrase gets used carelessly, like a broom for sweeping unpleasant things under rugs, but I mean it in the fullest possible sense. I am sorry for what happened on Thursday. I am sorry for the inconvenience it caused, for the distress, and most of all for the way you had to find out.

You should not have had to hear about it from the neighbors.

In my defense… and I know this is not the place for defenses, but context matters… I did not think Gerald would get out.

When I say get out, I mean of course the basement.

And when I say Gerald, I realize now I should clarify that I am referring to the peacock.

I know how that sounds.

Before you say anything, yes, I am aware that peacocks are not generally considered appropriate emotional support animals for apartment living. At the time, however, it seemed not only reasonable but inspired. The woman in the parking lot behind the farmer’s market assured me he was “surprisingly calm indoors,” and for the first three weeks, that was almost entirely true.

He mostly kept to himself.

The screaming began later.

Again, I am sorry.

Had the matter ended there… with a single loose peacock shrieking from your hydrangeas at 3:12 in the morning… I believe we might have all moved past it with some dignity. Flowers can be replanted. Sleep can, in theory, be recovered.

Unfortunately, this was also the same evening I had been attempting to fix the gas stove.

I know.

Please let me finish.

The stove was not technically broken so much as making a noise that I felt suggested future betrayal. A ticking. Not a clock-like ticking. A more judgmental ticking. Since maintenance had not returned my calls, I made what I believed was a temporary and sensible decision to consult an online tutorial.

The man in the video seemed very confident.

He also turned out to be repairing a lawnmower.

This distinction became clear slightly too late.

The smell you noticed in the hallway was, yes, related.

Before you panic, there was no explosion.

Not at first.

I realize that phrasing may not be reassuring.

What I mean is that the first sound… the one that shook the windows and caused Mrs. Donnelly in 4B to assume the rapture had begun… was not the stove.

That was Gerald.

He had somehow gotten onto the fire escape.

I can only assume the gas leak made him unusually ambitious.

At approximately 11:40 p.m., he launched himself through my kitchen window in what can only be described as a burst of feathers, glass, and deeply personal rage. In the process, he collided with the shelf above the sink, dislodging the candle collection.

I did not realize one of those candles was still lit.

You can see now, I hope, how events began to compound.

The curtain caught first.

Then the dish towel.

Then, because fate is a humorist, the stack of unopened final notices I had been meaning to sort.

I would like to pause here to say that I did not intend for the sprinkler system to activate.

Nor did I anticipate that the building’s aging pipes, under the pressure, would rupture behind the east wall.

I understand that “minor flooding” was perhaps an optimistic phrase in the text I sent the group chat.

At the time, ankle-deep water felt survivable.

By the time it reached the lobby, I admit the wording became less accurate.

I am especially sorry about your grandmother’s piano.

I did try to save it.

This, I now understand, is where several people’s version of the story begins, and I would like the record to reflect that I was not playing it.

I was standing on it.

There is a difference.

The reason I was standing on it was because Gerald had returned.

Something about the flashing alarms seems to have emboldened him.

He was not alone.

This is the part I have been dreading.

In the chaos, the basement door had been left open.

The peacock got into the storage room.

The storage room, as you know, is where Mr. Hargrove keeps his collection of antique mirrors.

Now, I am not a superstitious person.

I say that as someone who has, admittedly, avoided stepping on sidewalk cracks since 2008, but still.

When a soaking wet peacock begins hurling itself through nineteenth-century glass while every fire alarm in the building screams and twelve terrified tenants are evacuating into the street in bathrobes, it does create an atmosphere in which people become open to certain interpretations.

So when the police arrived and saw flames in the fourth-floor window, water pouring through the lobby ceiling, a bird screaming from somewhere in the dark, and me barefoot on a piano holding the remains of a fire extinguisher, I understand why things may have looked bad.

I am sorry that your promotion dinner was interrupted.

I am sorry the restaurant had to be evacuated.

I am sorry the mayor happened to be there.

And I am profoundly sorry that, in the confusion, someone identified me as “the one who started the riot.”

For the record, I did not start the riot.

The riot started when Gerald got into the fondue fountain.

I agree that sentence sounds invented.

I wish it were.

I also wish the local news had not chosen that exact moment to arrive.

Seeing oneself on television, covered in soot and peacock feathers, being asked whether this was “an act of political protest” is humbling in ways I struggle to articulate.

But none of that is what I am most sorry for.

What I am most sorry for is this:

When you asked me last week if I could “please just water the plants and make sure nothing happens while you’re away,” I said yes with a confidence I had not earned.

And now your apartment is technically part of an ongoing insurance investigation.

The good news… and I offer this with great caution… is that Gerald has been found.

The bad news is that he has imprinted on the fire chief.

They are, by all accounts, inseparable.

So yes.

I am sorry.

For the flowers.

For the piano.

For the mayor.

For the riot.

For the insurance forms.

For the fact that your name is now, regrettably, in several newspaper headlines.

And I am especially sorry that when the investigator asked whose lease was on file for the unit where the gas line was altered, I answered honestly.

I didn’t think they would take “honestly” quite so seriously.

There was a moment… very brief… where I considered correcting myself.

But by then, things had already been written down.

In ink.

With signatures.

You always said it was important to tell the truth.

I do want you to know that I tried to explain that you had nothing to do with any of it.

They said that wasn’t really how responsibility works.

Which felt, at the time, like an unnecessarily philosophical stance given the circumstances.

I stayed until they finished asking questions.

I gave them everything they needed.

Your full name, obviously.

The forwarding address you mentioned over dinner.

The detail about you being out of town for “at least a week,” which they seemed very interested in for reasons I did not fully understand.

I assume it’s procedural.

I imagine most of this will sort itself out.

Eventually.

In the meantime, they did ask me to let you know that someone will be reaching out.

Possibly more than one someone.

So if you get a call, or a letter, or… this was mentioned only briefly… someone at your door, I would encourage you to remain calm.

Panicking tends to make things look worse.

And I would hate for things to look worse.

Given everything.

So yes.

I am sorry.

Not just for what happened…

…but for the way it will follow you.