My Husband's Smart House Only Listens to Her novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: User Not Recognized
On the night of the downpour the house unlocks for Neil's grad student and leaves Mara on the step, so she walks out of her own front door, and her phone logs it as Episode 212.
On the night of the downpour, my front door unlocked for my husband's grad student and stayed locked for me.
I had been standing on the step for twenty minutes by then.
My car was at the shop, so I'd taken the bus home from the clinic and walked the last half mile.
The rain was coming sideways, and my scrubs were soaked through to my skin.
Across the street, a neighbor in a rain jacket had stopped dragging his trash bins to watch me.
I pressed the doorbell again.
Inside, the chime played its three soft notes, and nobody came.
Neil's SUV was in the driveway, so I knew he was home.
Three years ago he had wired our new house to his smart-home app, and in three years it had never once recognized my voice.
"It just hasn't synced yet," he always said, and kissed my forehead. "Give it a few more days."
I said, "Hearth, unlock the door," to the little camera over the frame.
The lock stayed shut.
Behind me, a car door slammed at the curb, and quick footsteps came up the walk.
"Mara? Oh no, you're drowning."
It was Lia Blankenship, Neil's PhD student, with an umbrella in one hand and a bag of takeout in the other.
She tipped the umbrella over both of us before I could answer.
"I'm dropping off the edits he wanted. Did you forget your keys? I do that all the time."
"There aren't any keys," I said. "It's all voice and face."
"Right, I forgot. Neil said it's still glitchy for you."
She said it kindly, the same way she'd brought me soup when I had the flu last winter.
She stepped up beside me, into view of the camera.
The lock clicked open at once.
Warm yellow light spilled out onto the step.
"Welcome home, Mrs. Pellam," the house said, in its soft, pleasant voice.
I was Mrs. Pellam.
I had signed the marriage license five years ago, and the house was looking straight at Lia.
Her smile slipped. "I think it just does that with everybody."
Neil came down the hall before she'd finished the sentence.
He had a dry towel over his arm, already unfolded.
He held it out to Lia and didn't look at me.
"You're soaked. Come in, come in."
"I'm soaked too," I said.
Neil finally looked at me.
His eyes went over my dripping hair, my scrubs, the puddle spreading around my shoes.
"Maybe grab an umbrella next time," he said.
Then he took Lia's bag and walked her inside, and I followed them in.
The entryway stayed dark around me, though the hall lit up for the two of them as they passed under it.
I heard them settle in the living room, talking over each other.
Lia sat down on the couch with one of the journals from the coffee table.
Neil leaned over her shoulder and tapped a line on the page, and she scooted over to make room.
They sat there with their heads nearly touching, and neither one looked toward the entryway.
I bent to take off my wet shoes, and my hand brushed the shoe cabinet.
The little screen on its side blinked on.
[User not recognized. Please try again.]
I had lived in this house for three years, and it was still asking me to try again.
"Neil," I said. "The house didn't open for me. Again."
He picked his phone up from the arm of the couch and tapped it once.
"Noted," he said, without turning his head.
He kept reading Lia's page.
I stood there with the rain running off my chin onto the floor.
"Why are you just standing there?" he said. "Dinner's not going to make itself."
He glanced at Lia and smiled.
"Oh, and do that spicy Cajun fish stew. Lia loves it."
I had told him a dozen times that spice gave me migraines.
"Neil, I can order something," Lia said. "Honestly."
"Mara likes cooking," Neil said. "It calms her."
Nobody in that room had asked me a single question.
I looked at the dark hall behind me, and at the lit room in front of me.
Then I looked at my mother's ring, sitting in the little dish on top of the shoe cabinet where I'd left it that morning.
"No," I said.
Neil looked up at last.
"I'm not making it," I said.
"Don't be dramatic, Mara."
"I'm not being anything."
So I stepped out.
I picked up the ring, put it on my finger, and took my work bag off the hook.
The lock clicked open for me.
Leaving was the one thing that door had never refused me.
The neighbor was still standing by his bins when I came down the walk, and he looked away as I passed.
I turned toward the bus stop with the rain in my face.
Halfway down the block, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was the Hearth app, the one Neil had installed on my phone the first week and I had never opened.
A notification sat on the screen.
[Mara left home at 9:52 p.m. Logged: Episode 212.]
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend