Trey [Trey and Sons]

Her husband had left on business for the week.

Meghan rolled those items around in her head. They had a chilling finality to them. A refrain, common to women, that she could not ignore. The flush of youth was in the rear view, as well as a vague sense that their marriage, in terms of gender roles, was different. It wasn’t Meghan and Austin, smart newlyweds trading snark about jokes found on the internet. Her husband, to which she was the wife, was gone on business.

Her husband had parked her in a large house. He’d put on a tie and left his wife for the week, alone, in the house. And they lived in suburbia now, a development of quiet lawns and driveways with small SUVs parked in a row. There was a baby somewhere, sobbing about every hour. Or possibly two babies – she didn’t have the ear yet to distinguish infants. But she suspected she would, soon enough. She’d know things like that, things like getting stains out of the couch. Wife stuff.

Meghan had made an effort to act twenty-four, carefree. College-adjacent. She wore only t-shirts that were political or ironic. For the first day as Lone Wife she read books – and nothing female-oriented, nothing lady-adjacent at all. Definitely nothing about wives, left alone, getting themselves either murdered or fake-murdered. She deliberated about cooking: was the housewifey move to make marinated skewers for one, or was it to order out exclusively? She ate cereal for dinner, unsure.

The group chat was unhelpful. To be the first married, to a guy six foot two, and then complain about it, was intolerable. The gals suggested she work on sewing aprons, perhaps bleach the doorknobs, for hygiene. Audrey asked if she had a bottle of chardonnay in the fridge. Meghan had denied it – and then found one there, cooled and inviting, waiting to be poured and enjoyed.

And then Marla had quieted everyone by saying: just go ahead and burp out some kids. A followup: we can all see where this is going.

Thinking about this, and only this, there was a knock on the door.

Meghan opened it without hesitation. She’d read up on local Nextdoor posts and laughed at their crime concerns. She’d read all of them – she had a lot of free time, a kept woman in the placid wilds of single family homes. She was not going to be afraid of opening the door. If it was a kid selling candy bars, that was manageable.

A young man stood there, hands behind his back, clasped together. His age was hidden behind a tremendous beard. It radiated from his nose like the hands of a clock, bushy between 2 and 10.

“Trey and Sons, here about the order,” the man said. He had a very deep voice. But other then that he was very slender. He wore a bright pink polo with WALLACE AND SONS in yellow stitching. He had a slight stammer on his consonants.

“Order,” Meghan said. “There’s no order.”

The man consulted a clipboard. “Austin Walsh?” He eyed her, in case she was a hidden Austin.

“My husband,” Meghan said, reluctantly.

“Says your cable is nonfunctional?”

“We don’t have cable,” Meghan said. She shook her head. “How old do you think I am?”

The blush had to make its way through the beard, finding veins nearly up to the man’s eyes. “Okay, hold on,” the man patted at an enormous and low-slung tool belt. It was a burly single piece of leather and looked like most of a cow. “Okay, here, we go,” he said, to himself.

The man pulled out an unlabeled spray canister, squinted, and then held it up between them. He pushed on the trigger, which sprayed a fine pink mist directly into his own eyes.

“AHHhhhhhh okay,” the man managed to modulate his own scream. Meghan stood, nonplussed. Had he meant to— SPRAY her? But the pink stuff smelled nice, at least. Posies and similar flowers. Her alarm went down with the scent of daisies. She sniffed, leaning forwards. It was very, very nice.

“Okay okay okay. I didn’t mean to— oh, boy.” The man pulled a water bottle out from the back of the belt, tried to squirt it into his eyes. A pink mist settled onto the ground underneath him. “Oh god, water just spreads it. Can I– can I use your bathroom real quick? Please? I’m– my name is Trey.”