The fridge was full. So full that it emitted a diffuse glow, refracted by glassware and diffracted through slits between condiment jars. The light that managed to escape fell upon Annika’s face. She leaned on the fridge door, cradling a Tupperware full of tricolored rotini, searching for a gap in the matrix of casseroles and pie tins. Only by consolidating two half-full bottles of ranch dressing was she able to piece in the leftovers.

“Do you want to keep this cantaloupe?” she asked her brother, shaking a yogurt tub full of the cubed fruit. “You don’t even like cantaloupe.”

“You take it,” Cameron said from in front of the sink where he rinsed the dregs out of smudged wine glasses.

“I thought Mom and Dad were never going to leave,” Annika said, forcing the fridge door closed with her shoulder. She glanced at the clock and felt a pulse of relief that it was an acceptable bedtime. “Do you want me to stay over?” she asked.

“Nah,” said Cameron. “It’s supposed to snow tonight. I don’t want your car to get stuck.”

“All right,” she said, going over to squeeze her brother goodbye.

Although Cameron was only in his early thirties and Annika wasn’t too far behind, he was often startled by how soft their bodies had gotten, how her chest filled in the space above his paunch like a yin fitting into a yang.

“Love you, Cam.”

“Love you, too. Get home safe.”

From his front window, Cameron watched his sister wobble along the icy sidewalk and climb into her car. Glittering crystals were already sifting down through the incandescent cone cast by the streetlight.

Cameron poured himself a glass of cab and settled on the couch. It was so quiet that he could hear the static in his ears. The only noise was the occasional creak or pop of the house’s old studs contracting in the cold.

He stared at the black plastic bag on the coffee table for a long time before he leaned forward to open it. One by one, he removed the items from the bag and organized them in a tidy row. Then he folded the bag into a tiny square and placed it at the end of the line. From left to right: a ring of keys on a Keith Haring chain, ChapStick, a crumpled receipt, and his husband’s iPhone. Cameron flattened the receipt and read it. It was from a dispensary. For a couple packs of the pre-rolls that gave Jordan’s mouth a taste that Cameron hated.

Cameron plugged the phone in and turned it on. Jordan’s and Cameron’s faces appeared on the screen, squinting into a tropical sun. Cameron knew the password. As soon as the phone was unlocked, notifications flooded in. At least a minute went by before the vibrations in Cameron’s palm ceased.

He opened Instagram first. Jordan’s DMs were awash with photo-collage tributes from people Cameron had never met, names he only vaguely recalled from Jordan’s stories.

             There’s a new star in the sky tonight

                                                                 can’t believe I’ll never see this face again

                                     RIP @jordanshoots

Cameron tipped his glass to his lips and opened the Messages app. The most recent text was from the previous day, somebody asking if Jordan were available to shoot a wedding. Cameron scrolled down through junk messages and group chats until he reached his own texts:

                           Why aren’t you home yet?

                           Are you okay?

                           Hello

The phone buzzed. It was a text that simply read, heyy. The sender was called Fern. No last name. Did Cameron know a Fern? Cameron tapped on the message and scrolled back through the conversation, his heart sinking.

                                                                        Had a lot of fun last night

                 me too, lets hang again soon

                                                                       Cam’s out of town in a couple weeks

Farther up was the link to a Pizza Lucé restaurant on the other side of town. Then came a series of photos veiled by the invisible ink effect. Cameron didn’t have to rub his thumb over the blurred images to tell what they were. He turned off the phone and leaned his head back.

It was no secret that Jordan had other men on his roster. Cameron himself had dipped in other waters, although not in the past few years. They’d married young, a courthouse impulse in the summer of 2015. By the time their affections grew stale, their lives were too intertwined to extricate one from the other. They were shouldering a mortgage on a Northeast Minneapolis three-bedroom, visiting each other’s families for holidays, dutifully assuming plus-one roles for weddings and work functions. Although they rarely reached for each other in bed anymore, they appreciated not being alone at the end of the day.

Cameron pulled his own phone out of his pocket and called Jordan. Jordan’s phone buzzed on Cameron’s lap until it went to voicemail. Into Cameron’s ear came his late husband’s voice:

“Hi, it’s Jordan. Leave me a message. Or don’t.”

---

Although he overate all week, Cameron couldn’t keep pace with the steady influx of soups, hot dishes, and dessert bars from neighbors and extended family. The freezer had reached capacity, so he resorted to stacking foil-lined casseroles on the back porch. Scraps of aluminum and bits of broccoli had been scattered over the snow by the squirrels who’d discovered his cache.

“When is somebody going to tell Grandma that her tortilla soup is really bad?” Annika said, pouring the pale liquid down the sink drain. Droplets stippled the front of her scrubs. “Like, does she add any salt?”

Cameron subjected each container in the fridge to a sniff test. Like emergency responders clearing rubble to save trapped miners, the two worked until the bulb at the back of the fridge finally shone through. There, shoved against the back corner of the bottom shelf, was a small pizza box, squashed and grease-blotched. Annika reached for it first.

“Gross,” she said, crinkling her nose at its contents. She stepped toward the trash bin, but her brother stopped her.

“I might still eat that,” he said, reaching for the box.

Annika kept her fingers curled around the dented cardboard. “You’ll get food poisoning.” Then she realized, seeing the distress in her brother’s eyes, that the pizza had belonged to someone else. She relinquished the box.

“I think that’s all the help I need today,” Cameron said, returning the pizza to the fridge.

“You sure? We haven’t even started sorting through Jordan’s clothes.” Annika had exhausted the internet of advice on coping with a grieving loved one, but still her brother’s lack of motivation strained her patience.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Let’s do that on Sunday.”

“Cam, you’ve been putting it off for weeks.”

“I appreciate all the help, but you’re acting like Mom.”

“Only because you’re acting like a child.”

Cameron expected his temper to surge, but the emotion failed to materialize. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ve been on your feet all day. Go home and rest.” He hugged his sister and showed her to the door.

Once Annika’s car rolled out of view behind the dirty snowbank, Cameron found himself in Jordan’s closet. He took a Burberry sweater off a hanger and held it to his face. It smelled like stale smoke and the cologne Jordan used to wear on his neck. On the floor of the closet were three empty cardboard boxes that Annika had labeled as KEEP, DONATE, and TOSS. Cameron considered the boxes for a minute, and then pulled the sweater on. It was much too small for him, but the compression around his chest was soothing.

Back downstairs, he cozied on the couch with a glass in one hand and Jordan’s phone in the other. The wine stained Cameron’s teeth burgundy, sent a pleasant surge of warmth from his chest up to his head. He pulled up the conversation with Fern. There was a message from a couple days ago:

                           long time no hear… hope all is good

Cameron opened Instagram and searched Jordan’s followers. It didn’t take long for him to find Fern. After a drink’s worth of clicking and scrolling, Cameron had fleshed out his character. Fernando Gutierrez: a sculptor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, late twenties, bookishly handsome. Jordan’s chat with Fernando was full of memes about impressionist art, links to gallery openings in the Twin Cities, reels about posh coffee shops, all the things that fell flat with Cameron. Cameron opened the front-facing camera on his phone but, upon seeing his own soft jawline, closed the camera immediately.

Typing the message was deliciously easy, but Cameron was surprised when his thumb tapped send.

                                                                        Cam’s gone, want to come over?

By the time Cameron emptied the rest of the bottle into his glass, there was already a response:

                           hey stranger

                           of course

                           be there in 30

Cameron turned off all the lights except for the lamp in the upstairs bedroom, grabbed a fresh bottle, and slid a chair up to the front window. The neighbor’s Christmas lights were still strung up, winking feebly against the dusk. He tried to guess what sort of car Fernando would drive. A Mini Cooper? Some antique? Cameron clenched the arm of the chair every time a vehicle rolled by. When an Uber came to a halt outside the house, Cameron stood too quickly and reached for the curtain to steady himself.

The doorbell rang. He counted to ten and opened the door. In the powdery dark, Cameron could tell Fernando was wearing a neatly tied scarf, a leather jacket, and thick-framed glasses. Cameron could also see Fernando’s devious grin sliding into a frown.

“Hi, uh … is Jordan home?” Fernando asked.

“No, he’s gone,” Cameron said, aware that he was slurring his words.

“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“No, not sure. Sorry.”

Fernando peered over Cameron’s shoulder into the dark living room. “Okay. Well, have a good night.”

“Goodnight.”

Fernando’s face lit up blue as he drifted back down the front walk. Jordan’s phone buzzed in Cameron’s pocket.

                            i think cameron answered the door

                            everything alright?

Cameron considered responding, asking Fernando to come back, but instead he turned Jordan’s phone off. At that moment, all he wanted was to hear his husband’s voice. He took out his own phone and called Jordan.

“Hi, it’s Jordan. Leave me a message. Or don’t.”

---

“He plays video games for, like, five hours a day. That’s a huge red flag, isn’t it?” Annika steered around potholes full of gray slush, telling her brother about her latest love interest on the way back from the used-car lot where Cameron had sold Jordan’s car.

“Yeah, that might be a problem.” Cameron chose not to reveal how much he’d been gaming since the funeral.

“I just need someone who’s more present, you know?”

She pulled the car into the open spot in Cameron’s garage. They got out and went inside.

“Are you hungry?” she said. “Let me make you a sandwich or something.”

Cameron watched his sister open the fridge, watched her gaze fall on the pizza box that still resided inside, watched her pull out some sliced turkey and cheese.

“Do you think you’ll try dating again?” she asked.

Cameron thought about the time Jordan survived a rollover accident and told Cameron that he shouldn’t waste time in finding someone new if anything were to happen. Cameron thought about how he hadn’t seen anyone for weeks apart from his sister and his coworkers at the lab. He thought about how he’d jerked off to photos of Fernando the night the guy had come to the door.

“Maybe in the summer,” Cameron settled on.

“That seems like a healthy amount of time,” Annika said, slathering mayo on a slice of bread.

Cameron excused himself to go to the bathroom. A phone lit up on the far end of the counter, catching Annika’s eye. She reached for it, shaking her head, realizing that it was Jordan’s phone. Annika slipped onto the back porch and dialed 611.

That night, Cameron overturned his entire house searching for Jordan’s phone. Lying on the floor of the kitchen, he called his husband once more, unable to fathom the evil that his sister had committed.

“The number you have dialed is not in service, please check the number and dial again. …”

---

When Cameron opened the mailbox, a phone bill glared at him from the top of the pile. He called to his recently adopted French bulldog, who was sniffing around the brown front lawn. Back inside, Cameron got the half-and-half from the bare fridge and slit the envelope open over coffee. He was still being charged for Jordan’s line.

Cameron called Jordan’s number. It rang twice before somebody answered.

“Hey, this is Grant,” a voice said.

Cameron stared at his coffee. The dog stared at Cameron.

“Hello, is someone there?”

Cameron spoke. “Hi, um, I think you got assigned my late husband’s phone number. There’s been a mix-up with Verizon. I’m still being charged for your phone bill.”

“Oh. I … I’m so sorry about your husband,” said the man on the other end, “and about the extra charge. That’s probably the last thing you want to think about right now.”

Cameron and Grant continued to chat for almost half an hour. Cameron learned that Grant had relocated his family from Chicago to Richfield a year ago after his work at Best Buy required him to come back into the office. Grant had been fed up with the political texts he kept receiving from Illinois campaigns and switched his number to a local area code. Cameron kept expecting Grant to wind down the conversation, but, instead, Grant would ask another thoughtful question. It was the most Cameron had spoken to anyone since Jordan. Before saying goodbye, Grant promised to call Verizon that afternoon to work out the billing.

“I really appreciate it,” said Cameron, feeling reawakened, like he had been released from solitary confinement.

After hanging up, he poured himself some sauv with orange juice and sat on the couch next to the dog. He researched Grant online. Cameron found Grant’s LinkedIn, which outlined a short but impressive career in marketing. His Facebook page was abandoned apart from sporadic happy-birthday wishes from the past few years. His Instagram was private, but the profile picture showed a charming smile over a martini glass. Cameron pulled out his debit card and paid for a Whitepages.com subscription.

“Let’s go for a drive,” he said to the dog, who snorted in agreement.

They rolled out under the bright midday sun and headed south on I-94, where the lanes were whitened by pulverized rock salt. Cameron sang along to a Coldplay album and reached across to scratch the dog’s ears.

When they got to Grant’s quiet street, Cameron came to a stop a few houses away. He’d intended to knock on Grant’s door, thank him for working out the phone snafu, offer to show him around the city sometime. But now Cameron froze to his seat. He looked at the number over the garage, double-checked that it matched the Whitepages address. An SUV passed Cameron’s idling car and parked in the driveway that should be Grant’s. A blond woman in a puffy coat got out and lifted a curly haired child from a booster seat. The woman glanced back at Cameron’s car and ushered the child into the house.

Cameron told Siri to call Jordan. The phone rang two, three, four times.

“Hey, this is Grant. Sorry I couldn’t get to the phone, but leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

Cameron pulled up Progressive.com and typed Grant’s name, birthday, and address into the quote tool. The website generated a list of registered vehicles: a 2020 Hyundai Tucson and a 2023 Audi A4.

The dog whined.

“Shhh, shhh, we just have one more stop, and then we’ll go home.”

Cameron kissed the dog on the tip of the nose and reached into a paper bag in the back seat for a can of prosecco. He took a restrained sip and eased back up the street. The sun fell warmly onto his lap. He rolled down the window to feel the sharpness of the air.

Before two songs were over, Cameron found himself swallowed by the shade of a parking ramp. He snaked through the aisles, ascending to the second level and then the third, until he found it. An Audi A4. Silver, with a White Sox license-plate frame.

Cameron backed into an empty space and cut the ignition. He checked his watch: quarter past four. The workday would be over soon. He sipped his can and sifted through Grant’s Facebook friends, starting with the ones who shared Grant’s last name. Cameron didn’t find any evidence of the Audi, but there was a picture of Grant at a White Sox game with a man who was probably a brother or cousin.

Cameron called the DMV.

“Good afternoon. This is Jan speaking. How may I help you?”

“Can you please look up a license plate for me?”

“What do you need that for, hon?”

“I, um, I was in a hit-and-run.”

“Oh, jeez. Are you okay, dear? Have you called 911 yet?”

Cameron hung up. The dog whimpered. Cameron smelled piss.

“Christ.”

Cameron tore apart the paper bag and dabbed it against the dark stain that was growing on the passenger seat.

A car revved. Cameron looked up to see the tail of the Audi disappear around the corner. Without strapping in, he accelerated in pursuit, causing the dog to stumble and scatter the damp paper scraps. Down one ramp and around the corner, Cameron gained feet on the Audi until he could see the driver’s sharp neckline. Cameron rolled down his window and waved his hand out the side. A pair of eyes flashed in the Audi’s rearview mirror.

The Audi swung right. Cameron turned his wheel, but the world pivoted against him. A concrete column swung inward.

A shower of sparks. The dog yelped.

Cameron felt a hot wave of self-hatred as he got out to assess the damage. The side mirror was dangling limply by black wires—it had taken the entire brunt. A constellation of glass fragments was sprayed across the concrete. The dog hopped through the open driver door and ran circles around Cameron’s feet, yipping.

Cameron opened his phone and called his husband, but then immediately hung up. Instead, he typed a message with shaky hands:

                                                                         Hey, ths is Cameron from esrlier

He willed himself to press send, but his thumb wouldn’t budge. He put his phone back in his pocket and carried the wine can to a trash bin by the elevator, letting the rest of the drink pour onto the ground.

“Let’s go home,” Cameron said, scooping up the dog and returning to the driver’s seat. He called Annika. “Hey, can you come over tonight? I think I’m ready to go through Jordan’s clothes.”

“I’m sorry, Cam, I have a date tonight. But don’t let that stop you. Do you still have those three boxes?”

Over the railing of the parking ramp, Cameron watched a light turn green, and the Audi vanished around a bend.

“Cam? Where are you?”

“I’m just at home. I’ll see you this weekend. Have a nice date.”

Then Cameron opened his husband’s contact and pressed delete.

For the visually impaired or those using TTS reading aids: this is the end of the story.

---

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