The Night of Unexpected Guests
Fiction
Helena Fester wasn’t the perfect wife — something that endeared her to her friends but scraped against her husband’s ego. Every night, he would come home from work with the expectation that she would have a hot meal waiting on the dining room table, but often instead he found her reclining on the couch, the phone cord stretched from its attachment in the kitchen as she laughed over something another housewife prattled in her ear. Only when he was lucky was there dinner waiting — though the quality was usually up to debate, given the sooty smell that would waft through the front door when he entered.
But Jacob Fester was a patient man, a man not quick to anger, someone who bided his time because he had trained himself to be a salesman first and foremost. If anyone could persuade Helena to be more domestic, then he was up for the task. He had been top seller at Rochester Appliances last year for a reason; he could spin a tale about a product or a system like it was the greatest thing since the invention of the television. And he never even had to lie, not really, to do it.
His skills of persuasion would have to be sufficient to ensure his wife became the ideal he had thought he was marrying three years ago.
It was a Friday night, around six o’clock, when Jacob arrived home from his shift at work. As soon…
