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Elena. Two suitcases. A bottle of wine – the cheap kind, with a screw cap, because Elena would rather drink battery acid disguised as wine than spend forty dollars on a bottle. She looks like she’s been running from something, and the something is five foot two and has a labelling system.

“She put a tracking app on my phone, Lucas.” Elena’s standing in the hallway, slightly out of breath, suitcases at her feet. “She said it was for ‘safety.’ I went to the bodega and she called me before I got to the corner to ask why I was walking south instead of east. She has a directional preference for my grocery route. I love her but I cannot coexist with her in a confined space. Please let me sleep on your couch before I commit matricide.”

“Come in,” I say.

“I brought wine. It’s terrible wine – it’s essentially paint thinner with a personality. Five dollars. The man at the bodega asked if I was okay. I’m not apologising and I’m not answering his question either.”

Preston appears from the bedroom in a T-shirt and pyjama bottoms. The T-shirt’s inside out. His hair’s wrecked in a way that has nothing to do with sleep, because ten minutes ago nobody in that bedroom was sleeping. He blinks at Elena. He blinks at the suitcases. His face does the math on her timing and files a formal complaint.

“Is this an invasion or a refugee situation?” he asks.

“Refugee,” Elena says, pushing past me into the apartment. She drops the suitcases by the couch, looks around at the walk-up – the garment rack, the radiator, the kitchen that doesn’t qualify as a kitchen – and makes a sound that is either assessment or judgment or both.

“It’s small,” she says.

“We’re aware,” I say.

“Like, really small. How do you both live here? Where does the other one go when you’re fighting?”

“The bathroom,” Preston says. “It’s the only room with a lock.”

“You fight in the bathroom?”

“I retreat to the bathroom. There’s a difference. Fighting implies mutual participation. I participate from behind a locked door, using only my voice and my extensive vocabulary.”

“Okay,” she says. She puts the terrible wine on the counter. “I’ll take the couch. I need a pillow, a blanket, and the WiFi password. And before you ask – yes, I looked for apartments. No, I can’t afford one yet. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Nobody’s asking you to talk about it,” I say.

“Good. Because I won’t.”

“Understood.”

“I just need a couple of weeks. Maybe three. I’ll be out of your hair before you notice I’m here.”

Preston and I look at each other. We’ve been married long enough that certain communications happen without words. The look he gives me says: She’s staying. And it’s going to be chaotic. And I’m going to like her. My look back says: I know. And you’re right. And I’m sorry we won’t be finishing what she interrupted.

“Take the couch,” I say. “Blankets are in the closet.”

“What’s the WiFi password?”

“Preston,” I say, because he set it up and I’ve never remembered it.

Preston clears his throat. “The network name is The Breville Residence. The password is Brev!lleIsKing1 – one word, capital B, capital I, capital K, an exclamation point where the first I should be, and a number one at the end, because it is number one.”

Elena stares at him. She looks at the Breville on the counter. She looks back at Preston.

“You named the WiFi network after the coffee machine.”

“I named it after the single most important purchase I have ever made. That machine is the reason your brother fell in love with me. It deserves recognition.”

Elena turns to me. “Is that true?”

“It didn’t hurt.”

She looks at the machine again – longer this time, appraising. “That’s a twelve-hundred-dollar espresso machine.”

“Fourteen fifty, but I respect the attempt.”