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Lemon Meringue Pie

Caitlin Sinead Jennings

lemon meringue pieGrace realized her husband was having an affair when he made her lemon meringue pie on a mundane Tuesday. Guilty dessert.

By sprinkling his coworkers with a few innocuous and delicate questions, Grace discovered her husband had an offsite visit every Tuesday afternoon. But no one could quite remember the client. Through some shrewd snooping, she found a receipt for a bagel from a convenience store next to the Dappled Motel. The clerk at the motel counter, who was very taken with Grace’s lovely smile and perhaps even more lovely figure, did not suspect much as she leaned over, begging to see more of his amazing skills in handling reservations. “So you can just pull up all the reservations for a day. Like last Tuesday? And the Tuesday before? Why, that is quite a feat.”

The next Tuesday morning, it was not difficult for Grace to crack the back window of the lovebird’s motel room. It was even easier to place the lemon meringue pie atop the mini-fridge with a note: “For our valued guests.” If he was an idiot, they would eat it and Grace would be rid of them both. If he was not an idiot, he would dispose of it, end the affair, and come back to her waiting arms.

Grace sat in the parking lot, disguised with sunglasses and a vintage scarf. She smiled when she saw her husband suspiciously peek out from the thick blinds.

Good boy.

Caitlin Sinead Jennings earned a master’s degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her story “A New Life™ at 30” was shortlisted in the 2012 Writers & Artist Short Story Competition. Her writing has also appeared (or is forthcoming) in The Alarmist, The Binnacle, The Idiom, Jersey Devil Press, and Northern Virginia Magazine, among other publications. She tweets at @CaitlinSineadJ.

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