It was a weird thought. One dinner sitting by itself. A lunch for one of them. Greta and Peggy nodded, though, because – it made sense. Really. And probably Dell would be home any minute. Usually Dell and Heidi were rostered on together, but Heidi had been away from work for a while and maybe their rosters had got a bit separated. All of the workplaces were still working the second woman out. Working out that the words ‘second woman’ didn’t apply – they were both the same woman. Everyone was trying to work things like this out without talking about it or acknowledging it so it was all a bit chaotic, but even the chaos was pushed down.

Greta started getting pots out from under the sink. ‘How was work?’

‘I’m not home for dinner,’ Heidi said, watching them get all the stuff ready.

‘Oh,’ Greta said. ‘Cool.’

‘Is Dell home for dinner?’ Peggy asked.

Heidi shrugged. She wasn’t saying. Now they were cooking for three, and that was stranger and shook them even more. The lack of symmetry.

‘Shall we cook for you too, and you and Dell can have it for lunch if Dell doesn’t come home for dinner?’ Peggy was starting to rave a bit. There was a dull panic simmering inside them. Their hearts were pounding and a pain was starting to spread over their chest. Greta pulled at the yoke of her jumper and they were both breathing faster.

‘Nah,’ said Heidi. ‘I’ll buy lunch.’

‘Okay,’ Greta said, and she sat down for a bit.

‘Where are you off to?’ Peggy said, trying to sound casual but not feeling casual at all.

‘Out,’ Heidi said, but she didn’t go anywhere. She just kept standing there staring at them. The scar was settling back into her face. She’d never not look exactly like Dell, but each day she looked more and more like herself, like Dell did. She looked down, then, and picked something off her cardigan. ‘Okay,’ she said, and looked out the window. ‘Gotta go.’

‘Okay,’ Greta said.

‘Righto,’ said Peggy. ‘Have a nice night.’

They ended up making the quiche again. It was round. They cut it into quarters and put two quarters in the fridge and sat in silence and ate two of the quarters. Neither of them felt good when they went to bed that night.

‘I don’t think I like the quiche anymore,’ Greta said.

‘Yeah,’ Peggy said. ‘Maybe we’ve had it too much.’

‘We have had it a lot in the last little while.’

‘Yeah,’ Peggy said, and they rolled over to try and get comfortable, to try and get the whole thing out of their minds.

‘Tomorrow’s another day,’ Greta said, and they both laughed because people said it to them as a positive thing, but it felt terrifying after the day they’d had, after the interaction with Heidi.

‘What is eating her?’ Greta asked.