The very first time you knocked I wore practical jeans and white gloves pulled back tight to the elbow. You in a brown polo, belly stretching the fabric out like a circus tent. Reciting the words in my living room while dabbing the sweat from your forehead. I offered a glass of room temp water and allowed you to pour a vial of thin blue liquid directly into the carpet. “The VACTOMIZER 3000 circulates the soap,” you said, fondling the gas pump trigger. I passed on the purchase but when you asked to use the restroom with downcast eyes I acquiesced. I remember that you asked with the shyness of a child. I held my own distended belly as you backed out the front door.

The next time you knocked you wore suspenders holding black dress pants, the overhang of your gut resting against the elastic waistband. You had practiced the art of selling and hoped to be taken seriously, your blazer tossed over your shoulder. Despite your ambitions you were little more than adorable. It was impossible to imagine you presiding over layoffs in a glass office. It is impossible to imagine you anywhere besides the peephole. Neighborhood rumors preceded your arrival so I wore my first red dress, a dress the color of your face outside my front door with the desert and cactus shimmering behind you. “The next boom will be gold!” you said, rushing past into the empty nest of my home. “Gold, a hedge against inflation!” I wished to take you to the restroom and peel off your clothes, mothering you with ice so that you might finally sleep.

The third time you had cut carbs. Your skin glued to the musculature of your biceps, your sleeves rolled up and your dress shirt hanging from the sharp shelf of your shoulders as you unpacked thin metal rods in my basement. Outside the wind blew and piled ice against the corners of the house. I hung your coat in the stoop and placed your scarf in the dryer. You asked if my husband was home, and the question was rhetorical. The confidence was new; you had finally learned to make a sale. My children hid their faces behind my skirt and peaked out with fear and wonder.

The contraption black and glossy and the light bulb the shape of an hourglass, the halo a Rembrandt painting. “Seasonal effective disorder effects over 65% of housewives,” you said, never breaking eye contact. I permitted you to fuck me beneath the lamp, the basement floorboards cool against my back as my children scampered on the ground floor, the sound of their feet echoing in time to our bodies.

Each visit armed with a different product! Fat burners and blockers, magazine or encyclopedia subscriptions, yard care products, various cable installations, carbon monoxide detectors so that we might not pass unwillingly in our collective sleep. Each visit a varying encounter replete with small talk lapsing to a familiar silence, remarks on the rapid aging of my children. Each visit an additional permission. My husband noting your sales acumen as the attic filled up.

It snowed for the week prior to your final knocking, the entire front yard untouched and pure. My husband shoveled his half of the driveway, holding his back at the kitchen island while his eyes complained. He had always loved a gentle accusation. I packed his lunch and kissed him goodbye on the cheek. Before he closed the front door he had the flickering courage to pause and smile as if forewarned. “Love is a long road and we are walking it,” he said, donning coat and hat. When he left I carved the crust from the children’s bread and wiped the crumbs into the sink after they went to wait for the bus.

You are wearing gloves and a scarf, coat cinched tight. Glasses haunted by the wind and smeared rock salt, car idling on the street. For once you had left the spec products in the trunk. Here selling only the promise of fidelity and new beginnings. You lean towards the peephole and have never been smaller, little more than an infant with your mustache and the snow eating the sound of your knocking. Stand straight and pin your ears back for any premonitions from inside. That brief moment, the audible hush of winter silence, the flakes dotting your delicate lashes. Straining to hear my boots scuffling against tile or my suitcase tossed against the wall. Even my voice telling you to turn around might offer closure. The pinprick of waiting expanding to forevers, impatience and excitement fermenting to fear. Press your ear to the doorframe darling, press close and listen. For what?

Your heart approaching.