The Saturday list was short: milk, coffee, dog food, a stop at the hardware store for a new furnace filter, and the post office if it wasn't too crowded.

Miguel backed the car out while Daniel scrolled through his phone, reading the list aloud one more time. "Also lightbulbs. The one in the hallway went out Thursday and I keep forgetting."

"Add it," Miguel said. "Hardware store first, then groceries, so the cold stuff doesn't sit."

The hardware store smelled like sawdust and rubber. Daniel found the filters while Miguel got distracted by a display of drill bits he did not need, and they met again at the register with lightbulbs, a filter, and a small bag of grass seed for the bare patch by the mailbox that had bothered Daniel all spring.

At the grocery store, they split up the way they always did—Miguel to produce and the deli counter, Daniel to the middle aisles. They found each other again near the frozen section, comparing carts.

"You got the crunchy kind," Daniel said, holding up the peanut butter.

"You like the crunchy kind."

"I like the smooth kind. You like the crunchy kind."

Miguel considered this. "Then we've had it wrong for eleven years." He put the jar back and took the smooth one, and Daniel laughed at him all the way to the checkout.

The post office line was six people deep, which was tolerable. Daniel mailed his sister's birthday card, three days late, and Miguel waited by the door reading the wanted posters with the same mild fascination he had every time.

At home they unloaded the trunk in two trips. Miguel put away the groceries; Daniel changed the hallway bulb, then stood on the front step and shook the grass seed over the bare patch with his thumb over the opening, spreading it thin.

"Lunch?" Miguel called from the kitchen.

"Give me five minutes."


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like Ohio, and Danielle pulled it down without reading it because she already knew what it said. Bread, coffee, the good yogurt, dish soap.

"Do we need eggs?" Marcus called from the hallway, hopping into one shoe.

"I put eggs on there Tuesday. You crossed it off."

"Because I bought eggs Tuesday."

"Then we don't need eggs."

He grabbed the reusable bags, the ones they always forgot, and this time didn't. In the car, the radio came on mid-song, some ballad from 2003 that they both pretended not to know the words to and both knew the words to.

First the post office, because the line grew teeth after ten. Marcus mailed his mother's birthday card, three days late but postmarked, which he insisted counted. Danielle waited by the stamp machine, looking at commemorative sheets of tropical birds she would never buy.

Then the hardware store for a furnace filter and a bag of ice melt, because the forecast had opinions about Thursday. Marcus wandered toward the aisle of drill bits like a man drawn by tide. Danielle retrieved him.

The grocery store was crowded with the Saturday-morning kind of people, unhurried and blocking things. They split up—she took produce, he took the pharmacy section and the coffee. She found him ten minutes later comparing two nearly identical boxes of granola bars with real gravity.

"These have chocolate."

"Get those, then."

"But these have more protein."

"Marcus. Get the chocolate."

At checkout, she loaded the belt and he bagged, an arrangement they'd never discussed but had performed a thousand times. He always put the bread on top. She always noticed.

In the parking lot, the wind cut through her jacket. He handed her the keys without being asked, because she liked driving home better than driving there.

"Car wash?" he said.

"Next week."

They both knew that meant no.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like Ohio, and Daniel took it down without being asked. "Bank first," he said. "The deposit slip's still in the glovebox."

Marcus was already tying his shoes by the door. "Then the hardware store. I want to look at the weatherstripping before it gets cold."

They took the Corolla because the truck was low on gas and neither of them wanted to deal with that yet. Saturday morning traffic on Route 9 was the usual slow crawl past the strip malls, and Daniel drove with one hand while Marcus read the list aloud, editing as he went. "We don't need bread. There's half a loaf in the freezer."

"That's been in there since August."

"Bread doesn't expire in a freezer, Daniel."

They compromised on a loaf of the good sourdough, which Marcus considered a small victory.

At the bank, Daniel waited in the car with the windows down while Marcus went in. It took longer than it should have — a woman ahead of him was closing out an account and crying about it — and when he came back Daniel had fallen asleep with his head against the seatbelt.

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list the way they always did: Marcus took produce and dairy, Daniel took everything in the middle aisles, and they met near the deli counter to compare carts. Daniel had bought two boxes of the cereal that was on sale. Marcus had bought flowers.

"For the table," Marcus said, before he could be questioned.

The hardware store took twenty minutes. The weatherstripping was cheaper than expected, and they also bought furnace filters and a new hose nozzle because the old one had cracked over the summer.

At home they carried the bags in together, two trips each. Marcus put the flowers in a jar. Daniel started lunch.


The list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster, a souvenir from a trip to Maine neither of them could quite remember the year of.

"Do we actually need buttermilk," Priya asked, "or is that aspirational?"

Marcus was hunting for his keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. "You said you were making biscuits."

"I said I was thinking about making biscuits."

"Buttermilk stays on the list." He found the keys under a stack of unopened mail and held them up like a small trophy.

They took his car because hers was making a noise. The dry cleaner came first, tucked between a nail salon and a shuttered video store that had been shuttered so long the paper in the windows had yellowed. Priya went in with the ticket while Marcus waited at the curb with the engine running, listening to a radio host argue about a baseball trade.

At the pharmacy she picked up her prescription and he wandered off and came back with a birthday card for his sister and a bag of the cinnamon almonds she pretended not to like.

The grocery store was crowded for a Saturday. They split up out of habit—she took produce and dairy, he took the aisles—and reconvened near the bread, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops.

"You got the wrong yogurt," she said.

"They were out of the other one."

"They're never out of the other one."

"And yet."

At the register he bagged while she paid, an arrangement worked out over eleven years without either of them ever discussing it. In the parking lot the sky had gone the flat gray that meant rain by evening.

"Hardware store?" he asked.

"It's four-thirty."

"It closes at six."

She considered the cart, the trunk, the buttermilk sweating in its carton. "Tomorrow," she said, and he nodded, and they drove home.


The list was on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like a lobster, and Diane took it down without reading it because she'd written it and knew what it said. Marcus was already in the driveway, scraping a thin crust of frost off the windshield with the edge of a library card.

"You could use the actual scraper," she said, getting in.

"The actual scraper is in the garage, and the garage is cold."

They drove to the credit union first, because it closed at noon on Saturdays. Marcus deposited a check from the roofing job he'd finished in October, and Diane waited in the car with the heat on, texting their daughter about Thanksgiving. When he came back he handed her a butterscotch candy from the dish on the counter.

The grocery store was crowded. They split up out of long habit — Diane took produce and dairy, Marcus took the middle aisles and the meat counter — and reconvened near the bread. He'd bought two boxes of the crackers she liked and one box of the ones he liked, which she noted and did not comment on. At checkout, the card reader failed twice before it took.

Then the hardware store for furnace filters, and the pharmacy, where Marcus's prescription wasn't ready and the pharmacist said twenty minutes, so they stood in the greeting card aisle reading the funny ones out loud until it was.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, which they almost forgot. Diane remembered at the light on Kilbourn and Marcus turned around without complaint, and they picked up his good gray suit in its plastic sheath and laid it across the grocery bags in the back seat.

At home they put things away together, which took eleven minutes. Then Diane made coffee, and Marcus went to find the ice scraper, and did not.


Saturday morning, and the list on the refrigerator had grown to fourteen items. Marcus tore it off while Dana searched for the car keys, which turned up, as usual, in the pocket of the jacket she'd worn Thursday.

The first stop was the pharmacy, where Dana's prescription wasn't ready. The clerk said fifteen minutes, so they wandered the aisles, and Marcus put a bag of cough drops in the basket because the cold going around the office had already claimed two of his coworkers.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did. Marcus took produce and the deli counter; Dana took the middle aisles and dairy. They met near the frozen foods, comparing carts.

"You got the good bread," Dana said.

"They had two loaves left. I fought a man for it."

"Did you actually?"

"There was eye contact."

The checkout line was long because one register was closed. Dana read the tabloid headlines out loud in a newscaster voice until Marcus told her to stop, which only encouraged her. They loaded eleven bags into the trunk, and Marcus returned the cart to the corral instead of leaving it in the empty space, because Dana had a thing about that.

They still had the dry cleaning, and the hardware store for a furnace filter, and the library, where Dana returned two books three days overdue and paid the fine in quarters from the console. On the way home they stopped at the drive-through car wash, sitting in the humming dark while soap slid down the windshield.

By one o'clock the groceries were unpacked, the filter was in, and the receipts were in a pile on the counter that neither of them would sort until Tuesday. Dana made sandwiches with the good bread. Marcus found a game on television and turned the volume low, and they ate on the couch with their feet up, the errands done and the whole afternoon left over.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like Illinois. Devon had added items in his cramped handwriting beneath Marcus's neat block letters: coffee filters, dish soap, the good bread if they have it.

"Ready?" Devon called from the entryway, jingling the keys.

The October air had turned sharp overnight. Marcus grabbed his jacket from the hook and they backed out of the driveway, past the maple that had finally started dropping leaves onto the lawn they'd been meaning to rake.

First the bank, where Devon deposited a check while Marcus waited in the car with the radio on, half-listening to a report about the harvest. Then the hardware store for furnace filters, because the man who'd serviced it in September said they should change them monthly during heating season.

"He also said we should replace the whole unit," Devon said, examining a filter's packaging.

"He would say that."

At the pharmacy, Marcus picked up his refill while Devon browsed the greeting cards, looking for something for his sister's birthday. He held up two options. Marcus pointed at the one with the dog on it.

The grocery store was crowded for a Saturday morning. They fell into their usual rhythm—Devon pushing the cart, Marcus darting off for items and returning. Produce, then dairy, then the long aisle where Devon always paused too long over cereal.

"They don't have the good bread," Marcus reported.

"Then we get the mediocre bread."

At the checkout, the woman ahead of them was short two dollars and Devon handed it over before she finished apologizing. She thanked him three times.

Loading the trunk, Marcus said, "We forgot dish soap."

Devon closed his eyes. "We're not going back in."

"We're not going back in," Marcus agreed.

They drove home with the windows cracked, and Devon made a note on his phone for next week.


The Saturday list was short, which meant it would take twice as long as expected.

"Bank first," Miguel said, backing the Corolla out of the driveway. "Before the line gets stupid."

Daniel had the list on his phone, his thumb scrolling. "Bank, dry cleaner, groceries. And I need to return those shoes."

"That's not on the list."

"I'm adding it."

At the credit union, they deposited a check from Miguel's mother—a birthday check that had arrived three weeks late, as always, with a note apologizing for being late. The teller asked if they wanted a receipt. Daniel said yes; Miguel said no. They took the receipt.

The dry cleaner had lost one of Daniel's shirts, or claimed never to have received it. The woman behind the counter checked the computer twice, then the racks, then said she would call. Daniel was calm about it in a way that Miguel found suspicious.

"You loved that shirt," Miguel said in the parking lot.

"I hated that shirt. Your sister gave me that shirt."

At the grocery store they split the list, which they had learned from experience was the only way. Miguel took produce and dairy; Daniel took the interior aisles, where he would inevitably buy something not on the list. They met near the bread and Daniel put a jar of marmalade in the cart without comment. Miguel put it back on the shelf. Daniel put it in the cart again. It stayed.

The self-checkout flagged the onions twice. A teenage employee came over, waved a card at the screen, and left without saying anything.

The shoe return took eleven minutes. Daniel came out with store credit instead of a refund, which he did not mention until they were on the highway.

"You're going to spend it on more shoes."

"Obviously."

At home they carried the bags in together, two trips each, and Miguel made coffee while Daniel put things away in the wrong cabinets.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of weather that made the coffee taste better. Daniel found the list on the refrigerator where Marcus had left it, written in his careful block letters: milk, coffee filters, chicken thighs, dish soap, birthday card for Aunt Rose.

"We should hit the bank first," Marcus said, pulling on his jacket. "The line gets ridiculous after eleven."

They took the Subaru because the Honda was making that noise again. Daniel drove; Marcus fiddled with the radio until he found a station playing something tolerable, then turned it down to talk.

The bank took twelve minutes. The dry cleaner took four, and the woman behind the counter asked about their dog, who had once escaped and been found sleeping on her stoop. At the pharmacy, Marcus picked up his blood pressure medication while Daniel wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of jellybeans nobody had asked for.

"Those aren't on the list," Marcus said.

"The list is a suggestion."

The grocery store was crowded. They split up the way they always did — Marcus took produce and dairy, Daniel took the center aisles and meat — and met near the bakery. Marcus had added grapes and a loaf of sourdough. Daniel had added the jellybeans and a rotisserie chicken because it smelled too good to ignore.

At the checkout, Marcus remembered the birthday card and jogged back for it, returning slightly winded, holding up something with a watercolor hummingbird on the front. "Rose likes birds."

"Rose likes complaining about birds."

"Same thing."

They loaded the trunk in a light rain, argued briefly about whether the eggs were secure, and drove home. Daniel carried in the heavy bags. Marcus put things away in the specific order he preferred, which Daniel had long ago stopped questioning. By noon the kitchen smelled like coffee again, and the afternoon lay open ahead of them, unclaimed.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held up by a magnet shaped like Oregon, and folded it into his shirt pocket. "Ready?" he called down the hall.

"Two minutes," David answered, which meant five. He emerged with his reading glasses pushed up into his gray hair and the dry cleaning receipt he'd been hunting since Tuesday.

The Saturday morning traffic on Baldwin Avenue moved slowly. They stopped first at the bank, where Marcus deposited a check from his sister and David waited in the car with the radio on, listening to a segment about drought conditions in the valley. When Marcus came back, David said, "They're saying we should let the lawn go brown."

"The lawn's been brown since June."

At the dry cleaner, the woman behind the counter recognized David and had his shirts ready before he finished handing over the receipt. The pharmacy took longer. They stood in line behind a man arguing about his insurance, and Marcus read the labels on cough drops while David checked his phone.

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list without discussing it, the way they had for twenty-two years — David took produce and dairy, Marcus took everything in the aisles. They reconvened near the bread. David had added a bag of clementines that weren't on the list.

"We have oranges."

"These are better." David put them in the cart. Marcus didn't argue.

At the register, they bagged their own groceries because the teenager was slow and it was easier. In the parking lot, the sun had gotten hot enough that the car's interior smelled like warm vinyl. David loaded the trunk while Marcus returned the cart to the corral.

Driving home, they passed the hardware store. "Furnace filter," David said.

Marcus turned into the lot without answering. It was that kind of morning — a list, a car, the two of them working through it.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like a lobster, and Dev pulled it down while Marcus hunted for the reusable bags that never seemed to make it back into the trunk.

"Found two," Marcus said. "The good one's still at your mother's."

They took the Corolla because it had gas. Saturday morning traffic on Delmar was thin, the light gray and undecided about rain. Dev read the list aloud at stoplights, adding things as he remembered them—coffee filters, the specific yogurt Marcus liked, dish soap.

The pharmacy first, since it opened earliest. Marcus went in for his refill while Dev sat in the car with the radio on, listening to a man explain the crossword clues he'd already failed to solve that morning. Marcus came back out with the prescription bag and a package of licorice he pretended to be embarrassed about.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did—Dev took produce and the dry goods aisles, Marcus took dairy, bread, and the deli counter. They met near the frozen foods and compared carts like generals reviewing troops. Marcus had gotten the wrong brand of tortillas again. Dev had forgotten eggs entirely.

"You had eggs," Marcus said.

"I had eggs in my head."

The checkout line was long. A toddler behind them narrated the contents of their cart with great seriousness. Marcus bagged, Dev paid, and they wheeled everything out under a sky that had finally decided on drizzle.

Last stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter and a new washer for the kitchen faucet that had dripped for three weeks. Dev held the filter while Marcus tried to remember the size of the old one, and eventually they just bought two.

Home by eleven-thirty. Groceries in, milk first, and Marcus put water on for tea while Dev returned the lobster magnet to its post.


The Saturday list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster, a souvenir from a trip neither of them could remember clearly anymore. Renata pulled it down and read it aloud in the car while Tom backed out of the driveway.

"Milk, coffee, the good bread, chicken, whatever's on sale for the freezer. Then the pharmacy, then the dry cleaner, then the hardware store for the thing."

"The bracket."

"The thing," she said. "You didn't tell me it had a name."

At the supermarket they split up out of habit—she took produce and dairy, he took the aisles—and reconvened near the bakery, comparing findings like scouts returning from separate territories. He had bought two bags of tortilla chips.

"We have chips."

"We had chips."

She let it go. At checkout she bagged while he paid, and the cashier asked if they wanted the receipt, and both of them said yes at the same time, which made the cashier smile.

The pharmacy took eleven minutes, most of it waiting behind a man arguing gently with the technician about a coupon. Tom read the blood pressure monitor's instructions and did not use it. Renata picked up a birthday card for her brother and wrote it in the car, balancing it on the console.

The dry cleaner had lost one of his shirts and found it while they stood there, hanging in someone else's order. At the hardware store the bracket cost four dollars and thirty-one cents, and they wandered the plumbing aisle for ten minutes anyway, looking at nothing, because it was cool inside and neither of them was in a hurry.

Driving home, Renata held the cold milk against her knees. Tom took the long way, past the reservoir, and she noticed and didn't say anything about it.

The groceries got put away. The bracket sat on the counter until Tuesday.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like Tennessee, a souvenir neither of them remembered buying.

"You added cilantro," he said.

"For the tacos Thursday." David was already at the door, keys in hand, wearing the fleece jacket Marcus had told him twice looked like something a substitute teacher would own. "Bank first? The line's shorter before eleven."

They took David's car because Marcus's had a check-engine light they'd both agreed to keep ignoring. At the credit union, David deposited a check from his mother — she still sent them for birthdays, though both birthdays had passed months ago — while Marcus waited in the passenger seat and answered a work email he shouldn't have opened on a Saturday.

The dry cleaner had David's gray suit ready and had lost the belt from Marcus's coat. The woman behind the counter apologized four times. David said it was fine in a tone that meant it wasn't, and Marcus squeezed his elbow, and they left.

Kroger was crowded. David pushed the cart; Marcus navigated, reading the list aloud in the wrong order, doubling back for garlic. They disagreed briefly about tortillas — corn versus flour, an argument fifteen years old and no closer to resolution — and settled it by buying both. In the cereal aisle, David put a box of something sugary in the cart without comment, and Marcus put it back, and David put it in again, and that was the end of that.

At checkout, Marcus paid. David bagged, because the teenager was slow and David had opinions about bag distribution.

Loading the trunk in the gray November parking lot, David said, "Oil change. I forgot the oil change."

"Next weekend."

"You said that last weekend."

"And I'll say it next weekend too," Marcus said, shutting the trunk. "It's a tradition now."

David laughed, and they drove home.


The list was on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like a lobster, and Dana pulled it down on her way out the door.

"Did you put the reusable bags in the car?" she asked.

"Three of them," Marcus said. "The one with the hole is in the trash where it belongs."

It was Saturday, mid-morning, warm enough that they drove with the windows down through the neighborhood. First stop was the bank, where Marcus deposited a check from the guy who'd bought his old table saw, and Dana waited in the car scrolling through her phone, adding *paper towels* to the list because she'd remembered they were down to the last roll.

The grocery store was crowded. They split up, which they'd learned years ago was faster—Marcus took produce and the meat counter, Dana took the middle aisles and dairy. They met near the frozen section and compared carts.

"You got the wrong bread," she said.

"It was on sale."

"You hate that bread."

He looked at the loaf, sighed, and went to swap it.

At checkout, the total made them both wince a little, the way it always did lately. Dana paid. Marcus bagged, arranging things so nothing would crush the eggs.

After that, the pharmacy for Dana's prescription, then the hardware store, where Marcus needed a specific size of washer for the leaking bathroom faucet and stood in front of the little plastic drawers for a long time. Dana wandered off and came back holding a packet of zinnia seeds.

"For the side bed," she said.

"We'll see if the rabbits agree."

They stopped for tacos on the way home, eating in the car in the parking lot because the groceries were in the trunk and neither of them wanted to sit in a restaurant.

Then home, and the unloading, and the rest of the ordinary afternoon.


The Tuesday Errands

Marcus found the grocery list on the counter where Dana always left it, held down by the salt shaker. He read it twice while she hunted for her keys.

"You wrote 'the good bread,'" he said. "Which is the good bread?"

"You'll know it when you see it."

"That's not how information works."

She found the keys in her coat pocket, exactly where she'd looked first. Outside, the October air had a bite to it, and the Corolla took two tries to turn over, which meant they'd be having the mechanic conversation again soon.

The bank came first, because Dana had a check from her sister that had been sitting in the visor for eleven days. Marcus waited in the car with the engine running, scrolling through his phone, and when she came back she reported that the teller had complimented her scarf.

"Which one?"

"Yolanda. The one with the reading glasses on a chain."

At the pharmacy, Marcus picked up his father's prescription while Dana wandered the seasonal aisle and returned with a bag of candy corn nobody had asked for. He didn't comment. He'd learned.

The grocery store was the main event. They split up out of long habit — Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the center aisles — and reconvened near the freezer section, where she inspected his cart and removed a box of crackers.

"We have three boxes."

"Do we?"

"We have three."

He found the good bread on his own, a seeded sourdough from the bakery rack, and she looked genuinely pleased, which he decided to be proud of.

They loaded the trunk together in the parking lot, and Dana returned the cart because Marcus never did. On the drive home he mentioned the transmission, and she said they'd look at their numbers this weekend, and neither of them said anything for a while, which was fine. The heater finally kicked in around Delaney Street.


The list was on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like a lobster, and Dana pulled it down on her way out the door.

"Do we need coffee?" Marcus asked from the driveway. He was scraping a thin crust of frost off the windshield with a plastic card because the ice scraper had disappeared sometime in March.

"It's on here. Second line."

"You wrote 'beans.' I thought you meant black beans."

"I meant coffee beans."

"See, this is why we have problems," he said, and she laughed, because they didn't, really.

They stopped at the bank first, where Marcus deposited a check from his brother that had been sitting in the glove compartment for two weeks, then at the dry cleaner, where Dana argued gently and unsuccessfully about a stain on a linen blazer. In the pharmacy, they split up—him for allergy medicine, her for the birthday card they needed for his mother—and met again at the register, where he'd also picked up a bag of gummy peach rings that hadn't been on any list.

The grocery store was crowded for a Saturday. Marcus pushed the cart and Dana walked ahead, reading the list aloud in pieces. They disagreed about which apples. They agreed immediately about the bread. In the cereal aisle, she reached past him for the store brand and he put it back and got the name brand, and she let him, because he was the one who ate it.

At the checkout, the bagger asked paper or plastic and they said "paper" at the same time, in the same tone, which struck them both as funny.

Driving home, the trunk full, Marcus took the long way past the hardware store to see if it was still open. It wasn't.

"Tomorrow," Dana said.

"Tomorrow," he agreed, and put on the radio.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like Ohio, and read it aloud while David laced his boots by the door.

"Milk, eggs, that bread you like, coffee filters." Marcus squinted. "What's this last one say?"

"Cilantro."

"It looks like 'Clint Eastwood.'"

"My handwriting is fine." David stood, grabbing the reusable bags from their hook. "Ready?"

The morning was gray and cold enough that the windshield needed scraping. David did it while Marcus warmed the car, and they pulled out onto Bellefonte Street a little after nine.

The post office came first. Marcus waited in the car with the engine running while David mailed the birthday package to his sister in Tucson, which turned out to take eleven minutes because the woman ahead of him was shipping something to Germany and had questions about customs forms. When David came back, Marcus had rearranged the radio presets, which he did whenever left alone with the dashboard.

At the pharmacy they picked up David's blood pressure prescription and, at Marcus's insistence, a bag of the sour candy that turned his tongue green. Then the hardware store, where they debated furnace filter sizes for far too long before David simply took a photo of the old one's label with his phone.

The grocery store was crowded. They split up—Marcus took produce and dairy, David took the middle aisles—and reconvened near the deli counter, where Marcus had somehow acquired three avocados and a bouquet of tulips not on the list.

"For the table," he said.

"For the table," David agreed, and put them in the cart.

They loaded the trunk in the parking lot, arguing amiably about whether the eggs should ride up front. At home they put everything away together, and Marcus filled a jar with water for the tulips and set them where the afternoon light came through.


The Errand Loop

Marcus was already in the car when Dana came out, holding the reusable bags they always forgot until they were halfway to the store.

"Got the list?" she asked, climbing in.

He tapped his phone. "Notes app. You added ricotta at two in the morning."

"I was thinking about lasagna."

The first stop was the credit union, where they deposited a check from Dana's aunt and stood in line behind a man arguing gently with a teller about overdraft fees. Marcus read the interest rate posters. Dana read the man's body language and decided he was going to lose.

At the dry cleaner they picked up his gray suit, which he needed Thursday for a funeral neither of them wanted to discuss yet, and dropped off a tablecloth that had suffered during a dinner party in March.

The grocery store was crowded for a Saturday. They split up the way they always did—Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the aisles, and they met near the bread. She critiqued his selection of tomatoes. He pointed out she'd grabbed the wrong ricotta, the whole-milk one she'd complained about last time.

"That was a different brand."

"It was this brand."

She put it back. They bought the other one.

At checkout, the total came to more than either expected, and they had the brief, familiar conversation about how it used to be ninety dollars for a full cart.

The last stop was the hardware store for furnace filters. Marcus held one up against the old one he'd brought as reference, squinting at the dimensions printed on the cardboard frame.

"Twenty by twenty-five," Dana said, reading over his shoulder.

"I know what it says."

"Then why are you squinting?"

They got home at four. He carried the heavy bags. She put away the cold things first, and then they sat down.


The car needed gas, so they took Maya's Corolla instead of the truck, which had been leaking something onto the driveway for three weeks now.

"We should look at that," Deven said, buckling in.

"We should look at a lot of things." Maya backed out carefully; the Hendersons' cat had a habit of sleeping in the shade of their mailbox.

First the bank, where Deven went inside to deposit a check his mother had mailed him for his birthday, six weeks late, the way she always did. Maya waited in the car with the AC on and answered two work emails she'd been ignoring since Thursday. When he came back he handed her a lollipop from the teller's basket, green apple, her favorite, and she said nothing but put it in the cupholder.

The pharmacy took longer than it should have. Deven's prescription wasn't ready, and the woman behind the counter told them fifteen minutes in a tone that suggested it might be forty. They wandered the aisles. Maya found a heating pad on clearance and held it up.

"For your back," she said.

"My back's fine."

"Your back is not fine. You groaned getting out of the car."

He put it in the basket.

At the grocery store they split the list, an old system: he took produce and dairy, she took everything else, and they met near the bread. He'd gotten the wrong yogurt, plain instead of vanilla, and she sent him back without a word, and he went without complaining, which was its own kind of apology for something neither of them mentioned.

In the parking lot the heat came off the asphalt in waves. Deven loaded the bags into the trunk while Maya returned the cart, all the way to the corral, because he'd once told her leaving it out was the sort of thing that revealed a person's character, and she'd never forgotten it.


The alarm on Marcus's phone went off at seven-fifteen, which was a compromise. He wanted to leave by eight; Dara wanted to sleep until nine. They met in the middle, the way they had for eleven years.

She was already in the kitchen when he came down, writing on the back of an envelope because they'd run out of sticky notes and neither of them had remembered to buy more.

"Bank first," she said. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger. That way the cold stuff comes home last."

"The pharmacy closes at noon on Saturdays now."

Dara looked up. "Since when?"

"Since October. I told you."

"You told the dog."

They took her car because his needed an oil change, another item that had been living on the envelope for three weeks. The bank took nine minutes. At the pharmacy, Marcus stood in line for her mother's prescription while Dara wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of discounted Halloween candy in mid-November.

"That's not on the list."

"It's eighty percent off. It's practically a civic duty."

At Kroger, they split up the way they always did — she took produce and dairy, he took the interior aisles — and reconvened near the frozen foods, comparing carts like generals over a map. He'd forgotten the coffee. She'd gotten two loaves of bread because she couldn't remember whether they had any.

"We have one and a half," Marcus said.

"Then we have three and a half now. Bread freezes."

In the parking lot, the wind had picked up and the cart tried to get away from him. Dara held the trunk open with her hip and they loaded the bags together, quickly, not talking, hands finding the heavy things at the same time.

"Car wash?" she asked, getting in.

He checked his watch. "Next week."

She wrote it on the envelope.


The rain had let up by the time Marcus and Devin backed out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and glossy under a sky that couldn't commit to clearing.

"List," Marcus said, holding out his hand at the stop sign.

Devin patted his jacket pockets, then the console, then finally found the folded receipt on which he'd written everything that morning. "Bank first. Then the pharmacy, then Kroger, then that thing with the smoke detector batteries."

"That thing is called buying batteries."

"It's a whole thing. Ours are the weird size."

The bank took four minutes. The pharmacy took twenty, because the automated system had lied about Devin's prescription being ready, and Marcus spent the wait wandering the seasonal aisle, returning with a clearance garden gnome he insisted was "structurally similar" to Devin's late grandmother. Devin refused to laugh, then laughed in the parking lot.

At Kroger they split the list the way they always did — Devin took produce and dry goods, Marcus took dairy, meat, and whatever detours interested him. They found each other again near the bread, Marcus's cart containing three items not on the list and one item that was, technically, a small potted basil plant.

"We killed the last one," Devin said.

"We under-loved the last one."

They compromised. The basil came home.

The batteries turned out to be at the hardware store two doors down, and the teenager working the register found the right size in about eleven seconds, which Devin took personally.

By the time they pulled back into the driveway, the sun had finally decided on itself, throwing long light across the wet lawn. Marcus carried the heavy bags. Devin carried the eggs and the basil, holding both like they might be equally fragile.

Inside, the milk went in the fridge, the gnome went on the windowsill, and neither of them mentioned that they'd forgotten the paper towels.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like Ohio, though neither of them had ever been to Ohio.

"Do we still need coffee?" Daniel asked, pulling on his jacket.

Marcus checked the cupboard. "We need coffee like we need air. Grab the good stuff this time, not the bulk bin."

They took Marcus's car because Daniel's had been making a noise since October that both of them had agreed to ignore. The first stop was the bank, where Daniel waited in the car with the heater running while Marcus deposited a check from his sister — a birthday gift she insisted on mailing every year despite him being forty-three.

At the pharmacy, they split up. Marcus went for the prescription; Daniel wandered to the seasonal aisle and returned holding a bag of chocolate hearts, already discounted.

"It's February ninth," Marcus said.

"It's fifty percent off is what it is."

The grocery store was crowded, a Saturday crowd, carts nosing past each other in the produce section. Daniel pushed while Marcus read from his phone. They had a system, worn smooth by fifteen years: Marcus navigated, Daniel selected. Marcus would say "tomatoes" and Daniel would hold two up for approval, and Marcus would nod or shake his head, and that was the whole conversation.

They disagreed about the bread. They always disagreed about the bread. Marcus wanted sourdough; Daniel said sourdough went stale in three days and they always threw half of it out. They bought the sourdough.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, it began to drizzle. Marcus took the cart back to the corral because Daniel had a thing about people who didn't, and he liked being the person who did it.

At home, unloading in the kitchen, Daniel found the chocolate hearts at the bottom of a bag and set them on the counter without comment. Marcus put the coffee away. Good stuff, this time.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus and Dev backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and steaming in the late morning sun. Dev had the list on his phone, a running document he'd been adding to all week: milk, coffee filters, the good bread from the bakery counter, something for Marcus's mother's birthday.

"Bank first," Marcus said. "Otherwise we'll be carrying frozen stuff around."

The line at the credit union was four people deep. Dev leaned against the counter while Marcus deposited a check from a freelance job, and they debated whether the neighbors' new fence had actually crossed the property line. Neither of them wanted to be the one to bring it up.

At the hardware store they bought furnace filters and a replacement washer for the kitchen faucet, which had been dripping since February. Marcus held the tiny package up. "Six dollars. Six dollars for what should have been fixed in March."

"You said you'd do it in March."

"I did say that."

The grocery store was crowded with Saturday people. Dev pushed the cart while Marcus went ahead to the produce section, weighing tomatoes with the seriousness of a man defusing something. They split up in the middle aisles and reconvened near the dairy case, comparing yogurt containers. Dev put back the almond milk when Marcus reminded him they still had most of a carton.

At checkout, the total came out higher than either of them expected, which it always did.

They stopped for gas on the way home, Marcus pumping while Dev cleaned the windshield with the squeegee, doing a mediocre job of it. Back in the car, the bags shifted and settled in the trunk.

"Faucet today?" Dev asked.

"Faucet today," Marcus said, and turned onto their street, where the fence was still there, still ambiguous, waiting for another Saturday.


The list had been on the refrigerator since Tuesday, held up by a magnet shaped like a lobster from a trip to Maine neither of them talked about much anymore, mostly because there was nothing to say beyond that it had been nice.

"Do we need coffee?" Priya asked, pulling the door open again.

"We always need coffee," Daniel said. He was looking for the car keys, which were in his jacket pocket, which he discovered thirty seconds later without comment.

They drove to the credit union first because it closed at noon on Saturdays. Priya waited in the car while Daniel deposited a check from his mother, who still refused to use direct transfers. When he came back out, Priya had moved the seat forward and adjusted the mirrors.

"I was cold," she said. "The vent points different from over here."

The pharmacy took longer than it should have. Daniel's prescription wasn't ready, then it was ready but under an old insurance plan, then it was sorted out by a woman named Charlene who apologized four times. Priya wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of chocolate eggs that were already discounted.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did, Daniel taking produce and dairy, Priya taking everything in the middle aisles. They met near the frozen section. He had bought three avocados; she pointed out that two of them were hard as stones.

"They'll ripen."

"They'll ripen at exactly the same hour and then rot together."

He put one back.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Priya noticed the rear tire looked low. Daniel crouched, pressed his thumb against it, and agreed it did.

"Air pump at the gas station on Fulton," he said.

"After lunch," she said, and he didn't argue, because he was hungry too.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus and Dev backed out of the driveway, leaving the pavement slick and steaming faintly in the late morning sun. Dev drove. Marcus held the list on his phone, scrolling through it with his thumb.

"Bank first," he said. "Then the hardware store, then Kroger."

"Hardware store's on the other side of the highway."

"So we loop." Marcus turned the phone toward him, as if the order of a bulleted list were an argument.

Dev laughed and merged into traffic.

At the credit union, Marcus deposited a check from his mother, who still refused to use any app made after 1997. Dev waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a podcast about volcanoes and watching a man in the next spot try to fold a stroller with one hand.

The hardware store took longer than it should have. They needed a replacement flapper for the upstairs toilet, which had been running intermittently for three weeks, and neither of them could remember the brand. Dev held up two nearly identical rubber discs.

"This one," Marcus said.

"You don't know that."

"I don't. But it's four dollars, and I'm tired of the sound."

They bought both.

Kroger was crowded. Dev pushed the cart while Marcus went ahead, gathering things in his arms and depositing them like offerings—yogurt, a bag of oranges, the good coffee, tortillas. They argued briefly about whether they already had garlic at home. Neither could picture the counter clearly. They bought garlic.

In the checkout line, Dev remembered they needed stamps and went to the kiosk while Marcus bagged. Outside, the parking lot had dried in patches, and a woman with a cart of flowers passed them, leaving a smell of wet soil.

They loaded the trunk together, wordlessly, in the practiced rhythm of nine years. Dev drove home. Marcus fell asleep at the second stoplight.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and steaming in the late morning sun. Priya sat in the passenger seat with a receipt from last week on her knee, using it as a surface to write their list.

"Did we need milk, or did you get milk?" she asked.

"I got the small one. The one you said tastes like cardboard."

"It does taste like cardboard." She wrote *milk* anyway.

They stopped at the credit union first, where the drive-through tube swallowed Marcus's paycheck and returned it as a slip of paper. Then the dry cleaner, where Priya went in alone because the woman behind the counter always wanted to talk to Marcus about his father, and Marcus never knew what to say.

At the grocery store, they split up out of habit and inefficiency. Marcus took the perimeter—produce, dairy, the butcher counter where he stood too long deciding between chicken thighs and a pork shoulder. Priya took the aisles, and by the time they found each other near the frozen foods, her half of the cart had accumulated three things that weren't on the list, including a bag of chile-lime peanuts.

"Those aren't for you," she said. "Those are for the drive home."

"I didn't say anything."

"You made a face."

They argued mildly about whether they needed a second bag of rice, decided they did, and stood in the self-checkout line behind a man buying nothing but limes. Outside, the parking lot had dried in uneven patches. Marcus loaded the trunk while Priya returned the cart, and on the way home she opened the peanuts and held one out to him at a red light.

He took it. It was too spicy. He asked for another one.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the street slick and shining under a gray Saturday sky. Denise sat in the passenger seat with the grocery list on her phone, adding items as she remembered them.

"Did you grab the returns?" she asked.

"Trunk," Marcus said. "Both boxes. Though I still think you should keep the blue sweater."

"It made me look like a bruise."

Their first stop was the post office, where the line stretched nearly to the door. Denise held their place while Marcus filled out the customs form for his mother's birthday package, printing carefully in the small boxes. When they finally reached the counter, the clerk asked if anything was fragile, and they answered "no" at the same time, which made the clerk smile.

At the hardware store they split up—Denise for furnace filters, Marcus for the specific size of hex bolt he'd been meaning to buy for three weeks. They found each other in the paint aisle, where Denise was holding two nearly identical swatches of off-white.

"That one," Marcus said, pointing.

"You didn't even look."

"I looked. Get a sample can if you're serious."

She got a sample can.

The grocery store was crowded with people who'd had the same idea about getting errands done before the afternoon. Marcus pushed the cart while Denise read off the list, and they moved through the aisles in the pattern they'd fallen into over eleven years: produce, then the perimeter, then the middle aisles for the things they'd forgotten. He put a bag of the cheddar-flavored crackers in the cart when he thought she wasn't looking. She didn't say anything about it.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Denise realized they'd forgotten coffee.

Marcus closed the trunk. "I'll go back in," he said. "Stay warm."


Marcus found the grocery list stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like Ohio, though neither of them had ever been to Ohio. Beneath the milk and eggs, Diane had added *dry cleaning* and *stamps??* in her looping handwriting.

"Stamps with two question marks," he said, holding it up as she came into the kitchen pulling on her jacket.

"I couldn't remember if we still had any." She checked her purse, found none, and shrugged. "Two question marks stands."

The morning was gray and mild, the kind of late October Saturday where the trees on their street had gone half-bare overnight. Diane drove because Marcus had driven last time and they'd fallen years ago into a silent alternation neither of them could remember agreeing to.

At the dry cleaner's, Marcus went in alone while she idled at the curb. He came out with three shirts and a receipt he couldn't fold into his wallet properly. Then the post office, where the line moved slower than either of them expected, and they stood together reading the wanted posters and speculating quietly about the man in the third photograph.

The grocery store was the long part. Diane took the left side of the aisles, Marcus the right, and they met at the ends like a well-worn machine. He put a bag of caramels in the cart. She took them out. He put them back, and she let it go.

"Did we need cilantro or parsley?" she called from produce.

"You wrote cilantro."

"I know what I wrote. I'm asking what I meant."

They settled on both.

Loading the car, Marcus dropped a bag of oranges and chased two of them across the asphalt while Diane laughed at him openly, one hand on the trunk. On the way home they stopped for coffee neither of them had put on the list.


The morning had that particular gray softness of early spring, when the light comes through the kitchen window without much conviction. Daniel was already awake, standing at the counter in his socks, writing on the back of an envelope.

"Milk," he said, when Marcus came in. "And you wanted that bread from the place on Fifth."

"The seeded one." Marcus poured coffee into the travel mug that had been in the cabinet since Christmas. "And we're out of laundry detergent. The good kind, not the one you bought last time."

"That one was fine."

"That one smelled like a hospital."

They took Marcus's car because Daniel's needed an oil change, which was itself on the list, though probably not for today. At the pharmacy they waited eleven minutes behind a woman disputing a copay, and Daniel read the ingredients on a box of allergy medicine while Marcus checked his phone and made a small sound of irritation at something in his email.

The grocery store was busy in the way Saturday mornings always are. They split up near the produce, which was their system: Marcus took the perimeter, Daniel took the middle aisles. They found each other again by the eggs. Marcus had gotten the wrong kind of yogurt, and Daniel put it back without saying anything, which Marcus noticed and let pass.

At the register, Marcus paid. Daniel bagged. Outside, the sun had come through, and the parking lot was bright and wet-looking from the morning.

"Hardware store?" Marcus asked.

"We need the thing for the drain."

"The snake."

"Whatever it's called."

They loaded the trunk. Daniel found a shopping cart abandoned in a parking space and pushed it back to the corral, and Marcus waited with the engine running, adjusting the radio down to something quieter, until he came back.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like a lobster from a trip to Maine four years ago. He read it twice, added *coffee filters* at the bottom, and called down the hall that they should leave before the Saturday crowd.

Priya came out pulling on her cardigan, car keys already looped around one finger. "Bank first," she said. "The deposit slip's been in my purse since Wednesday."

They took her car because his needed an oil change, which was also on the list, in a way. The bank drive-through had two cars ahead of them. Marcus drummed the dashboard while Priya filled out the slip against the steering wheel, complaining that the pen had gone cheap on her.

At the pharmacy she waited in line for her mother's prescription while he wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of candy corn she hadn't asked for and didn't want, though she ate three pieces in the parking lot.

The grocery store was already loud. They split up out of long habit—she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles—and met near the bakery, where he was holding two loaves of bread and looking uncertain.

"Sourdough," she said. "The other one goes stale in a day."

"The other one's cheaper."

"Then buy the other one."

He put back the sourdough, then took it again when she wasn't looking. At checkout she noticed and said nothing.

The last stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter, which took eleven minutes and involved a brief disagreement about sizes that Marcus won by photographing the old filter before they left. Priya conceded gracefully.

Home by noon. He carried the heavy bags; she got the door and the eggs. The candy corn went into a bowl on the counter, where it sat, untouched, for eleven days.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like Wisconsin, though neither of them had ever been to Wisconsin. He read it twice. Denise's handwriting slanted hard to the right, as if the words were trying to get away from her.

"You added shaving cream," he said.

"You've been using mine for three weeks." She was pulling on her sneakers by the door, one hand braced against the wall. "I can smell it. You smell like a coconut."

They took her car because his needed an oil change, which was also on the list, in a way—*call Ferrell's*—though Marcus suspected that item would migrate to next week's list, and the one after that.

The bank came first. Denise had a check from her sister that had been sitting in her purse since Easter, soft as cloth from being carried around. Marcus waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a man in the next space argue with someone on speakerphone about a fence line.

At Kroger she pushed the cart and he walked ahead, doubling back with things. He held up two brands of tortillas and she pointed at the left one without breaking stride. In the cereal aisle he put a box of Frosted Flakes in the cart and she took it out and put it back on the shelf and neither of them said anything about it.

The pharmacy line was long. They stood there under the fluorescent lights and Denise told him about a woman at work who had adopted a greyhound, and Marcus said greyhounds sleep twenty hours a day, and Denise said that sounded about right for her, and he laughed.

Loading the trunk in the parking lot, he noticed she'd bought the Frosted Flakes after all. It was down at the bottom of a bag, under the bread.

He didn't mention it. He just put the cart away.


The Saturday list stuck to the refrigerator in Priya's handwriting: groceries, dry cleaning, return the space heater, bank.

Marcus warmed up the car while Priya hunted for the receipt. She found it folded in the junk drawer beneath a tangle of phone chargers, triumphant, and slid into the passenger seat with the space heater box balanced on her knees.

"Hardware store first," she said. "It closes at four for some reason."

"It's a small town thing."

"We live in Columbus."

The return took eleven minutes. The clerk asked what was wrong with it and Marcus said it made a clicking sound, and Priya added that the clicking sounded expensive, which made the clerk laugh and process the refund without further questions.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did. Marcus took produce and the middle aisles; Priya took dairy, bread, and the deli counter, where she waited behind a man ordering a quarter pound of six different things. They met near the frozen foods and compared carts.

"You got the cilantro?"

"They only had the wilted stuff." He held up a bunch. "This is the least wilted."

"That's not a ringing endorsement."

They debated ice cream for longer than necessary and settled on two pints, which was the outcome they both wanted and had been circling politely. At checkout Priya bagged while Marcus paid, and they loaded the trunk in the cold, breath fogging.

The dry cleaner had lost the ticket for Marcus's gray suit but found the suit anyway, hanging in the back with someone else's name pinned to it. The bank they did at the drive-through, which took nine minutes because the woman ahead of them was depositing a stack of checks.

By one o'clock they were home. Marcus carried the heavy bags. Priya put away the cold things first, and they ate leftover soup standing at the counter, the list finally crossed through.


Marcus found the grocery list on the kitchen counter, held down by the sugar bowl, in Delia's cramped handwriting. He added *coffee filters* at the bottom and called out that he was ready whenever she was.

She came down in her gardening jacket, the one with the torn pocket she kept meaning to sew. "The bank first," she said. "Before the line gets ridiculous."

They took her car because his still had a check-engine light he'd been ignoring since March. Delia drove. Marcus rode with the list on his knee, reading it aloud in a newscaster voice until she told him to stop, which he did, mostly.

At the credit union she deposited a check from her sister and signed something about the certificate of deposit while Marcus stood by the pens on chains, watching a toddler try to climb the velvet rope. Then the hardware store, where they disagreed pleasantly about washers—he thought the sink needed a new one, she thought it needed a whole new faucet—and bought both the washer and a bag of birdseed.

The grocery store was busy for a Saturday. Marcus pushed the cart. Delia went ahead, picking through the apples with the seriousness of a jeweler. They divided the list without discussing it, the way they had for eleven years: she took produce and dairy, he took canned goods and the coffee filters. They met up again by the freezer cases and argued about whether they already had frozen peas at home. They bought peas.

At the register, Delia realized she'd forgotten bread. Marcus jogged back for it, and she watched him go, thinking he still moved like a younger man when he wasn't thinking about it.

In the parking lot they loaded the trunk together, and he returned the cart while she started the engine.

"Car wash?" he asked, getting in.

"Next week," she said, and pulled out.


The list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster, a souvenir from a trip to Maine neither of them could quite afford at the time. Daniel pulled it down and read it aloud in the car while Marcus backed out of the driveway.

"Milk, eggs, coffee—the good coffee, you underlined it twice—bread, and something for Thursday when your sister comes."

"She doesn't eat pork anymore," Marcus said.

"Since when?"

"Since March. She told us at Easter."

Daniel added a note in the margin. The morning was gray and mild, the kind of Saturday that made errands feel almost pleasant. They stopped first at the pharmacy, where Marcus waited in line for his blood pressure prescription and Daniel wandered the seasonal aisle, coming back with a bag of discounted Halloween candy in November.

"We don't need that."

"We don't need most things."

At the grocery store they split up out of long habit—Marcus took produce and dairy, Daniel took the interior aisles—and reconvened near the bakery, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops. Marcus had found a chicken on sale. Daniel had found four kinds of cheese and no bread.

"How do you forget bread? It's the fourth item."

"I was distracted by the cheese."

Afterward, they dropped a box at the post office, a birthday gift for Marcus's nephew that had been sitting in the hallway for eleven days, tripping both of them. The clerk asked if it contained anything liquid, fragile, or perishable, and Daniel said "Legos," which she seemed to accept.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, then home. They carried the bags in together, three trips, and put things away in the wordless choreography of eighteen years—Marcus to the pantry, Daniel to the fridge.

"We forgot bread again," Marcus said.

Daniel laughed, already reaching for his keys.


The rain had stopped by nine, so Danielle and Marcus decided to knock everything out in one trip.

"List?" Marcus asked, patting his jacket pockets.

Danielle held up her phone. "Right here. And before you ask, yes, I added the coffee filters this time."

The car smelled faintly of the pine air freshener she'd hung last winter, which had long since given up on pine. Marcus drove. Danielle read the list aloud in the parking lot of the pharmacy, where they picked up her mother's blood pressure prescription and, on impulse, a birthday card with a cartoon dog on it.

"Who's this for?" Marcus asked.

"Nobody yet. Someone will have a birthday."

At the hardware store, they spent eleven minutes debating furnace filter sizes before Marcus went out to the car to check the old one he'd stuffed in the trunk. Sixteen by twenty-five. Danielle was already holding the right one when he came back.

The grocery store was the long stop. Marcus pushed the cart and Danielle navigated, doubling back twice for things she'd missed. He put a bag of gummy worms in the cart when she wasn't looking; she found them at checkout and left them there without comment. They argued mildly about whether they still had chicken stock at home—they did not, as it turned out—and agreed on a rotisserie chicken for dinner because neither of them wanted to cook.

The last errand was the post office, where Danielle mailed a package to her sister in Ohio while Marcus waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a baseball game and eating a gummy worm.

Unloading took two trips each. Danielle put away the cold things while Marcus carried the furnace filter down to the basement and changed it, which took less time than the debate had.

By noon, the kitchen smelled like rotisserie chicken, and the list on the counter had every line crossed out.


The Saturday list was short: groceries, the dry cleaner, a stop at the hardware store for furnace filters. Marcus had written it on the back of an envelope, which Deborah pointed out was the same envelope he'd used last week.

"It's efficient," he said, backing the car out of the driveway. "The old items are already crossed off."

The dry cleaner came first, because it closed at noon. Deborah went in with the ticket while Marcus waited in the car with the engine running, listening to a caller on the radio explain why the local school bond was a bad idea. Deborah came out with two shirts and a blazer on hangers, laid them across the back seat, and said, "He asked about your knee."

"What did you tell him?"

"That you're stubborn about the physical therapy."

At the hardware store they disagreed pleasantly about filter thickness. Marcus wanted the cheap ones, four to a pack. Deborah held up the pleated kind and read the box aloud, the part about allergens, and Marcus said fine, but he wanted it noted that the furnace had run twenty-two years on the cheap ones. She said it was noted.

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list without discussing it, the way they had for years — Marcus took produce and the meat counter, Deborah took the interior aisles and anything requiring comparison of unit prices. They met by the dairy case. He had picked up strawberries that weren't on the list, and she didn't say anything about it, just put them in the cart.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Deborah remembered they were out of coffee filters.

Marcus looked at the store, then at his wife, then at the envelope in his shirt pocket.

"Next week," he said.

"Next week," she agreed, and got in the car.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like a lobster, and Denise pulled it down without reading it. She already knew what it said.

"Bank first," Marcus called from the driveway, "before the line gets stupid."

The car smelled faintly of the coffee he'd spilled on Tuesday. Denise cracked her window an inch and they backed out past the recycling bin, which she noted, aloud, still needed to go to the curb Thursday.

At the credit union Marcus deposited a check from his brother-in-law, a repayment eleven months in coming, and Denise waited in the car with the radio on a station neither of them had chosen. When he came back he said, "He wrote 'sorry' in the memo line," and she laughed harder than the joke deserved.

The dry cleaner had lost the ticket but found the blazer anyway. The hardware store took nine minutes: two furnace filters, a package of picture hangers, and a brief argument about whether they already owned picture hangers. They did. They bought them anyway.

The grocery store was the long stop. Marcus pushed the cart and Denise walked ahead, doubling back with things—a bag of clementines, a rotisserie chicken because neither of them wanted to cook. In the cereal aisle he added a box of something sugary and she looked at it, and he looked at her, and it stayed.

At the register the total came to more than they expected, as it always did now. Marcus tapped his card. Denise bagged, arranging the cold things together out of habit.

Loading the trunk, she handed him the clementines to hold on his lap so they wouldn't roll. He held them the whole way home, one hand on the netting, the other resting on the console between them, and neither of them said much, because there wasn't anything that needed saying.


Marcus checked the list on his phone while Danielle backed the car out of the driveway. October had turned the maples on their street to rust, and a few leaves skittered across the windshield.

"Bank first?" she asked.

"Bank first. Then the hardware store, then Kroger." He paused. "Did you bring the return?"

Danielle tipped her head toward the back seat, where a shoebox sat wedged between a reusable tote and an umbrella. "Got it. Though I still think you could have made those boots work."

"They pinched. Life's too short for pinching."

At the bank, Danielle handled the deposit while Marcus waited in the car, answering a text from his sister about Thanksgiving. When Danielle came back she was holding two lollipops.

"The teller offered. I said no, and then I said yes."

The hardware store took longer than planned, mostly because Marcus wanted to compare furnace filters and Danielle wanted to look at the shelf brackets she'd been thinking about for the hallway. They ended up buying both, plus a package of picture hooks neither of them could remember needing.

Kroger was crowded. They split the list the way they always did — Danielle took produce and dairy, Marcus took the interior aisles and whatever bread looked freshest. They met up near the frozen section, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops.

"You got the wrong yogurt," Danielle said.

"They were out of the other kind."

"They're never out of the other kind."

"Well, today they were."

She accepted this. In the checkout line, Marcus bagged while Danielle paid, and afterward they loaded the trunk in the flat gray afternoon light, the cold coming up off the asphalt.

Driving home, Danielle mentioned the shoebox, still sitting untouched in the back seat.

Marcus laughed. "Next Saturday."

"Next Saturday," she agreed, and turned onto their street.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like a lobster from a trip to Maine eleven years ago. Daniel pulled it down and read it aloud while Priya laced her shoes in the entryway.

"Milk, coffee, the good bread, chicken, whatever vegetables look decent. And you wrote 'stamps?' with a question mark."

"Because I think we have stamps," Priya said. "But I couldn't find them, so we might not."

They took her car because his was making a sound neither of them wanted to investigate on a Saturday. The pharmacy came first, a refill she'd been putting off for two weeks, and Daniel waited in the car with the windows down, half-listening to a baseball game and watching a kid across the parking lot try to ride a scooter up a curb.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did, without discussing it. She took produce and dairy; he took the aisles. They met near the deli counter, and she inspected his cart.

"That's not the good bread."

"They were out of the good bread."

"They're never out."

"Go look."

She went and looked. They were out. She came back with a baguette instead and said nothing about it, which he understood to be an apology.

The post office had a line that moved slower than seemed possible for four people. Priya bought a book of stamps. Daniel mailed a birthday card to his sister, three days late, and wrote *sorry, we're old now* under his signature while standing at the counter.

They stopped for gas on the way home, and Daniel washed the windshield while the tank filled. Priya carried the milk and eggs in from the driveway; he took the rest in two trips. When they unloaded everything, they found the stamps in the drawer with the takeout menus.


Saturday morning arrived gray and cool, the kind of weather that made Marcus want to stay in bed. But Dana was already up, standing in the kitchen with a pen, adding items to the list stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like Ohio.

"We need dish soap," she said. "And you said you'd get more of that coffee you like, the dark roast."

Marcus poured the last of the old coffee into a travel mug. "Bank first, or store first?"

"Bank first. The line gets long after eleven."

They took her car because his needed an oil change—another errand, one they'd both been avoiding for three weeks. At the credit union, Marcus deposited a check from a side job while Dana waited in the car, answering an email from her sister about Thanksgiving plans.

The grocery store smelled like rotisserie chicken and floor wax. They split the list without discussing it, the way they had for eleven years: Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the middle aisles. She found him standing in front of the pasta sauces, comparing two jars.

"That one's cheaper," she said.

"But this one doesn't have the sugar."

"Then get that one."

He put it in the cart. At the register, Dana bagged while Marcus paid, and they loaded the trunk together, arguing mildly about whether the eggs should ride in the front seat.

Afterward they stopped at the dry cleaner for his suit, then the hardware store, where Dana spent ten minutes finding the right size furnace filter while Marcus looked at power tools he had no intention of buying.

By noon they were home. Marcus carried in the heavy bags; Dana put the cold things away first. There were still leaves to rake, and the oil change to schedule, but they sat down at the kitchen table instead and split a sandwich.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of weather that made the kitchen feel smaller than usual. Marcus poured the last of the coffee into a travel mug while Diane checked the list she'd taped to the refrigerator door.

"Did you add the dish soap?" she asked.

"Third line down."

She squinted. "That says 'dog food.'"

"We need that too." He handed her the mug, keeping the chipped one for himself, and they went out through the garage.

The bank came first because the drive-through line grew impossible after ten. Diane deposited two checks while Marcus rooted through the glove compartment for the dry cleaning ticket, which he found folded inside the owner's manual, where he'd put it for safekeeping and then forgotten.

At the cleaners, the woman behind the counter recognized them and asked about their daughter's wedding, which had been in June. Diane pulled out her phone and showed a photo. Marcus stood holding his slacks on their wire hangers and said nothing, but he smiled at the picture over her shoulder.

The grocery store was crowded. They split up—Marcus took produce and the meat counter, Diane handled the aisles—then met near the bakery to compare carts. He'd bought a pineapple.

"We don't need a pineapple."

"It smelled right."

She let it stay. At checkout, she caught the mistake on the ground beef, and the cashier fixed it without much fuss.

In the parking lot, the rain finally started. Marcus loaded bags into the trunk while Diane held the umbrella over both of them, badly, so that his left shoulder went dark with water. He didn't mention it until they were in the car.

"You had the umbrella pointed at the sky."

"I was multitasking."

He backed out slowly, wipers going. She reached over and turned the radio down, and neither of them said much on the way home, which was fine.


The Fischers left the house at nine, later than they'd planned, because Marcus couldn't find his wallet and Deb had insisted on rinsing the breakfast dishes first.

"Bank, then Kroger, then the hardware store," Deb said, reading off the back of an envelope as Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway. "And you promised you'd ask about the shelf brackets."

"I'll ask."

The bank line was four cars deep. Marcus drummed the steering wheel while Deb watched a woman in the next lane apply lipstick in her side mirror. They deposited a check from Marcus's sister — a birthday gift, three months old — and Deb tucked the receipt into the glove compartment with all the others.

At Kroger they split the list. Marcus took produce and the middle aisles; Deb took dairy and the pharmacy counter, where she picked up her blood pressure prescription and waited while the technician looked up a coupon that had expired in April. They met near the frozen foods. Marcus had bought two cantaloupes.

"We never finish one."

"They were two for four dollars."

"That's not an argument. That's a price."

He put one back. In the checkout lane, Deb noticed the cashier's name tag said TRAINEE and made a point of being patient, unloading the cart slowly, saying thank you twice.

The hardware store smelled like sawdust and rubber. Marcus described the sagging shelf in the garage to a man named Ron, who recommended heavier L-brackets and longer screws. Deb wandered off and came back with a packet of tomato seeds.

"It's October," Marcus said.

"For spring."

They loaded the trunk together, Deb holding the bags upright while Marcus wedged the paint tray in beside them. On the drive home he mentioned that the cantaloupe would probably go bad anyway, and Deb said nothing, which he understood to mean she agreed.


The grocery list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like Wisconsin, though neither of them had ever been there. Daniel pulled it free and read it aloud in the car while Rebecca backed out of the driveway.

"Milk, coffee, that bread you like, chicken, something for Thursday when your sister comes."

"Put lemons on there," Rebecca said. "I'll do the salmon thing."

At the store, they split up the way they always did—Daniel took the produce and the aisles on the left, Rebecca handled dairy and meat—and met in the middle by the cereal, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops. He had bought a pineapple, which was not on the list.

"It looked good," he said.

"It's February."

"It looked good in February."

She let it stay. In the checkout line he read the tabloid headlines to her under his breath, doing the voices, and she told him to stop, and he didn't, and she laughed anyway.

The pharmacy was next, where Rebecca picked up her father's prescription because he refused to drive after dark and it was always nearly dark by the time he thought of it. Then the hardware store, for a furnace filter and two hinges to fix the cabinet door that had been hanging crooked since October. Daniel held the hinges up to the light, comparing sizes, and Rebecca leaned against the endcap and answered an email on her phone.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, closing in eleven minutes. Rebecca ran in with the ticket while Daniel double-parked and watched the meter maid at the end of the block.

Driving home, the bags shifting in the back, she asked if he wanted to just order pizza instead of cooking.

"We have chicken," he said.

"We'll have it tomorrow."

He turned toward the pizza place without answering, which was answer enough.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like Illinois, and Devon pulled it down on his way out the door.

"Did you add the coffee filters?" Marcus asked, already checking the truck's tire pressure with his boot, which was not a real method but a habit he'd never abandoned.

"Filters, oat milk, and the good bread if they have it."

They took the truck because the recycling was piled in the bed, and the drop-off center closed at three on Saturdays. Marcus drove. Devon controlled the radio, which was their arrangement, and settled on a station playing the kind of country music Marcus pretended not to like.

At the recycling center they worked in silence, tossing cardboard into one bin and glass into another. A man in a reflective vest waved them through. Devon found a paperback wedged under the flattened boxes—something they'd meant to donate months ago—and set it on the dashboard.

The bank came next, then the hardware store for a replacement filter for the furnace. Marcus stood in the aisle comparing two nearly identical boxes while Devon wandered off and returned with a bag of birdseed nobody had put on the list.

"The cardinals," he said, by way of explanation.

"You spoil them."

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list without discussing it; Devon took produce and dairy, Marcus took the center aisles, and they met near the deli counter where Marcus had already gotten a number. They argued mildly about whether the tomatoes were worth it in February and bought them anyway.

At the register Devon bagged while Marcus paid, and the cashier asked if they wanted the receipt in the bag or the hand.

Driving home, Marcus mentioned the gutters needed doing before it rained again. Devon said he'd hold the ladder, which was his usual contribution, and Marcus said that was fine, that holding the ladder was the important part.


The car smelled like the coffee Marcus had spilled two days earlier, and Priya still hadn't let him forget it.

"You promised you'd get the upholstery cleaner," she said, buckling in.

"It's on the list." He backed out of the driveway, pausing to let their neighbor's dog waddle past. "Right under 'oat milk' and 'stop mentioning the coffee.'"

The bank came first. Priya went in to deposit a check from her mother while Marcus waited, scrolling through his work email and grimacing at something about quarterly projections. When she came back, she handed him a lollipop from the teller's bowl.

"Butterscotch. The good one."

"You're a saint."

The dry cleaner had lost his gray suit, then found it, then discovered it belonged to someone named Marcus Ellison instead of Marcus Elliott. It took eleven minutes to sort out. Priya read the community bulletin board the whole time and reported back on a guitar for sale and a lost cat named Wilbur.

At the grocery store they split up, as they always did. Marcus took produce and the dairy aisle; Priya took everything requiring a decision. They reconvened near the frozen section, comparing carts.

"You got the wrong tortillas."

"They were on sale."

"They're the flour ones. For the enchiladas I need corn." She swapped them out, and he didn't argue, because she was right and because arguing in aisle nine had never once gone well for him.

At checkout she remembered the upholstery cleaner. Marcus jogged back for it, returning slightly out of breath, and she bagged the groceries while he paid.

In the parking lot he loaded the trunk while she pushed the cart back to the corral, which was farther than either of them liked. Then they drove home, windows down, arguing pleasantly about whether the enchiladas needed to happen tonight or could wait until Sunday.


The list was written on the back of an envelope, which Denise found in the junk drawer beneath a coil of twine and three dead batteries.

"Post office first," Marcus said, backing the Corolla out of the driveway. "The line's shorter before eleven."

It wasn't. Six people stood ahead of them, one holding a package the size of a mini fridge. Denise mailed the birthday card to her nephew in Tacoma while Marcus bought stamps he didn't strictly need, because he liked having them.

At the pharmacy, the automated system had failed to refill Marcus's blood pressure prescription, and the technician explained this twice before Denise leaned in and asked to speak with the pharmacist. Ten minutes later they walked out with the white paper bag stapled shut.

"You're better at that than I am," Marcus said.

"You're too polite."

The grocery store was the last stop and the longest. They separated at the produce section by unspoken agreement—Denise took the perimeter, Marcus took the aisles. She weighed apples and considered the price of asparagus. He returned with two boxes of the cereal she'd told him not to buy and a bag of frozen peas.

"We have peas."

"We had peas. I finished them Tuesday."

At the deli counter they waited together while a teenager sliced turkey too thick, then too thin, then correctly. Marcus mentioned that his brother had called about Thanksgiving. Denise said they should decide by next week, and he agreed, which meant they would decide in three weeks.

Checkout took eleven minutes. The bagger was new and put the eggs on the bottom, and Denise moved them without comment.

In the parking lot, Marcus loaded the trunk while she checked the receipt against the list. One thing missing: dish soap.

"Next time," she said.

He closed the trunk. "Next time."


The Saturday list was short, which meant it would take longer than planned.

Marcus started the car while Dana locked the front door, checking the knob twice the way she always did. She slid into the passenger seat with a canvas bag on her lap and the list on her phone.

"Bank first," she said. "Before the line gets stupid."

"Bank first," he agreed, and backed out of the driveway.

At the credit union, Dana deposited a check from her aunt while Marcus stood near the counter reading a flyer about auto loans he had no intention of taking. The teller asked about their dog. Dana said the dog was old but still ruled the house, which was true.

The hardware store took eleven minutes. Marcus needed a furnace filter and a specific size of hex bolt, and he found both quickly, which surprised him. Dana wandered the paint chips and brought back three grays.

"They're all the same gray," he said.

"They're absolutely not," she said, and put two back.

Groceries took the longest. Marcus pushed the cart, Dana navigated. They split up briefly—she went for produce, he went for coffee and the cereal his kid brother liked—and reconvened near the dairy case. She'd forgotten what brand of yogurt he'd asked for and bought two kinds to be safe. He didn't mind.

At checkout, they bagged their own groceries out of habit, an assembly line they'd perfected over eight years: he loaded the belt, she packed cold things together.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, closed for lunch. Dana sighed and made a note to come back Monday.

In the car, Marcus turned the AC up. Dana pulled a bag of pretzels from the grocery bag at her feet and opened it.

"Those are for the house," he said.

She held one out to him. He took it, and they drove home.


The list was on the refrigerator, held up by a magnet shaped like Ohio, though neither of them had ever been to Ohio.

"Do we need eggs?" Marcus asked, keys already in his hand.

Dana leaned into the fridge, moved a jar of pickles. "We have four. Get a dozen anyway. You'll eat them."

They took her car because his needed an oil change, which was errand number three. At the bank, Marcus deposited a check from his sister for the concert tickets he'd bought back in March, and Dana waited in the passenger seat with the windows down, reading the same paragraph of her book four times because the drive-through teller was slow and the sun was on her page.

The grocery store was crowded for a Saturday morning. They split up—it was more efficient, they'd learned over eleven years, though it always meant one of them standing near the bananas with a phone to their ear. Dana got produce and dairy. Marcus got everything in boxes and cans, plus two things not on the list: a bag of the sour candy she liked and a rotisserie chicken, because it was hot and neither of them wanted to cook.

At the register, she caught the chicken in the cart and gave him a look. He shrugged. She didn't put it back.

The dry cleaner had lost his gray suit jacket, then found it, hanging behind a wedding dress. The oil change took forty minutes, during which they sat in plastic chairs and shared the sour candy and argued mildly about whether her cousin's new boyfriend was rude or just quiet.

At home, Dana carried in the cold things and Marcus took the rest. He found the eggs already in the fridge—the four from before, now sixteen.

"Told you," she said.

He cracked three for lunch the next morning, and she ate two of them.


The Saturday list was magnetized to the refrigerator, written half in Dale's blocky capitals and half in Marcus's looping cursive, which made it look like two different people arguing about milk.

"Bank first," Marcus said, backing the Corolla out of the driveway. "Otherwise we'll be carrying frozen peas around for an hour."

Dale didn't argue. He was reading the list again, adding *batteries* at the bottom. The morning was bright and cold, the kind of October light that made the neighbors' maple look expensive.

At the credit union, Marcus deposited a check from his mother while Dale waited in the car with the heater on, texting his sister about Thanksgiving. Then the hardware store, where Dale spent eleven minutes comparing furnace filters and Marcus stood beside him holding two, silently, until Dale took the cheaper one.

"You always take the cheaper one."

"That's why we have a savings account."

The grocery store was crowded. They split up out of long habit — Marcus took produce and dairy, Dale took the middle aisles and the deli counter. They met near the bread, compared carts, and negotiated. Marcus had gotten the good yogurt. Dale had gotten a bag of gummy worms that was not on the list.

"For the movie tonight," Dale said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You looked at it."

At checkout, Dale bagged while Marcus paid, and the cashier asked if they wanted the receipt in the bag or in hand. In hand, Marcus said; Dale had a shoebox of them for taxes.

Last stop was the pharmacy drive-through for Marcus's blood pressure prescription, and then the dry cleaner, closed, which meant Monday.

At home they unloaded in two trips. Dale put things away wrong on purpose — the cereal with the pasta — because it made Marcus laugh, and then fix it, and then kiss the back of Dale's neck while reaching past him for the coffee.


The Saturday list was short: milk, coffee, laundry detergent, a birthday card for Marcus's sister, and a stop at the pharmacy.

"Do we need bread?" David asked, pulling the door shut behind them. The October air had a bite to it that hadn't been there last week.

"We have that half loaf from Tuesday."

"That's basically a brick."

"Then bread," Marcus said, and got in the car.

The grocery store was crowded in the way it always was on weekends, carts abandoned mid-aisle, a toddler screaming somewhere near the bakery. They split up without discussing it—David to produce and dairy, Marcus to the coffee aisle, where he stood for a full minute comparing the price per ounce on two bags of dark roast before choosing the one they always bought anyway.

They found each other by the eggs. David had added a bag of clementines and a rotisserie chicken to the cart.

"That's dinner solved," Marcus said.

"That's dinner solved."

At the pharmacy counter, David's refill wasn't ready. The technician said fifteen minutes, so they wandered the greeting card aisle together, Marcus holding up increasingly absurd options—a cartoon frog, a card that played saxophone music—until David took the plain one with the watercolor irises out of his hand and said, "She's turning sixty-one, not eight."

"She'd think the frog was funny."

"She'd think it was from you."

They dropped the dry cleaning on the way home, and David ran the detergent inside while Marcus circled the block because the parking spot had disappeared. When they finally got everything upstairs, the clementines had rolled under the passenger seat, and Marcus went back down for them without complaint.

Later, unpacking, David held up the receipt. "Ninety-four dollars."

"For a short list."

"It's always a short list."

Marcus put the coffee in the cabinet, and outside the window the light went gold across the neighbor's roof.


The Saturday list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster, a souvenir from a trip neither of them could quite remember taking. Priya pulled it down and read it aloud while Daniel hunted for his keys.

"Bank, hardware store, groceries. And the library — your book's four days overdue."

"Three," Daniel said. "They give you a grace period."

"They do not give you a grace period."

The car smelled faintly of the pine air freshener he'd bought in a moment of optimism two months ago. Priya drove, because Daniel had driven last week and they kept a loose, unspoken ledger about such things. At the bank they deposited a check from her aunt, who still refused to use anything electronic, and the teller asked about their new gutters as though she'd been thinking about them all week.

The hardware store took longer than it should have. Daniel needed a specific washer for the leaking bathroom faucet and held two nearly identical ones up to the fluorescent light, comparing them with the seriousness of a jeweler. Priya wandered off and returned with a small pot of basil.

"For the windowsill," she said. "We'll kill it, but slowly."

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did, Daniel taking produce and dairy, Priya taking everything with a brand name attached, and they met near the frozen aisle to argue mildly about whether they already had rice at home. They did not. Priya was right, and said so.

The library was last. Daniel paid his forty cents in dimes and looked wounded about it.

Back home, he carried the heavy bags and she carried the eggs and the basil, and while he put the groceries away in the wrong cabinets, she watered the plant and set it on the sill where the afternoon light came in, giving it, at least, a fair chance.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dev had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions and started over without telling Marisol, who found the blackened pan soaking in the sink and said nothing, only raised an eyebrow.

"It's fine," he said. "Second batch is better."

"I didn't say anything."

"You looked."

She laughed and went back to setting the table, four mismatched plates because they'd broken one in the move and never replaced it. The candles were from a drawer, stubby and unmatched. She lit them anyway, then blew them out when she remembered guests weren't due for forty minutes and candles didn't grow back.

Dev put on a record, then changed it, then turned it off entirely and put on a playlist from his phone because the record player made a hum they'd never fixed. Marisol swept crumbs off the counter into her palm. They moved around each other in the galley kitchen with the practiced choreography of three years of shared square footage — she ducked, he stepped, neither commented.

Ana and Peter arrived seven minutes early with a bottle of wine and a bag of oranges, which nobody explained. Nadia came late, apologizing about the train, already talking about her sister's dog.

They ate the pasta, which was good, and the salad, which was too vinegary, and Marisol said so before anyone else could. Peter had thirds anyway. Dev told the story about the pan, exaggerating slightly, and Marisol corrected two details, and everyone laughed at the corrections more than the story.

Around eleven, Ana yawned into her wrist, and that was that. There was the shuffle at the door, the finding of coats, the promises to do this again sooner.

Afterward, Marisol washed and Dev dried, badly, stacking things damp. He kissed the back of her neck. She said, "You're getting water everywhere," and leaned back into him anyway.


The kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt butter, which Dana insisted was intentional.

"Browned," she said. "That's the whole point of brown butter."

Marcus leaned over the pan, skeptical. "It's got black flecks."

"Those are the good flecks." She nudged him aside with her hip and reached for the lemon. "Did you text Priya about the wine?"

"She's bringing two bottles. Also she's bringing Owen."

Dana paused mid-squeeze. "Since when?"

"Since Tuesday, apparently. I told you."

"You did not tell me." She looked around the apartment — the mismatched chairs, the four place settings on the table they'd bought secondhand in Milwaukee. "We need another chair."

Marcus was already dragging the desk chair from the bedroom, its casters catching on the rug. He wiped the seat with his sleeve, then went to the closet for the extra napkins, which were not extra napkins but dish towels that looked enough like napkins under low light.

They ate at seven-thirty, which was late for a Wednesday. Priya's boyfriend Owen turned out to be quiet and enormous and worked, improbably, in insurance for horses. Everyone had questions about that. Dana's pasta was good. The brown butter was, Marcus admitted out loud, correct.

Somebody spilled red wine on the tablecloth, and Dana said don't worry about it, and Marcus went for the salt anyway because his mother had always gone for the salt.

Afterward there was ice cream from the carton and a long argument about whether the new bridge downtown was ugly. Priya left her scarf. Owen shook Marcus's hand at the door like they had concluded a transaction.

At eleven Dana stood at the sink in her socks, scrubbing the pan. Marcus dried and stacked and put things in the wrong cabinets.

"That was nice," she said.

"You were nervous."

"I was not nervous." She handed him the pan. "Third shelf. Not that one."


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, which had been Thanksgiving, which had been eleven months ago. She shook it out over the table while Dev stood at the stove, poking at the chicken thighs with a wooden spoon like he wasn't sure they were done.

"Cut one open," she said.

"That ruins the presentation."

"Nobody's presenting anything. It's Kayla and Rob."

He cut one open. It was fine. He put the lid back on and started grating parmesan into a bowl, and Marisol went around the living room collecting the mail she'd been stacking on the coffee table since Tuesday, plus a pair of his socks, plus the extension cord they'd been meaning to put away since they hung the shelf.

"Do we have candles?"

"The ones from your mom. Under the sink, I think."

They were under the sink, smelling faintly of dish soap. She lit them anyway.

Kayla and Rob came at seven-fifteen with a bottle of wine and a bag of ice nobody had asked for but everyone was glad about. Rob wanted to see the shelf. Dev showed him the shelf. Kayla stood in the kitchen with Marisol and talked about her sister's wedding and whether she was obligated to go to the shower in Cincinnati.

Dinner was good. The chicken was a little dry at the edges but the sauce covered it. Rob told a long story about a coworker who kept microwaving fish. Marisol laughed too hard and had to put her glass down.

They left a little after ten. Dev started the dishes and Marisol dried, and neither of them said much, and at some point he flicked water at her and she let it go.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana had let the first sprig catch on the burner, and Marcus had opened the window over the sink, which meant the kitchen was now cold and smoky both.

"Six-thirty," he said, checking his phone. "Which means seven, because Priya."

"Don't start." Dana was slicing a baguette at a diagonal, the way her mother did. "She's coming from Fremont."

Marcus set the table, four plates from the good set and one from the everyday, because they'd broken a good one in August moving it from the old place. He put the mismatched plate at his own seat. Then he moved the candle twice and decided it looked better in the middle, which was where it had started.

"Do we have enough wine?"

"Josh is bringing wine."

"Josh brings one bottle and drinks two."

Dana laughed. She wiped her hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and came over to look at the table. She straightened one fork. "It looks nice."

They ate at seven-fifteen, once Priya arrived apologizing about the bridge. The chicken was a little dry and nobody said so, though Dana said it herself twice. Josh had brought a Syrah and a bag of clementines, which nobody had asked for and which sat in the middle of the table all night like a centerpiece. Priya told a long story about her landlord. Marcus refilled glasses without being asked. At some point the conversation turned to whether anyone still watched network television, and then to Josh's brother's divorce, and then quieter.

They left a little after eleven. Dana stacked plates while Marcus ran the water hot. She handed them to him one at a time.

"That was good," she said.

"You didn't eat anything."

"I ate."

He scrubbed the roasting pan. She leaned against the counter beside him, holding a clementine she wasn't going to peel.