The garage door rumbled shut, and Daniel came in through the mudroom carrying a plastic bag of limes he'd been asked to remember three days in a row.

"Finally," Priya said from the stove, not turning around. "I was going to use the bottled stuff."

"I have been thinking about limes since Tuesday. It's been like a splinter in my brain." He set the bag down and kissed the back of her head. "What's happening here?"

"Chicken thing. The one with the yogurt." She lifted the lid on a pot of rice, frowned, put it back. "There's no cilantro, so it's a chicken thing with parsley, which is a betrayal of everything."

Daniel washed his hands and started clearing the counter—mail from yesterday, a phone charger, a permission slip they had both apparently decided was the other's responsibility. He found the cutting board under a dish towel.

"How was the thing with Marcus?" Priya asked.

"He wants to push the launch to March. Which is fine. Which I said was fine." He halved a lime and squeezed it into a bowl she pushed toward him without looking. "I said it in a tone."

"You have a tone."

"I've been told."

The dog came skidding in on the tile, hopeful, and Priya nudged him aside with her hip. Daniel got out two plates, then a third out of habit, then put it back, because their daughter was at her cousin's until Sunday. Neither of them commented on it.

"Salad or no salad," he said.

"There's that lettuce that's about to turn."

"Salad, then. Aggressively."

They ate at the kitchen island because the dining table had a laundry basket on it, and had for eleven days. Priya said the parsley wasn't so bad. Daniel said the limes made it, and she said that was a very convenient conclusion, and he agreed that it was.


Marcus got home first, which meant the kitchen radio was on the classic rock station and the oven was already preheating to 400 before Denise even set her bag down.

"You started the potatoes?" she called from the entryway, toeing off her flats.

"Started them. Cubed them, too, because I know how you get about the big chunks."

"I don't *get* about anything. They just don't cook through." She came in, kissed the side of his head, and opened the fridge. "Where's the chicken?"

"Counter. Been sitting out twenty minutes so it's not ice cold in the middle."

Denise found the package behind the paper towel roll, peeled back the plastic, and dumped the thighs into a bowl. Marcus handed her the paprika without being asked. Outside, someone's dog was going off at the mail truck.

"Micah called," he said. "Wants to know if we're doing anything for Ma's birthday or if he needs to plan it."

"He asks that every year and then plans nothing."

"That's what I told him." Marcus slid the sheet pan of potatoes into the oven, wiping his hands on the dish towel hanging off the stove handle. "I said we'd do brunch here. You mad?"

"I'm not mad. I'm tired." She flipped the thighs skin-side up, spread them out. "We'll do brunch. Make that egg casserole thing."

"The one with the sausage."

"Any of them. They all taste the same."

He laughed and got two glasses down. The window over the sink had gone that gray-blue color it did in February, and Denise noticed the sill needed wiping but decided it could wait until the weekend, or the weekend after.

"Twenty-five minutes on the chicken?"

"Thirty," she said. "Then broil it a minute so the skin's not sad."

Marcus set the timer on his phone and leaned against the counter, and for a while neither of them said anything at all.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the chicken thighs still sitting in the sink, half-thawed in a bowl of water that had gone lukewarm.

"You started these this morning?" he called toward the door when he heard Dana's keys.

"I meant to move them to the counter." She dropped her bag on the bench they'd bought secondhand three years ago and still hadn't refinished. "Long day. Kendra's out again, so I covered the two o'clock."

"That's the third time this month."

"Second. But yes." She washed her hands at the kitchen sink, nudging the bowl aside. "Are these salvageable?"

"They're fine. They're mostly thawed anyway." He set them on a cutting board and reached for the salt.

Dana opened the fridge and stood there in the cold light. "We have half a bag of that arugula. And a lemon."

"Do the thing where you put the parmesan on it."

"That's not a recipe, that's just cheese."

"It's my favorite recipe."

She got out the box grater. Behind her, the oven ticked as it preheated, and Marcus fussed with the foil, tearing off a piece and then a second because the first was too short. The kitchen window had gone dark early, the way it did in November, and their reflections hung there over the sink.

"Your mom called me at lunch," Dana said.

"About Thanksgiving."

"About Thanksgiving."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That we'd talk about it and call her back." She squeezed the lemon over the greens, picking a seed out with her fingernail. "So this is us talking about it."

He slid the pan into the oven and set the timer on the microwave, which ran four minutes fast in a way neither of them had ever adjusted for. "Can we talk about it at forty minutes? I want to sit down first."

"Fine." She handed him the salad bowl. "Sit. I'll bring the plates."


The kitchen light had been flickering for three weeks, and neither of them had bought the bulb.

"I'm just saying, we pass a hardware store," Priya said, dumping rice into the measuring cup. "Every single day. Both of us."

"I know." Marcus set his laptop bag on the chair by the door instead of the counter, which he'd been trying to do since she asked him in February. He rolled his sleeves. "What can I do?"

"Peppers. There's two in the drawer, maybe three."

He found two, plus one that had gone soft on one side. He cut around the bad part and didn't mention it. Behind him, the rice cooker clicked on, and the dog's tags jingled as she resettled under the table, hopeful.

"How was Delgado?" Priya asked.

"Rescheduled again. Third time." He slid the peppers into a bowl. "His assistant's very apologetic about it, which somehow makes it worse."

"Cancel it, then."

"I can't cancel it, I need the account."

"Then stop being sad about it." She said it lightly, tipping oil into the pan, and he laughed, because she was right, and because she'd been saying versions of this to him for nine years.

The oil popped. She stepped back, waving her hand.

"Too hot," he said.

"Thank you, I'm aware."

They moved around each other without discussion — he got the cutting board out of her way, she handed him the garlic without looking. The pan hissed. The window over the sink was going dark blue and reflecting them both back, doubled and slightly wrong.

"Your mother called the house line," she said. "I didn't answer."

"Coward."

"I was in the shower. Genuinely."

He set two plates on the table, then a third one down for the forks, the way his father used to. The light flickered. Neither of them looked up.


Marcus got home first, which meant he got to pick the music. He put on something low and jazzy, the kind of thing Danielle called "elevator adjacent," and started pulling things out of the refrigerator. Chicken thighs, half a bag of green beans, a lemon that had gone slightly soft on one side.

Danielle came in at ten after six, dropped her bag on the bench by the door, and stood in the kitchen doorway with her coat still on.

"Please tell me you didn't buy more of the sourdough."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I bought one loaf. It was the last one." He held up the lemon. "Is this still good?"

She took it from him, squeezed it, sniffed it. "It's fine. Cut off the brown part." She hung her coat and came back to wash her hands at the sink, bumping him sideways with her hip to make room. "Kelsey's coming Saturday, by the way. She texted me at like two."

"Staying over?"

"She said she'd let me know, which means yes."

Marcus salted the chicken and got the cast iron heating. Danielle snapped the ends off the green beans into the compost bin, moving fast, the way she did everything in the kitchen — she'd worked in restaurants for two years in her twenties and never lost the speed. The pan started smoking a little, and she reached past him to turn down the burner without saying anything about it.

"How was the thing with Rob?" she asked.

"Rescheduled. Third time."

"That's not a real meeting anymore. That's a rumor."

He laughed. The chicken went in, hissing hard, and he stepped back from the spatter. She pulled two plates from the cabinet, the mismatched ones, because the good ones were still in the dishwasher and neither of them had run it.

"Wine?" she said.

"Sure. Small one."

She poured two that were not small, and set his by the stove where he could reach it.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the chicken was still frozen solid in the sink where he'd left it that morning under a hopeful trickle of water.

"We're doing pasta," he called toward the front door when he heard Priya's keys.

"What happened to chicken?"

"Chicken happened to Tuesday." He held up the pale, unyielding brick.

Priya set her bag on the bench and came into the kitchen, still in her work clothes, and pressed her thumb into the chicken as if she didn't believe him. "Wow. Okay. Pasta."

She started the water while he went through the fridge, narrating: half an onion wrapped in cling film, mushrooms that were on their last day of dignity, a heel of parmesan. There was cream, but only a splash.

"We have that jar from the Italian place," she said. "Behind the pickles."

"Which pickles? We have four pickles."

"Behind the bad pickles."

He found it. Priya changed out of her blouse into one of his old t-shirts and came back barefoot, and they fell into the choreography they'd had for eleven years: he chopped, she stirred, both of them reaching around each other for the salt without asking.

"Sunita called," Priya said. "She wants to know if we're coming in October."

"Do we want to go in October?"

"I told her I'd talk to you, which she correctly understood as no."

The mushrooms browned. Marcus turned the burner down twice because he never trusted the first adjustment. Priya tasted the sauce, made a face, added more black pepper, tasted again, and held the spoon up for him.

"More salt," he said.

"It's fine."

"You asked."

"I asked to be agreed with."

They ate on the couch, plates on their knees, the news on low with the sound of the dishwasher already starting behind them, because Marcus had loaded it while the pasta cooked and hadn't mentioned it, and she noticed, and didn't mention it either.


Marcus got home first, which meant he started the rice. He'd learned years ago that Priya liked it rinsed three times, so he stood at the sink running cold water over the grains, watching the cloudiness thin out. The kitchen light over the stove was still flickering. He kept meaning to buy a new bulb.

She came in at ten past six, dropping her bag on the chair by the door and toeing off her shoes.

"They pushed the deadline up," she said. "Again."

"To when?"

"Friday. Which I found out at four fifteen." She kissed the back of his neck on her way to the refrigerator, then stood there with the door open, not really looking. "Is there any of that chicken left?"

"I used it. Thought we could do the peanut sauce thing."

"Okay." She pulled out a bag of green beans that had gone a little limp and inspected them under the light. "These are borderline."

"Trim them and nobody will know."

"I'll know."

He laughed. She got out the cutting board — the plastic one, not the wooden one they never used because it was a wedding gift and she felt weird about it — and started snapping ends off the beans, dropping them into the compost bin.

"Your mother called," Marcus said. "The landline."

"We have a landline?"

"Apparently. She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

Priya groaned. "It's September."

"I told her we'd talk about it."

The rice cooker clicked. He whisked peanut butter with soy sauce and a spoonful of the hot water from the kettle, tasting it off the back of the spoon, adding vinegar, tasting again. Priya reached past him for the sesame oil and knocked over the pepper grinder, which neither of them picked up.

"Ten minutes?" she said.

"Twelve."

She set two plates on the counter and went to change out of her work clothes.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did. He tuned it to the classical station, then rolled up his sleeves and started on the onions, because Priya had texted at 4:40: *thawed the chicken thighs, do the thing with the paprika?*

She came in at 6:15, dropping her bag by the shoe rack, still on a call with someone from the Denver office. Marcus pointed at the wine bottle on the counter with the corkscrew balanced on top. She shook her head, mouthed *tea*, and disappeared down the hall to change.

"They pushed the launch to March," she said when she came back, hair up, wearing his old Michigan sweatshirt. She filled the kettle and leaned against the counter. "Which is good, because nothing was going to be ready. But now Ravi's convinced it's his fault."

"Is it his fault?"

"A little. Not enough to matter." She reached past him for a spoon and tasted the sauce. "More lemon."

"There's no lemon in it."

"That's my point."

He handed her the half lemon from the fridge door, the cut side wrapped in cling film from Sunday. She squeezed it in, then started setting the table—two plates, the mismatched forks, the pepper grinder that needed refilling and had needed refilling since August.

"Your mom called the landline," Marcus said. "I didn't pick up. Felt rude."

"It's a landline. Picking up would be rude." She sat down, then got up again for napkins. "She wants to know about Thanksgiving. I'll call her tomorrow."

The rice was a few minutes behind, so they ate the chicken first, standing at the counter, passing the serving spoon back and forth. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped. Marcus said the sauce was better with the lemon and Priya said she knew, and neither of them said anything for a while after that, which was fine.


The kitchen light flickered once before settling, the way it had for three months now.

"I'll call the electrician tomorrow," Dana said, dropping her keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. "I keep saying that."

"You've been saying it since March." Marcus was already at the stove, sleeves pushed up, stirring something in the big dented pot. "There's chicken in there. And whatever was left of the peppers."

"The wrinkly ones?"

"They're fine once they're cooked." He tapped the spoon on the rim. "Taste it. Too much cumin?"

She leaned over, blew on the spoonful he offered, and made a face that wasn't disapproval, just heat. "It's good. More salt maybe."

"You always say more salt."

"Because you always need more salt."

She washed her hands and started on the rice, measuring by the line in her palm rather than the cup, the way her mother had. Behind her, Marcus was telling her about the meeting that ran forty minutes long because Bill from procurement wouldn't stop talking about his boat. Dana half-listened, nodding, thinking about the load of towels she'd forgotten in the washer that morning.

"Oh, no," she said.

"What?"

"Towels. Since seven a.m."

"They'll smell like a pond."

"I know." She set the rice on to simmer and went to rewash them, calling back down the hall, "Did Renee ever text you about Saturday?"

"She said four o'clock. She's bringing the kids."

"Both of them?"

"Both of them."

By the time she came back, he'd set the table—two plates, the mismatched forks, the paper towel folded in half instead of napkins because they were out again. The pot sat between them on a folded dish towel.

"Sit," he said. "Before it gets cold."

She sat. He'd added more salt.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on—the classic rock station, volume low—and the chicken came out of the fridge to sit on the counter while he changed out of his work clothes. By the time Dana's car crunched into the driveway at 6:15, he had the oven preheating and was picking through the crisper drawer with a doubtful expression.

"There's a bag of spinach in here that's mostly liquid," he called out.

"Then throw it away." She set her bag on the bench by the door and toed off her shoes. "I meant to use that Sunday."

"I know. I watched you mean to."

She swatted his shoulder on her way past and washed her hands at the sink. The dog, an aging beagle named Rooster, positioned himself in the exact center of the kitchen floor, as was his custom.

"How was the Halvorsen thing?" Marcus asked.

"Moved to Thursday. Which is fine, except now Thursday is a nightmare." She pulled a cutting board from the cabinet. "Do you want potatoes or rice?"

"Potatoes, if you're offering to peel them."

"I'm offering to cut them up. Skins on."

"Even better."

They worked around each other the way people do after eleven years—she at the counter by the window, he at the stove, both reaching past each other for the olive oil without comment. The chicken went in with lemon and too much garlic, the way they both liked it. Dana tossed the potatoes with salt and rosemary from the plant on the windowsill that was, against all odds, still alive.

"Your mother called the house phone," Marcus said. "There was a message."

"About what?"

"Something about a cousin's baby shower. I didn't fully absorb it."

"I'll call her tomorrow." She wiped her hands on a dish towel and leaned against the counter, watching the oven light. "Twenty-five minutes?"

"Thirty. Get the timer."


By six-fifteen, the kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt edges. Marcus had gotten home first, which meant the radio was on the classic rock station he liked and the good cutting board was already crowded with onion he'd chopped too coarsely.

"You're doing that thing again," Renata said, setting her bag on the chair by the back door and toeing off her flats. "Where you cut onions like you're mad at them."

"They were being difficult." He moved aside so she could reach the sink. "How was the meeting?"

"Two hours. Two hours to decide we're going to have another meeting." She washed her hands, then leaned over the pan and frowned. "Is that the chicken from Sunday?"

"It's fine. I smelled it."

"That's not a food safety standard, Marcus."

"It's fine." But he tipped the pan toward her anyway, and she sniffed and shrugged, which was permission enough.

She started rice while he found the jar of red sauce behind the pickles. The dishwasher was still full of clean dishes from the night before, so she unloaded it while she waited on the water, handing him plates as she went, and he stacked them wrong, the way he always did, salad plates under dinner plates.

"Eli called," she said. "He wants to come Thanksgiving but bring the dog."

"The big one?"

"The big one."

Marcus considered this while stirring. "We'll put the rugs in the basement."

The rice took longer than the box promised. They ate at the kitchen table with the mail pushed to one side—a water bill, a catalog neither of them had asked for—and Renata told him about a coworker's divorce in a low voice, as though the coworker might be listening from the driveway.

Afterward Marcus washed and Renata dried, and when she found a spot he'd missed on the pan, she handed it back without saying anything at all.


Marcus got home first, which meant he inherited the dishes from breakfast. He ran the water hot, scraped oatmeal residue off two bowls, and left them in the rack to dry. The kitchen smelled faintly of the coffee he'd forgotten to turn off that morning; the pot had cooked itself down to a brown film.

Priya came in at ten past six, dropped her bag on the chair by the door, and made an exhausted noise that Marcus had learned to interpret as *don't ask about the meeting yet*.

"Chicken's thawed," he said. "I was thinking that sheet pan thing with the potatoes."

"Do we have rosemary?"

"We have the jar of rosemary from, I think, our wedding."

She laughed and washed her hands. "Fine. It's dead but it's fine."

They worked around each other in the narrow galley kitchen, the choreography worn smooth by six years. She quartered potatoes; he trimmed the chicken thighs and rubbed them with oil, salt, pepper, the ancient rosemary crumbled between his palms. Marcus turned on the oven and remembered too late that they'd stored the cast iron in there. He pulled it out with a dish towel, swearing mildly.

"The Hendersons put their tree up already," Priya said, nodding toward the window.

"It's November eleventh."

"I know."

The pan went in. Twenty-five minutes, then a flip. Marcus poured two glasses of the Trader Joe's red they'd opened Sunday. Priya sat on the counter, which he'd told her a hundred times was a health-code violation in spirit, and told him about the meeting after all — a reorganization, a manager who spoke exclusively in sports metaphors.

"Do you think we should have a real spice rack," she said, apropos of nothing.

"You've said that four times this year."

"So that's a yes."

The oven ticked. Outside, the Hendersons' lights blinked on, too early, cheerful anyway.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did. He rolled up his sleeves and started pulling things out of the refrigerator: half an onion wrapped in cling film, a package of chicken thighs he'd meant to use Sunday, a bag of green beans that had seen better days.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, dropping her bag on the bench by the door. "It smells like you're actually cooking."

"I'm actually cooking. Don't act so shocked."

"I'm not shocked. I'm cautiously optimistic." She kissed the back of his neck on her way to the sink, washed her hands, and started sorting through the green beans, snapping off the ends and tossing the wilted ones in the compost bin. "How was the thing with Ravi?"

"Moved to Thursday. Which is fine, except Thursday I have the dentist."

"Reschedule the dentist. You've rescheduled it twice already, so a third time won't feel like anything."

"That's the logic of a woman who flosses."

The chicken hit the pan and the noise filled the kitchen for a minute. Dana got out the good olive oil, then thought better of it and put the regular one back on the counter. She poured herself a glass of the wine that had been open since Saturday, sniffed it, made a face, and poured it down the drain.

"There's that bottle from your mother," Marcus said.

"I'm saving that for an emergency."

"What kind of emergency involves wine?"

"You've met my mother."

They ate at the kitchen table because the dining room table had mail on it, three weeks of mail, an ongoing negotiation neither of them was winning. Dana put her feet on the empty chair. Marcus said the chicken was dry and she said it wasn't, it was fine, and they both agreed the beans were the best part, which was probably true, and neither of them mentioned it again.


The Tuesday Rotisserie

Dana got home first, which meant she started the rice. She measured it badly, the way she always did, dumping in what looked right and adding a little extra water for luck. The cooker beeped and she left it, kicking off her shoes by the back door where Marcus would trip on them later and say something about it.

He came in at 6:20 with a grocery bag and the smell of cold air. "They had the rotisserie chickens for six ninety-nine," he said. "I got the herb one."

"Not lemon pepper?"

"You said the lemon pepper was too salty."

"I said it *once*." She took the bag from him and set the chicken on a cutting board. "Fine. It's fine. Herb is fine."

Marcus washed his hands and pulled the broccoli out of the crisper drawer, the bag half-collapsed. "How long's this been in here?"

"Since Thursday. It's okay, it's just wilty."

He rinsed it anyway and started cutting florets while she pulled the chicken apart with her fingers, blowing on them between grabs. The kitchen radio was on low, some public station doing a story about municipal water bonds that neither of them was listening to.

"Aunt Cheryl called me at lunch," Dana said. "She wants to know if we're coming for Easter."

"It's February."

"I know. I told her probably."

"Probably." He shook the broccoli into a pan with oil. "That's a yes to her."

"That's why I said it that way."

He laughed. The rice cooker clicked over to warm and she got out two plates, the mismatched ones, because the good ones were still in the dishwasher from Sunday and neither of them had run it. She noticed and decided not to mention it, and he noticed her noticing and started loading the last few bowls in while the broccoli went soft.

They ate at the counter, standing, because sitting down felt like too much effort on a Tuesday.


Marcus got home first, which meant he got to pick the music. He put on the old Bill Withers record his father had given him and started pulling things out of the fridge—half a rotisserie chicken from Sunday, a bag of green beans, the heel of a block of parmesan.

Dev came in at ten past six, still in his work badge, dropping his keys in the ceramic dish by the door that they'd bought at a craft fair four summers ago.

"It smells like nothing in here," he said.

"That's because I haven't done anything yet. I've been standing here having a philosophical crisis about the beans."

"What kind of crisis?"

"Roast or steam."

Dev pulled off his badge and washed his hands at the kitchen sink. "Roast. Steamed beans are a punishment." He nudged Marcus aside with his hip and started snapping the ends off. "Did you call about the water heater?"

"I left a message. The guy said he'd call back and then didn't call back."

"Of course."

"I'll call again tomorrow." Marcus was shredding the chicken with two forks, the way his mother did. "How was the thing with Priya?"

"She's leaving. Not until March, but she told me today." Dev tossed the trimmed beans into a bowl and reached past Marcus for the olive oil. "It's fine. It's good for her. I just don't want to train someone new."

"You'll be fine. You like bossing people around."

"I like *organizing* people."

They worked around each other easily, the kitchen too narrow for two but familiar enough that neither of them collided. Marcus put the pasta water on. Dev spread the beans on a sheet pan with salt and too much garlic, the way they both liked it.

At the table, Dev ate standing up for the first two minutes, which he always did, and Marcus said nothing about it, which he always did.


Marcus got home first, which meant he started the rice. He filled the pot, salted the water, and set it on the back burner before he'd even taken off his shoes—a habit Priya teased him about, since he'd once forgotten and stood in the kitchen in wet sneakers for twenty minutes.

She came in at six-fifteen, dropping her bag by the stairs. "Traffic on the parkway was miserable. Somebody's truck lost a mattress."

"A whole mattress?"

"In the middle lane. Just sitting there like it lived there." She washed her hands at the sink, then peered into the fridge. "Did we decide on the chicken?"

"I took it out this morning. It's in the drawer."

"You're a wonder." She pulled it out and set it on the cutting board, then paused. "There's only two thighs. I thought there were four."

"Sunday. The stir-fry."

"Right." She started trimming while Marcus reached past her for the soy sauce, and she leaned back slightly to let him through without either of them mentioning it. Twelve years in a galley kitchen taught you where the other person's elbows were going.

"Your mom called," he said. "She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

"It's September."

"I told her that. She said it's never too early." He cracked pepper into a pan. "She also said your cousin's getting a dog."

"Which cousin?"

"The one with the boat."

"Ravi." Priya slid the chicken into the pan and it hissed. "He shouldn't have a dog. He's never home."

The rice cooker clicked over. Marcus pulled two plates from the cabinet, the mismatched ones, because the good set was still in the dishwasher from the night before and neither of them had run it.

"I'll do the dishes," she said, reading his glance.

"I'll do them. You did them Tuesday."

"That was a smaller load."

They ate at the table with the news muted in the other room, and she told him about the mattress again, adding details she'd forgotten the first time.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio went on—the classic rock station, volume low—and the chicken came out of the fridge to lose its chill on the counter. He'd stopped at the store on his lunch break, so there were fresh lemons in the bowl and a bag of green beans he'd forgotten they already had.

"There's beans in the crisper drawer," Dana said when she came in, keys clattering into the dish by the door. "Two bags now."

"Then we're eating a lot of beans."

She kissed the back of his neck on her way past, set her laptop bag on a kitchen chair, and started running water over the beans in a colander. Her feet hurt. She'd been standing most of the day, and she peeled off her shoes and kicked them toward the hallway rather than carrying them anywhere.

"Something died in the microwave," she said.

"That was Tuesday's soup."

"Tuesday was three days ago, Marcus."

He was trimming the chicken with the good knife, the one they'd gotten as a wedding gift eleven years ago and had sharpened exactly twice. "Your mother called the house line. I didn't pick up."

"Good."

"I figured."

Dana snapped the ends off the beans, dropping them into a bowl she'd have to remember to dump. Outside, the neighbor's dog started up about something. The rice cooker clicked over to warm, and the kitchen smelled like lemon and butter and the faint scorched-dust smell of the oven's first heat of the fall.

"Did you pay the water bill?" she asked.

"Saturday."

"Okay." She reached around him for the salt. "I'm not doing dishes tonight."

"I know."

"I'm just saying it out loud so it's official."

He slid the pan into the oven and set the timer, and for a minute they both just stood there in the warm crowded kitchen, not talking, the radio playing something they both half-knew.


The rain had started around four, and by six the kitchen windows were fogged at the corners. Denise came in through the garage door with her laptop bag still on her shoulder and a plastic sack of groceries hooked over two fingers.

"They were out of the good rotisserie ones," she said. "I got the lemon pepper."

Marcus was already at the stove, sleeves pushed up, moving a wooden spoon through a pan of rice that had probably needed stirring ten minutes ago. "Lemon pepper's fine. Did you get the sour cream?"

"I got the sour cream." She set the bag down and started unpacking it, sliding the chicken onto the counter beside a cutting board. "Sofia called. She wants to come Sunday instead of Saturday."

"Sunday's better anyway. I've got that thing with Ray in the morning." He tapped the spoon on the pan rim and looked over. "You want me to shred that or are you doing thighs whole?"

"Shred it. I'll do the salad." She washed her hands, then paused with the towel. "Why does the disposal smell like that?"

"I don't know. It's been doing that."

"Since when?"

"Two days? Three?" He pulled the chicken toward him and started pulling the skin back with a fork. "I'll put baking soda down it after."

She ran the water and turned the switch on and off, listening. Then she got the bag of romaine from the fridge and tore it into a bowl, and for a minute neither of them said anything except when he asked her to hand him the tongs.

"How was the Fitzgerald thing?" she asked.

"Postponed. Again."

"Of course."

They ate at the kitchen table because the dining room still had boxes from her mother's house on the chairs. Halfway through, Marcus got up to get the hot sauce and stayed standing for a second, looking out at the rain.

"Roof's fine," he said, sitting back down.

"I didn't ask."

"You were thinking it."


The Marsh house smelled like garlic before Dana even set down her bag. She found Eli at the stove, sleeves pushed up, pushing chicken around a skillet with a wooden spoon.

"You're home early," she said, kissing the back of his shoulder.

"Meeting got canceled. I figured I'd start something before you got stuck defrosting again."

"I would have gotten takeout, honestly." She opened the fridge, moved a jar of pickles, and pulled out a bag of green beans that had maybe two days left in them. "These still good?"

"Snap one."

She snapped one. It bent instead of breaking.

"Roast them," Eli said. "Nobody can tell once they're roasted."

Dana set the oven to four hundred and spread the beans on a sheet pan, drizzling oil and shaking salt over them with the flat of her hand. Behind her, the skillet hissed as Eli added a splash of white wine from a bottle they'd opened Sunday.

"Bev called," he said. "She wants to know if we're doing Thanksgiving here or at her place."

"It's September."

"I know. I told her we'd figure it out. She's already talking about brining."

"Of course she is." Dana slid the pan into the oven and started clearing the mail off the table—two catalogs, a dentist reminder, something from the insurance company she set aside to open later. "Did the dishwasher run?"

"Ran. Didn't get emptied." He tasted the sauce, made a face, added more lemon.

She unloaded it while the beans cooked, stacking plates, dropping forks into the drawer with a rattle. The kitchen window had gone dark and reflected the two of them back, the room warmer-looking in the glass than it was in life.

"Ten more minutes on those," she said.

"Perfect." Eli turned the burner down. "Sit for a second. Tell me about your day."

She sat. The oven ticked. She told him.


The garage door rumbled shut, and Dana came in through the kitchen with her laptop bag still slung over one shoulder, the mail pinched under her elbow. Marcus was already at the stove, sleeves pushed up, pushing a wooden spoon through a pan of onions.

"You beat me home," she said, dropping the mail on the counter. A credit card offer slid onto the floor.

"By ten minutes. The 205 was actually moving for once." He tapped the spoon against the pan. "I started the onions. I couldn't remember if we were doing the chicken thing or the pasta."

"Chicken. The pasta needs parmesan and we're out." She opened the fridge, stood in its light for a second, then handed him a package of thighs. "Is there rice?"

"There's rice. There's always rice."

She washed her hands, then set the rice cooker going while he trimmed the chicken, the two of them working around each other in the narrow space between the counter and the island, a choreography worn smooth by eleven years. Dana pulled out the cutting board and started on a cucumber.

"Marla asked if we're coming Saturday," Marcus said. "The thing at the park."

"Is it a birthday thing?"

"It's a—I don't actually know what it is. There's a piñata."

"Then it's a birthday thing." She scraped the cucumber into a bowl. "We can go for an hour."

"That's what I told her." He turned the heat down. "Do you want the good vinegar or the regular?"

"The good one. Live a little."

They ate at the kitchen table because the dining room still had boxes from her mother's house in it, three months now. The dishwasher hummed. Outside, someone's dog barked twice and stopped. Dana told him about a coworker's baffling email, and Marcus laughed with his mouth full, and neither of them got up for a long time after the plates were empty.


The garage door groaned shut behind Nadia's car, and Tom heard it from the kitchen, where he'd already started the water for pasta.

"Traffic?" he called.

"The bridge." She dropped her bag on the bench by the door and toed off her flats. "Some guy's transmission went out in the middle lane. Everybody just sat there watching him."

Tom handed her a glass of the wine that had been open since Sunday, maybe a little past its prime. She took it anyway and leaned against the counter, still in her work blouse, one sleeve rolled unevenly from where she'd pushed it up at her desk.

"There's chicken in the fridge," she said. "The one I meant to do Tuesday."

"Then we should do it tonight."

"Or we could freeze it and I could stop pretending I'm going to make that lemon thing."

He laughed and took the package out anyway, patting the breasts dry with a paper towel while she found the cutting board. She sliced garlic thin, the way her mother did, complaining about the knife, which had needed sharpening for a year.

"I'll get the stone out this weekend," Tom said.

"You said that in April."

"I said it in March too."

The kitchen filled with the smell of oil hitting the pan, then garlic, then the sharper hiss of chicken. Nadia opened the window over the sink because the smoke detector in the hall had opinions. Outside, someone's dog was barking at nothing. She told him about the reorg rumors, the manager who kept saying *circle back*. He told her the mail had come with a jury summons for her, which she said she would deal with tomorrow.

They ate at the table with the mail pushed to one side. Halfway through, she reached over with her fork and took a piece of his chicken, and he let her.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did — a habit from his mother's kitchen. He set the grocery bag on the counter and started unpacking: chicken thighs, a bag of green beans, the sourdough that had been marked down to $2.49.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, kicked off her shoes by the door, and leaned against the fridge with her coat still on.

"They moved the Thursday meeting to tomorrow at eight," she said. "Eight in the morning."

"That's illegal."

"I said something similar. Less politely." She hung her coat up finally and washed her hands, then took over the green beans, snapping the ends off into the compost bin. "You got the good bread."

"It was on sale."

"That's what makes it good."

The chicken went into the cast iron with too much oil, the way Marcus liked it, and the kitchen filled up with that popping sound that always made Dana step back half a foot. She got out the cutting board and started on a lemon, then paused.

"Did you call the guy about the gutters?"

"I left a message. He hasn't called back."

"It's been a week."

"It's been six days." He turned the chicken with tongs. "I'll call again Saturday."

She set the table — two plates, the mismatched forks they'd never bothered to replace, water glasses. Their nephew's drawing was still taped to the wall above the light switch, curling at one corner.

"Your sister texted me," Dana said. "She wants to know if we're doing the Fourth at her place."

"What'd you say?"

"I said I'd ask you, which means yes."

Marcus laughed and pulled the pan off the heat. They ate at the small table with the radio still on, low, talking about the gutters again, then about nothing, then not talking at all — just the sound of forks, and outside, somebody's dog barking at a car door.


By six-fifteen the kitchen light was the only one on downstairs. Dana came in through the side door with a grocery bag on her hip and her keys still in her teeth, and Marcus took the bag from her without being asked.

"They were out of the rotisserie chickens," she said. "Somebody was buying four of them. Four."

"Meal prep," Marcus said. "Or a very large dog."

He set the bag on the counter and started unloading: two chicken breasts in a foam tray, a bag of green beans, sour cream because she'd texted him at two o'clock to remind her about sour cream, and he'd forgotten to remind her. She'd remembered anyway.

Dana kicked off her shoes by the pantry door and got the cast iron down from the drawer under the oven. Marcus ran the beans under the tap, snapping the ends off with his thumbnail and dropping them into a colander.

"How was the thing with Priya?" she asked.

"Moved to Thursday. Which means Thursday is now a nightmare." He shook the colander. "How's your mother?"

"She wants to come the weekend of the twelfth."

"Okay."

"You said 'okay' too fast. That means you're going to bring it up again on the eleventh."

"I said okay," Marcus said, but he was smiling at the sink.

The chicken hit the pan and hissed. Dana turned on the vent fan, which rattled the way it had rattled for three years, and shouted the rest of the conversation over it — something about the neighbor's fence, something about the recycling being picked up early. Marcus put two plates on the counter and forks on top of them and thought about the fence.

They ate at the table with the mail pushed to one side. It wasn't a good dinner, particularly. The beans were a little underdone. Neither of them mentioned it.


Marcus got home first, which meant the kitchen radio was already tuned to the classic rock station he insisted made chopping onions bearable. He'd stopped at the store for the chicken thighs, which were on sale, and a bag of the good potatoes, the little red ones Priya liked roasted with rosemary.

She came in around six-fifteen, dropping her bag on the bench by the door and toeing off her shoes. "It smells like you already started."

"Preheating. That's all." He held up his hands, still shiny with oil. "I did wash the good pan. The one you yelled at me about."

"I did not yell." She washed her hands at the sink beside him and reached for the cutting board. "Did you get garlic?"

"I got garlic."

"How much garlic?"

"A normal amount of garlic."

She found it in the bag—one head—and gave him a look. He laughed and went back to seasoning the chicken.

They fell into it easily, the way they had for eleven years now: she halved the potatoes, he heated the pan, and the smoke alarm in the hallway chirped once in warning before he cracked the window over the sink. The dog, Buster, stationed himself between them, ever hopeful.

"Your mother called," Priya said. "She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That we'd talk about it. Which we should, at some point, and not at eleven at night when you're falling asleep."

"Fair." He turned the chicken. The skin hissed. "I think we should host."

"You always say that in October."

"And I mean it in October."

She slid the potatoes into the oven and set the timer on the microwave, because the oven timer had stopped working in July and neither of them had called anyone about it.

"Salad?" she asked.

"There's that spinach going soft."

"Then salad," she said, and reached past him for the bowl.


The garage door groaned shut and Marcus came in through the kitchen, setting his keys in the ceramic dish by the toaster.

"Traffic on the parkway?" Priya asked. She had a colander of green beans in the sink, water drumming over them.

"An accident near the exit. Nobody hurt, I think. Just everybody rubbernecking." He loosened his tie and hung his jacket over the back of a chair, then reconsidered and carried it to the hall closet, because she'd mentioned that twice this month.

"There's chicken thawed. I was thinking that lemon thing."

"With the capers?"

"We're out of capers."

"So not with the capers."

She laughed and handed him the beans. He trimmed the ends with a paring knife, tossing the tips into the compost bin that needed emptying, while she got the cast iron heating and salted the chicken more heavily than he ever would have.

"Ellie called," she said. "She wants to come for Thanksgiving but she's bringing someone."

"Someone."

"A guy named Dev. She said it very casually, which means it isn't casual."

"We'll need the leaf for the table." Marcus opened the fridge, found half a lemon wrapped in cling film, and held it up questioningly. She nodded.

The chicken hit the pan with a sound like applause. He set the beans in a pot with a splash of water and a lid, then wiped the counter where the raw chicken package had leaked. The kitchen filled with browning and lemon and the faint burnt-toast smell the oven made whenever it preheated.

"Did you pay the water bill?" he asked.

"Saturday. It's on the fridge."

They ate at the kitchen table instead of the dining room, plates on placemats, the small television on the counter muted with the local news crawl going. Outside it had gotten dark early again.

"This is good," he said.

"It needed capers."


The kitchen light had that yellow evening quality by the time Dana got home, and Marcus was already at the counter with the cutting board out, still in his work polo.

"There's no garlic," he said. "I looked twice."

"There's garlic powder."

"That's not the same thing and you know it."

Dana dropped her bag on the chair by the door and toed off her shoes, one heel wedged under the radiator like always. "It's a Tuesday. Nobody's grading us." She came over and looked at what he had going—chicken thighs thawed in the sink, a half bag of green beans, rice already steaming in the cooker. "Did the Hendersons' dog get out again? There was barking."

"All afternoon. I almost called." He slid the beans toward her with the back of his knife. "Snap those?"

She ran water over them and started breaking off the ends, dropping them into a colander. "Nina wants to know if we're doing Thanksgiving here or there."

"It's September."

"I know. That's what I said." She flicked a stem into the trash and missed. "She's already thinking about flights."

Marcus salted the chicken and let it sit while he wiped his hands on the towel hanging off the oven handle. "Here's fine. But she can't bring that casserole with the marshmallows."

"You can't tell your own sister what to bring."

"I can hope."

The pan started making its noise and for a while neither of them said anything, just moved—Dana reaching past him for the olive oil, Marcus stepping back without looking to let her get to the drawer. The dishwasher was still full of clean dishes from Sunday. Neither of them mentioned it.

"How was the thing with Reyes?" she asked.

"Postponed. Again."

"Of course."

He pushed the chicken around with tongs. "Twenty minutes."

Dana got out the plates, the two good ones and one chipped, and set the table anyway, the way they always did, even for a Tuesday.


The rain had started around four, so Marcus came in through the garage with damp shoulders and set the grocery bag on the counter before he even took off his shoes.

"Did you get the buttermilk?" Dana called from the hallway.

"I got the buttermilk. I got the wrong kind of cornmeal, I think." He held up the bag. "It says fine grind."

Dana came in still wearing her badge on its lanyard, took the bag, and squinted at it. "It's fine. It'll just be less gritty. Bill won't know."

"Bill's not coming until Saturday."

"Then nobody will know." She set the cornmeal down and started rummaging in the cabinet under the stove for the cast iron. It came out with a clang that made the dog lift her head from the doorway.

He put the chicken thighs in a bowl of water in the sink to thaw a little more and started on the green beans, snapping the ends off into the compost bin they kept on the windowsill, which was overfull again. Outside the window the neighbor's recycling bin had blown over.

"How was the Fitzgerald thing?" she asked.

"Moved to next Thursday. Which is fine, except now it's the same week as the audit." He shook the colander. "How's your knee?"

"Better. I iced it at lunch." She was mixing the batter with a fork, tapping it against the bowl. "We need to do something about the light in here. It's like a dentist's office."

"You've said that for two years."

"I'm saying it again. Hand me the salt?"

He handed her the salt. The oil started to shimmer, and she dropped a test spoonful of batter in; it hissed and rose. She made a small satisfied sound.

"Twenty minutes," she said.

"I'm going to change out of these pants," he said, and went.


The garage door groaned shut at 5:40, and Marcus came in through the kitchen carrying his lunch bag and a plastic grocery sack.

"They were out of the good tortillas," he said. "I got the ones in the yellow bag."

Priya was at the counter with her laptop still open beside the cutting board, one earbud in from a call that had ended twenty minutes ago. "That's fine. Those are fine." She pulled the earbud out and set it down. "Did you get sour cream?"

"I got sour cream." He held it up, then put it in the fridge door, which required moving a jar of pickles and a half-finished carton of oat milk. "There's no room in here."

"There's Thai food in the back from Saturday."

"From Saturday?"

"You can throw it out."

He threw it out. Priya went back to slicing an onion, tipping her chin up the way she did to keep her eyes from watering, and Marcus washed his hands and got the ground turkey out of the fridge, pressing it into the pan with the flat of a wooden spoon.

"Nadia texted," she said. "They want to do brunch Sunday."

"Which Nadia?"

"Work Nadia. With the baby."

"I have to help my dad move the shed Sunday."

"That's what I said. I said probably not, we have the shed thing." She scraped the onion off the board into the pan and it hissed. "Watch out, that's hot."

"I'm aware." He shook in cumin and chili powder without measuring, then salt, then tasted it off the spoon and added more salt.

The rice cooker clicked over to warm. Priya shredded cheese while Marcus set the table, two plates, the pepper grinder, and the good hot sauce that they both liked but only he ever reached for. Outside, someone's dog was barking at something.

"Grace, or just eat?" she asked.

"Just eat," he said. "I'm starving."


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Daniel came in through the garage door, tie already loosened, mail tucked under one arm.

"Junk, junk, dentist reminder," he said, dropping the stack on the counter. "And something from the county that's probably about the water main."

Priya was at the stove, pushing sliced onions around a pan with a wooden spoon. "Can you check if we still have that jar of tomato paste? Behind the vinegar, maybe."

He set his bag down and crouched at the pantry, moving cereal boxes aside. "We have three cans of chickpeas and no tomato paste."

"That's fine. I'll just use the crushed tomatoes." She reached past him for the can, then handed him the opener without looking. "How was the thing with Marcus?"

"Postponed. Again." Daniel cranked the can open and poured it in, wincing as it spattered. "He rescheduled to Thursday, which means I have to move my dentist appointment, which apparently I now have a reminder about."

"Convenient."

"Deeply."

The kitchen smelled like cumin and hot oil. He washed his hands, then started clearing the table—unopened bills, a phone charger, a library book two days overdue. Priya turned the heat down and tasted from the spoon, made a face, and added salt.

"Do you want the good bread or the sad end piece?"

"I'll take the sad piece. I feel bad for it."

She laughed. "You say that every time."

They ate at the small table by the window while the dishwasher hummed through its cycle from the night before, which Daniel had forgotten to unload. Outside, someone's dog was barking at nothing in particular. Priya told him about the parking situation at work, and he told her about the coworker who microwaved fish again, and neither of them turned on the television.

Afterward he rinsed plates while she wiped the counter, and they left the mail unopened until morning.


The garage door groaned shut behind Marcus at 5:40, and he came in through the laundry room, dropping his keys in the bowl on the dryer where they always went. Dana was already at the stove, still in her work clothes but with the sleeves of her blouse pushed up past her elbows.

"There's mail on the counter," she said. "I think the dentist wants us again."

"Already? I just went." He kissed the side of her head and looked into the pan. "What is this?"

"Chicken thighs. The ones from Sunday. I'm just going to do them with the rice and whatever's left of the broccoli."

He opened the fridge, found the broccoli in a produce bag gone slightly soft at the edges, and held it up. "This has seen things."

"It's fine. Cut off the bad parts."

Marcus took the cutting board down and started trimming while Dana turned the chicken with tongs. The kitchen filled with the smell of garlic and something faintly scorched.

"How was the thing with Pritchard?" he asked.

"He rescheduled. Third time." She wiped her hands on a dish towel. "I told Alison at this point I'm just going to mail him the folder."

"Do it."

"Can you get the rice going? It's in the pantry, second shelf."

He measured it out, one cup, two cups water, and set the pot on the back burner. The dog came clicking in across the tile and settled under the table where crumbs might land.

"Did you feed her?" Dana asked.

"Not yet."

"I'll do it."

They moved around each other in the narrow space between the island and the stove, the way they had for eleven years, neither one saying excuse me. By 6:20 the plates were out. Dana poured the last of the sauvignon blanc into two glasses and set the bottle by the recycling.

"Sit," she said. "It's done."


Marisol got home first, which meant the oven was already preheating by the time Dev came through the side door with his laptop bag and a plastic sack of limes.

"They were out of the cilantro," he said, setting the limes on the counter. "The good kind. There was some sad wilted stuff in the back but I wasn't going to pay two ninety-nine for that."

"We'll live." She was cubing sweet potatoes on the cutting board with the chip in one corner, the one they kept meaning to replace. "Can you do the beans? There's the last can of black."

He washed his hands, then stood squinting into the pantry. "We have chickpeas. We have four cans of chickpeas."

"That's from when they were on sale."

"That was in March."

"So use the chickpeas."

He got the can opener from the drawer that always stuck, jiggled it loose, and started opening. From the living room the radio was going, some interview about municipal bonds neither of them was really listening to.

"How was the thing with Aaron?" she asked.

"Postponed. Again." He drained the chickpeas into the colander. "He said Thursday. I said Thursday's the parent conference, and he said, right, right, and then didn't suggest another day."

"So it's postponed forever."

"Probably." He shook the colander. "Do you want these roasted or just heated?"

"Roasted. Toss them with the potatoes, there's room on the pan."

She slid the sheet pan into the oven and set the timer on the microwave because the oven timer had a beep nobody could hear. Dev leaned against the counter with a lime in his hand, rolling it back and forth on the tile.

"I paid the water bill," he said.

"Thank you."

"It went up."

"It always goes up."

He nodded, and started cutting the lime into wedges, and outside the kitchen window the neighbor's motion light clicked on for nothing, the way it did most evenings around then.


Marcus got home first, which meant the oven was already preheating when Dana came through the side door with her laptop bag and a plastic sack of lemons.

"They didn't have the small ones," she said, setting the bag on the counter. "Just those giant ones that are mostly rind."

"They'll work." He was cutting chicken thighs into strips on the yellow cutting board, the one they kept meaning to replace. "How was the thing with Priya?"

"Moved to Thursday." Dana kicked her shoes toward the mat without quite landing them there. "Which is fine, except now Thursday is insane."

She washed her hands at the sink, nudging him sideways with her hip to get to the towel. The kitchen was narrow enough that they'd developed a whole choreography over eleven years — who reached for what, who stepped back when the fridge door swung.

"There's rice in the container," Marcus said. "From Sunday. I think it's still good."

Dana opened it and smelled it. "It's good. Do you want me to do something with the broccoli or is it a lost cause?"

"Trim the flowers off. The stalks are done for."

She got the small knife and worked over the trash can while he laid the chicken in the pan. It hissed loudly and he turned the fan on, which made them both raise their voices slightly.

"Your mother called the house phone," she said. "I don't know why she still uses that number."

"Because I've never told her not to."

"There's your answer."

He turned the strips with tongs. Dana slid the broccoli into a bowl with olive oil and salt, using her fingers to toss it, then wiped her hands on her jeans instead of the towel, which he noticed and let go.

"Twenty minutes?" she asked.

"About."

She poured two glasses of water and set the table, four plates deep in habit before she remembered and put two back.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did—the same public station he'd listened to since grad school, murmuring about a bond vote. He set his keys in the bowl by the door, hung his lanyard on the hook, and looked at the counter, where the chicken thighs had been thawing in a bowl of water since morning.

Priya came in at 5:40, still in her scrubs, and dropped her bag on the kitchen chair.

"Did you preheat?"

"Four twenty-five," Marcus said. "I was waiting to see if you wanted the sheet pan thing or actual effort."

"Sheet pan thing." She pulled the elastic out of her hair and shook it loose. "I had a guy today who kept insisting his knee was fine. It was not fine."

"Was he your age or my dad's age?"

"Somewhere in between. Male, though, which is the relevant variable."

She washed her hands and started on the potatoes, halving the small ones, quartering the bigger ones, while Marcus patted the chicken dry with paper towels and shook paprika over it with the shaker's lid half-open, the way he always did, the way she'd stopped commenting on around year three.

"We're out of the good olive oil," he said.

"There's the Costco one under the sink."

"That's the same oil, Priya."

"Then we're not out."

They worked around each other in the narrow galley—she nudged his hip to get to the drawer, he lifted the cutting board so she could slide the potatoes onto the pan. The oven ticked. Outside, someone's dog was going off about the mail.

"Broccoli?" she asked.

"It's soft."

"It's fine soft." She put it on anyway, in the corner of the pan, and Marcus slid the whole thing in and set the timer for thirty-five.

They sat at the table with the mail while it cooked, not talking much, which was its own kind of talking.


The Thursday Rotation

Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetables. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled up his sleeves, and pulled the half-bag of green beans from the crisper drawer. Six-fifteen. The kitchen still smelled faintly of the coffee he'd rushed out on that morning.

Dana came in at six-forty, keys jangling, and dropped her purse on the counter with a sigh that Marcus recognized as the Kowalski-account sigh.

"That bad?"

"He wants the whole deck reworked by Monday." She kicked off her flats and nudged them toward the wall. "So I'll be doing that Sunday. Sorry."

"I'll take Cleo to the vet, then."

"You'll forget the paperwork."

"I'll put it in the car tonight." He handed her a beer without being asked, twisting the cap off first. "There's chicken thighs thawed. I didn't know what you wanted with them."

Dana peered into the sink at the package, considering. "Lemon? We have a lemon?"

"There's one that's seen some things."

"That'll do." She washed her hands and got out the cast iron, and for a while they moved around each other in the narrow galley kitchen, a choreography twelve years old. She salted the chicken; he snapped bean ends into the compost bin. The dog came in, sat pointedly, and was ignored.

"Your mother called me," Dana said. "At work."

"Oh no."

"She wants to know about Thanksgiving. I said we hadn't decided."

"We haven't."

"I know. That's what I said." She flipped the thighs, skin side down, and the pan hissed. "She said she'd get the bigger turkey either way."

Marcus laughed. "So we're going."

"We're going."

He put the beans in the microwave with a splash of water, then set the table—two plates, the good forks because the others were in the dishwasher. Dana squeezed the tired lemon over the pan, and the smell of it filled the room, bright and sudden, and neither of them said anything about it.


The garage door groaned shut at 5:40, and Marcus came in through the laundry room, dropping his keys in the ceramic bowl Priya's mother had made them.

"Traffic on the parkway?" Priya called from the kitchen. She had beaten him home by twenty minutes and was already standing at the counter in her socks, her work blouse untucked, slicing a red pepper into strips that were not quite even.

"Accident near the exit. Two cars, nobody looked hurt." He kissed the side of her head and peered into the pan on the stove. "What are we doing?"

"Chicken. That marinade from the container, the one from Sunday." She tipped the peppers into a bowl. "There's rice in the cooker already. Can you check if we still have those tortillas?"

He opened the fridge and moved a jar of pickles, a half-empty carton of oat milk, a Tupperware of something neither of them would admit to owning. "There are four. Maybe five. One's got a weird spot."

"Four's fine."

He washed his hands and took over the pepper duty, cutting the rest of them while she got the chicken going. The pan hissed. She turned on the vent fan, then turned it down because it was too loud to talk over.

"Owen wants to switch our Saturday," Marcus said. "Something with his in-laws."

"Fine by me. I wanted to take the car in anyway." She lifted a piece of chicken with tongs, checked the color, put it back. "Did you email the roof guy?"

"I did. He said next Thursday, between eight and twelve."

"Which means noon."

"Which means noon," he agreed.

She set out two plates, the mismatched ones, because the good set was still in the dishwasher from the night before and neither of them had run it. Marcus poured water into two glasses. Outside, the neighbor's dog started up, and then stopped, and the kitchen smelled like lime and cumin and warm oil.


The kitchen still held the afternoon's heat, so Daniel propped open the back door with his shoe while Marisol dumped a bag of frozen green beans into the colander.

"Did you thaw the chicken?" she asked.

"It's been on the counter since noon." He glanced at the package. "Maybe I should have put it in the fridge."

"It's fine. Just cook it all the way." She ran cold water over the beans, breaking them apart with her fingers. Outside, someone's dog was going off at the mail truck, four hours too late.

Daniel got the cast iron down from the hook, then had to move the dish rack to make room. There was a bowl in it from breakfast that neither of them had put away. He set it in the cabinet without comment.

"How was the Ferguson thing?" he said.

"Postponed. Again." Marisol found the good knife, the one they kept in the drawer instead of the block, and started on an onion. "Third time. I could have taken the afternoon off."

"You should have."

"I know."

The chicken hissed when it hit the pan. Daniel lowered the heat, then raised it again, uncertain. He'd been the one who wanted to learn to cook, back in March, and mostly he'd learned that he was bad at judging temperature.

"There's half a lemon in the door," Marisol said, without looking up. "Use it before it turns."

He found it wrapped in plastic, drier than he expected, and squeezed what he could over the pan. The smell changed, sharpened.

They ate on the couch, plates on their knees, the news on with the sound low. Marisol picked out the onions, which she always did, and Daniel always forgot she would.

"It's good," she said.

"It's okay."

"It's good," she said again, and put her feet up against his leg.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did. He set two grocery bags on the counter, and by the time the second one tipped over, spilling a lemon across the tile, he'd already forgotten which bag held the chicken.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, still on a call, holding up one finger. She mouthed *sorry* and disappeared into the bedroom, and Marcus heard her say "no, I sent that Tuesday" three separate times before the door clicked and she reappeared in sweatpants.

"Anthony?" she asked.

"Who else."

"Did he actually look at the file?"

"Do you want the answer or do you want to eat?" Marcus handed her a knife and pointed at the onion. She started slicing, badly, the way she always did, thick and uneven, and he decided years ago that mentioning it wasn't worth what it cost.

"The Hendricksons are getting a fence," she said.

"On the whole property line?"

"That's what Kim said. Six feet."

"So no more waving at Bill while he mows."

"You hate waving at Bill while he mows."

"I hate it, but I'd hate a fence more."

The chicken went into the pan and the kitchen filled up with the sound of it. Dana got out the good olive oil and then, considering, put it back and got out the regular one. She found the rice in the wrong cupboard, which meant Marcus had put the groceries away, which she noted without comment.

"There's still that broccoli from Sunday," he said.

"Is it still good?"

He smelled it. "Define good."

She took it from him, cut off the ends, and dropped it in the water anyway. He set the table, two plates, the salt they never moved, and outside a car door slammed and neither of them looked up.


Dana got home first, which meant the kitchen was hers to organize before Rob arrived and started opening cabinets at random. She set the oven to four hundred, dumped the bag of baby potatoes into a colander, and ran cold water over them while scrolling through a text from her sister about Thanksgiving logistics.

The garage door groaned. Rob came in carrying the mail and a plastic clamshell of blueberries.

"They were on sale," he said. "Two for five."

"We already have blueberries."

"Not good ones." He set them on the counter and looked at the potatoes. "Are we roasting those? Because the chicken's still in the fridge from Sunday."

"That's what I'm doing. Chicken and potatoes and the green beans before they go bad."

He nodded, loosened his tie, and hung it on the back of a chair, where it would stay until Saturday. Then he washed his hands and started trimming the green beans, snapping the ends off in a rhythm that Dana found weirdly soothing after nine hours of conference calls.

"Kayla wants us there at two on Thursday," she said. "For a five o'clock dinner."

"Two."

"She says she needs help with the pies."

"She doesn't need help. She needs an audience." He tossed a handful of ends into the compost bin. "We'll go at three."

Dana laughed and tipped the potatoes onto a sheet pan, olive oil, salt, a lot of pepper. The chicken went into a skillet, skin down, and the sound filled the kitchen so they had to raise their voices.

"Did you pay the water bill?" she asked.

"Sunday. Autopay now."

"Since when?"

"Since I got tired of you asking."

She elbowed him on her way to the oven. He handed her the bowl of beans without being asked, and they stood there a while, not talking, waiting on the timer.


The Kitchen at Six-Fifteen

Dana got home first, which meant she had already started the rice by the time Marcus came through the side door with his laptop bag still slung across his chest.

"It's freezing out there," he said, toeing off his shoes onto the mat where they always ended up sideways. "Did you see the mail? I think the water bill came."

"It's on the counter. Don't open it, I don't want to know yet." She lifted the lid off the pot and stared into it like it owed her something. "How much rice is a cup and a half? Because I think I did two cups and now it looks like a lot."

"That's four servings." He came up behind her, glanced in, and set his bag on a chair instead of hanging it up. "That's fine, we'll eat it Thursday."

"We say that and then Thursday we get tacos."

"Thursday we've earned tacos."

He washed his hands and started on the chicken thighs she'd left thawing in a bowl of water, patting them dry with a paper towel while she pulled a bag of green beans out of the freezer drawer. The kitchen radio was tuned to the station that played too many commercials, and neither of them changed it.

"Kayla texted," Dana said. "She wants to know if we're doing anything for your mom's birthday."

"Is that already—" He paused with the pepper grinder in his hand. "That's the eighteenth."

"It's the twelfth."

"Okay. Well. We'll call her." He said it like a decision, then added, "Or we could drive up Saturday. Two hours isn't bad."

Dana didn't answer right away. She turned down the burner under the rice and pulled two plates from the cabinet, then a third out of habit before she put it back.

"Saturday's fine," she said. "Is the oven preheated?"

"Ten more degrees."

They worked around each other in the small space, trading places at the sink without discussing it.


The garage door groaned shut, and Marcus came in with the mail tucked under his arm and rain still beading on his jacket.

"It's raining?" Priya called from the kitchen. She had a wooden spoon in one hand and her phone in the other, scrolling a recipe she'd already made a dozen times.

"Started on Cedar." He set the mail on the counter, sorted it by habit—bill, bill, catalog neither of them had ordered, something from the dentist. "That reminder card again. Yours or mine?"

"Mine. I keep forgetting to call." She lifted the lid off a pot. "Can you drain the pasta? It's been like nine minutes."

He washed his hands and hauled the pot to the sink, steam blooming up against the window over the faucet. The colander was still in the dishwasher, clean, so he pulled it out with two fingers and shook it dry.

"How was the thing with Deborah?" he asked.

"Postponed. Which is fine, honestly, because I hadn't finished the slides." Priya reached past him for the pepper grinder. "Watch your elbow, that's hot."

"How was *her* day, though. That's the real question."

"Don't."

"I'm just saying, three years of updates on her sister-in-law."

Priya laughed and knocked her hip against his to move him aside. The sauce had thickened; she tasted it off the spoon, made a face, and added salt. Marcus got two plates down from the cabinet, then the bowls instead, because the sauce always ran.

"Salad?" he asked.

"There's that bagged stuff. Might be turning."

He checked, decided it was fine, dumped it in a bowl and shook the dressing bottle. Outside, the rain picked up against the gutter.

"Sit," she said, carrying both bowls over. "Before it gets cold."

He turned off the overhead light so just the one above the stove was on, the way she liked it, and sat down across from her.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetables. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled his sleeves, and pulled the half-bag of carrots from the crisper drawer, the ones that had been in there long enough to bend slightly when he pressed them.

Dana came in around six-fifteen, kicked off her shoes by the mat, and dropped her keys in the bowl. "The Kroger on延 was a zoo," she said. "They only had the good rotisserie ones left, so I got two."

"Two whole chickens."

"They were nine dollars each and I panicked." She set the bags on the counter, pulled off her cardigan, and hung it on the back of a chair, where it would stay until Saturday. "I'll shred the other one for salads."

"You always say that."

"And sometimes I do it."

He laughed and kept slicing. She found the good cutting board under a stack of Tupperware lids, then started washing lettuce in the colander, shaking it hard over the sink so water spotted the window.

"Cody called," Marcus said. "He wants to know if we're doing Thanksgiving here or at your mom's."

"It's September."

"He's planning ahead. It's new for him."

Dana snorted. She pulled the roasting pan out and set the chicken on it, tearing off a wing for herself and eating it standing up, elbow on the counter. "Mom will want it there. She just got the new table."

"Then it's settled and Cody can relax."

The oven beeped. He slid the carrots in with a little olive oil and too much pepper, the way she liked it, and set the timer for twenty. Dana wiped the counter, moved a stack of mail—two catalogs and something from the dentist—to the far end.

"How was the Peterson thing?" she asked.

"Rescheduled. Again."

"Of course."

They ate at the table with the TV on low in the other room, the carrots slightly burnt on the bottoms, and neither of them said anything about it.


Marcus got home first, which meant he started the rice. The cooker's lid had a crack in the hinge, and he'd been meaning to replace it for eight months. He filled the pot, rinsed the grains twice the way Elena's mother had taught him, and set it on the counter.

She came in at six-twenty, dropping her bag by the shoe rack.

"There's a chicken in the fridge," she said, shrugging off her coat. "The one I said I'd cook Tuesday."

"I saw it. Figured we'd better use it tonight."

"It smells fine, right?" She opened the fridge and leaned in, sniffing the package. "It smells fine."

He was already pulling out the cutting board. "Sheet pan?"

"Sheet pan." She washed her hands at the sink, then started on the potatoes, cutting them into halves and then quarters, unevenly, the way she always did. He'd stopped mentioning it years ago.

"Kayla emailed about Thanksgiving," she said. "She wants to know if we're bringing the green bean thing."

"Are we?"

"I said probably. I don't know. I don't want to be the green bean people forever."

"Be the pie people."

"Pie's harder." She scraped the potatoes into a bowl and drizzled olive oil, too much, and he didn't say anything about that either. "How was the thing with Doug?"

"Postponed. Again." He seasoned the chicken thighs, pressing salt in with his thumb. "He rescheduled to next Thursday, which is when I have the dentist."

"Move the dentist."

"I've moved the dentist twice."

The oven beeped. She slid the pan in and set a timer on her phone, then leaned against the counter with her arms crossed. The kitchen light was too yellow; they'd talked about that too.

"Thirty-five minutes," she said.

"I'll do dishes."

"You did them yesterday."

"I know." He turned the rice cooker on, and the lid settled crookedly, the way it did.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who discovered the chicken thighs still frozen solid in the sink where he'd left them that morning under a trickle of cold water that had, at some point, apparently stopped trickling.

"Faucet's doing that thing again," he called out when he heard the front door.

Dana came into the kitchen still holding her keys and a canvas bag of library books she'd meant to return four days ago. She set the bag on the counter, looked at the chicken, and pressed a thumb against it.

"That's a rock," she said.

"It's a rock," he agreed.

"Pasta?"

"We have that jar of vodka sauce your mom brought."

"She brought two." Dana opened the pantry and moved a box of crackers to see behind it. "There's one hiding back here with the good olive oil."

Marcus filled the big pot and set it on the back burner, then leaned against the counter while it heated. Dana ran water over the frozen chicken again, this time actually checking that it stayed on, and put the thighs in the fridge for tomorrow.

"How was the thing with Priya?" he asked.

"Moved to Thursday. Again." She started chopping an onion they didn't strictly need, because she liked onion in everything. "She's got her sister in town."

"Is that the one who does the pottery?"

"That's the cousin."

The water came to a boil and Marcus dumped in the whole box of rigatoni, which was too much, which was fine, because he'd eat it cold out of the container tomorrow standing at the counter, and Dana would tell him to sit down, and he wouldn't.

She scraped the onions into a pan with a knob of butter. The kitchen filled with that smell. Outside, someone's dog was barking at nothing.

"Salad?" she said.

"There's half a bag of that spinach."

"Slimy?"

He checked. "Mostly no."

"Mostly no is fine," she said, and reached past him for two bowls.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights. He liked the local station's evening jazz, and he liked having ten minutes to himself in the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, before Dana's car pulled in.

By the time she came through the side door, he had the chicken thighs out of the fridge and was frowning at them.

"These smell okay to you?" he asked.

Dana set her bag on the chair, leaned over, and sniffed. "They're fine. That's the marinade you made Sunday."

"Right. I forgot I did that."

"You forgot you made a marinade you were very proud of." She kicked off her shoes and nudged them under the table with her foot, a habit he'd stopped commenting on around year four. "Do we have rice?"

"We have the big bag. There's also that quinoa nobody wants."

"Rice, then."

She filled the pot at the sink while he got the pan hot. The window over the sink was fogging a little at the edges, the way it did in October, and outside the neighbor's motion light kept clicking on and off because of the cat.

"How was the meeting?" he asked.

"Moved to Thursday. Which means Thursday is now a disaster." She measured rice into her palm, then dumped it in without measuring anything else. "How was Kevin?"

"Kevin brought a hot lunch and microwaved fish."

"No."

"Salmon. In the shared microwave."

Dana laughed, that short surprised one, and Marcus felt the day loosen a notch.

He turned the thighs, and the skin caught and hissed. She got out two plates, then a third out of habit, then put it back — their son was at college now, and the third plate still happened once a week or so. Neither of them said anything about it.

"Green beans?" she asked.

"In the crisper. Behind the celery we're never going to eat."

"We might eat the celery."

"We won't."

She got the beans out, and they cooked.


The kitchen light flickered once before settling, the way it had for three months now.

"I keep meaning to call somebody about that," Dev said, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door.

"You said that in March." Priya was already at the counter, sleeves pushed to her elbows, cutting the ends off green beans. "There's chicken thawed. I took it out this morning."

"Good, because I forgot." He washed his hands, then reached past her for the cutting board and had to duck when she swung her elbow. The kitchen was not built for two people. They'd learned a choreography anyway—she took the sink side, he took the stove.

"How was the thing with Marcus?"

"He wants me to redo the whole timeline." Dev turned on the burner, watched the gas catch blue. "Which is fine. It's fine. It's just that he approved the timeline."

"So he doesn't remember approving it."

"He remembers approving a *different* timeline that has never existed."

Priya laughed and slid the beans into a bowl. "Do we have that garlic paste, or did we finish it?"

"Behind the yogurt."

She found it. He salted the chicken more heavily than she would have, and she watched him do it and said nothing, which she considered a kind of gift.

The rice cooker clicked. Outside, someone's dog was going off at the mail carrier, eight minutes later than usual.

"Your mom called the landline," Priya said. "She wants to know if we're coming for Labor Day."

"Are we?"

"I told her you'd call her back, because I'm not making that decision alone again."

"That's fair." He flipped the chicken. "Plates?"

She got two down, and the good forks, for no reason except that they were clean. They ate at the table with the TV off, talking about the dishwasher's noise, and did not resolve anything.


The garage door groaned shut at 5:40, and Ramona was already at the sink, rinsing a colander of green beans while the radio murmured something about a traffic snarl on the interstate.

"You wouldn't believe what Denise did," Marcus said, setting his keys in the dish by the door. He shrugged off his jacket. "She scheduled the client call for four-thirty. On a Thursday."

"Barbaric." Ramona tipped the beans into a bowl. "There's chicken thawing in the sink. Would you do the thing you do to them?"

"The thing I do."

"With the paprika."

He washed his hands, then rolled up his sleeves and pulled the package apart. "We're out of the good olive oil."

"There's a bottle behind the vinegar. I hid it from you because you were pouring it on everything."

"I use it because it's good."

"You used it on frozen waffles."

"Once." He shook paprika into his palm, then salt, then something else she couldn't see from where she stood. The pan hissed when the chicken went down, and the sound filled the kitchen the way it did most nights, comfortable as a furnace kicking on.

Ramona put water on for rice, then leaned against the counter and told him about the neighbor's dog getting into the recycling again, the flattened cereal boxes strewn across the driveway. Marcus made an appalled noise at the right moment without turning around.

"Did your mother call?" he asked.

"She wants to know if we're coming Sunday."

"Are we?"

"I said I'd ask you, which means yes."

He laughed. She got out two plates, the mismatched ones, because the good set was still in the dishwasher from Tuesday and neither of them had emptied it. She set the forks down, then went back and turned the radio off, and for a minute there was only the chicken and the water starting to move in the pot.


Marisol got home first, which meant the radio in the kitchen was already on when Dev came through the side door with the grocery bag pinned against his hip.

"They were out of the good tortillas," he said. "I got the ones with the yellow label."

"Those are fine." She was at the sink, rinsing a colander of green beans, sleeves pushed up past her elbows. "Snap these while I start the chicken?"

He set the bag down, washed his hands, and took over the colander. The beans made a small dry sound as he broke off the ends and dropped them into a bowl. Outside the window over the sink, the neighbor's motion light kept flicking on and off, probably that same cat again.

"Rosen wants the projections by Thursday," Marisol said, laying chicken thighs skin-down in the pan. They hissed. "Which means Wednesday, really."

"You'll be up late."

"I'll be up late." She reached past him for the tongs. "Did you call about the dryer?"

"I called. They can come Saturday between eight and twelve, which really means eleven fifty-five."

"Of course."

He put the beans in a pot with a little water and salt, then pulled two plates from the cabinet and set them on the counter instead of the table, because they always ate standing up on Tuesdays for reasons neither of them could explain anymore.

"Your mom texted me," he said.

"About the thing in June?"

"About the thing in June."

"I'll answer her." She turned the thighs; the skin had gone gold and blistered. "Tomorrow."

The kitchen smelled like garlic and rendered fat. Dev leaned against the counter with his arms crossed and watched her nudge the pan, and she caught him doing it and raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged, and that was more or less the whole conversation.

"Eight minutes," she said.

"I'll get the rice going."


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Daniel came in through the side door, keys jangling, work bag sliding off his shoulder onto the bench where he was always told not to put it.

"I know," he said, before Maura could say anything.

"I didn't say a word." She was at the stove, pushing chicken thighs around a cast iron pan with a pair of tongs that had lost one of its silicone tips years ago. "There's broccoli in the bag. Can you do something with it?"

"Something meaning what?"

"Meaning cut it up and put it in the other pan. There's garlic in the little bowl."

He rolled his sleeves and washed his hands, then stood at the cutting board sawing the broccoli into pieces that were, he could admit, uneven. The kitchen smelled like browning skin and soy sauce. Behind them the dishwasher was still full of clean dishes from Sunday, and they both knew neither of them was going to empty it before eating.

"Your mom called the house line," Maura said.

"We have a house line?"

"Apparently. She left a message about Thanksgiving. She wants to know if we're driving or flying."

"It's September."

"I'm just the messenger." She flipped a thigh and stepped back from the spit of oil. "Also the dryer's making that noise again."

"The squealing or the thumping?"

"Squealing."

"That's the belt. I'll look at it Saturday."

"You said that about the gutters."

"I did say that about the gutters."

They ate at the kitchen table, not the dining room, because the dining room table had a stack of mail and a folded laundry basket on it. Maura put on the radio, low. Daniel said the broccoli needed more salt, and salted it, and then said it was better. Outside, the neighbor's motion light snapped on for a cat, and neither of them got up to look.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the old Motown playlist and started pulling things out of the fridge—half a rotisserie chicken from Sunday, a bag of green beans, the heel of a block of parmesan that had gone a little hard at the edges.

Dev came in around six-fifteen, still on the phone with his brother, mouthing *sorry* as he set his bag down by the stairs. He hung up two minutes later.

"Ravi's coming through in March," he said. "He wants to know if the guest room's still full of your mother's boxes."

"It's not *full*." Marisol handed him the green beans. "Trim these. And it's mostly her sewing stuff, which she says she wants back."

"She's said that since August."

"I know. Don't start."

He rinsed the beans in the colander and started snapping the ends off with his thumbnail, which she'd told him a hundred times was slower than using a knife. He did it anyway. She shredded the chicken with two forks and put water on for pasta, then remembered they were out of pasta.

"We're out of pasta."

Dev opened the pantry, moved a box of quinoa, and produced a bag of orzo. "Is this pasta?"

"Close enough."

They worked around each other in the narrow galley kitchen, a choreography they'd gotten good at over eleven years—him stepping back from the stove when she needed the burner, her ducking under his arm to get the olive oil. The cat wove between their ankles, hopeful.

"How was the thing?" she asked. "The audit thing."

"Moved to Thursday."

"Of course it did."

He set the table with the everyday plates, the blue ones with the chip on the rim. She dumped the orzo in, salted the water too late, and told him it didn't matter. They ate at seven, in front of nothing, talking about the gutters.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did. He set his keys in the bowl by the door, rolled up his sleeves, and pulled the chicken thighs out of the fridge, where they'd been thawing since morning on a plate he'd forgotten to cover.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, dropping her bag on the bench and toeing off her shoes without untying them.

"You're going to wreck those," Marcus said, not turning around.

"They're already wrecked." She kissed the back of his neck and looked over his shoulder. "What's happening here?"

"Chicken. Potatoes. Whatever's in the crisper drawer that isn't liquid yet."

"There's broccoli. Maybe."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

She washed her hands and took over the vegetables while he salted the chicken more heavily than she would have. The broccoli was fine, mostly. She trimmed the stems and split the florets, then filled a pot for the potatoes and set it on the back burner.

"Jenna called," Dana said. "They're doing Thanksgiving at her place this year."

"Good. I'm not hosting again."

"You didn't host. You made the turkey and disappeared into the garage."

"That's hosting."

He laughed and slid the pan into the oven, then checked the clock on the microwave against the one on the stove, which had been eight minutes fast since the last power outage.

They worked around each other the way people do after eleven years — she reached past him for the colander, he moved his elbow without being asked. The kitchen got warm. He opened the window over the sink and the sound of a neighbor's lawnmower came in with the cooler air.

"Set the table?" she said.

"In a second. Taste this."

She tasted it, thought about it, and reached for the pepper.


The kitchen smelled like garlic before Dana even got her coat off.

"You started without me," she said, dropping her bag by the stairs.

"I got home at four-thirty. Half day for the inventory thing." Marcus was at the stove, sleeves pushed to his elbows, pushing chopped onion around a pan with a wooden spoon. "There's wine open. The one your sister brought."

"That was in August."

"It's still wine."

Dana poured a small glass anyway and stood beside him, looking into the pan. "What are we making?"

"That chicken thing. The lemon one. Except we're out of lemons, so."

"So it's the chicken thing."

"It's the chicken thing." He held out the spoon. She tasted, made a face, reached past him for the salt.

She set the table while he worked, which took thirty seconds because the table was small and it was just the two of them. Then she pulled the last of the spinach from the crisper drawer and dumped it into the colander, picking out the slimy leaves.

"Trash is full," she said.

"I know. I was going to take it after."

"You always say after."

"And I always take it."

The dog appeared, hopeful, and settled in the doorway when nothing fell. Marcus asked about the meeting with the district people and Dana said it went the way those things go, and then she told him the actual story, the one about her boss mispronouncing the consultant's name three times in a row, and Marcus laughed harder than the story deserved, which was one of the reasons she'd married him.

They ate at six-forty with the news muttering in the other room. The chicken was dry. Neither of them said so, though Dana used more of the pan sauce than she normally would.

Afterward he loaded the dishwasher and she wiped the counters, and he took out the trash.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the chicken thighs were still frozen solid in the fridge, sweating in their plastic wrap.

"They've been in there since Sunday," he said when Dana came through the door, her tote bag sliding off her shoulder onto the bench by the coat hooks.

"That's not thawing, that's just cold." She kicked off her flats. "Eggs?"

"We have eggs."

So it became a breakfast-for-dinner night, which happened maybe twice a month and always felt slightly illicit. Dana put the chicken in a bowl of cool water, in case tomorrow, and Marcus dug the cast iron out from the cabinet where it lived under the stockpot, the one they never used but couldn't get rid of because it had been his mother's.

"Do we have bread?"

"Half a loaf. It's a little sad."

"Toast fixes sad."

She cracked eggs while he cut the potatoes into cubes, uneven ones, the way he always did no matter how many times she pointed it out. The kitchen radio was on the classical station because neither of them had changed it since the weekend. Outside, someone's car alarm went off for four seconds and stopped.

"Rebecca asked if we could take her dog over Thanksgiving," Dana said.

"Which dog is the bitey one?"

"That's her sister's dog."

"Then probably fine." He shook the pan. "We're going to your mom's anyway, though."

"I know. I said I'd ask you, which I've now done."

The potatoes browned. Dana scrambled the eggs low and slow, the way her father taught her, stirring with a rubber spatula and pulling them off before they looked done. Marcus set the table, which meant two plates, forks, the hot sauce, and a roll of paper towels because they were out of napkins again.

They ate at the kitchen table with the overhead light on, comparing notes on the day, and afterward he washed and she dried, and it took eleven minutes.


The garage door groaned shut and Marcus came in through the kitchen, setting his keys in the ceramic dish by the microwave. Priya was already at the counter, still in her work blouse but with sweatpants on, cutting the ends off green beans.

"There was a wreck on Halsted," he said. "Took me forty minutes."

"I heard it on the radio." She swept the trimmed ends into her palm and dropped them in the compost bin under the sink. "Chicken's thawed. I was thinking you could do the thing with the paprika."

"The thing with the paprika." He rolled his sleeves and washed his hands. "It's called chicken paprikash and you've watched me make it nine times."

"I've watched you make it once and then eat it eight times."

He laughed and pulled the cast iron down from the hook. She moved to the left without being asked, which was how they'd worked around each other in this kitchen for six years, ever since the inspection came back clean and they'd signed the papers with a pen borrowed from the title agent.

While the onions went soft he told her about a meeting that had gone long, a colleague who kept saying "circle back." She half-listened, scrolling with one thumb, then set the phone face-down.

"Your mother called the landline," she said. "The landline, Marcus."

"What did she want?"

"To know if we're coming for Easter. I said we'd talk about it."

"We should just say yes."

"We should just say yes," Priya agreed, and put the beans in the steamer basket.

The rice cooker clicked over to warm. Somebody's dog barked outside, twice, then stopped. Marcus tasted the sauce off a wooden spoon, made a face, added salt, tasted again, and held the spoon out to her.

"More paprika," she said.

"There's no more paprika."

"Then it's perfect."

They ate at the table with the mail pushed to one end.


Marcus got home first, which meant he set the rice cooker before he even took off his shoes. The lid clicked shut just as Priya's car pulled into the driveway, headlights sweeping across the kitchen wall.

"There's a package on the porch," she called from the entryway. "I think it's your brake pads."

"Finally." He was pulling containers out of the fridge, arranging them on the counter in the order he'd need them. Chicken thighs from Sunday, half a cabbage, a jar of sambal that had been in there since spring.

Priya dropped her bag on a chair and started washing her hands at the kitchen sink, elbowing him aside without ceremony. "Kevin's kid has hand, foot, and mouth disease, so he was out all day, which means I'm covering the Thornton account until Thursday."

"That's not your account."

"It is now." She dried her hands on the towel hanging from the oven handle, then reached past him for the cutting board. "Do you want me to do the cabbage?"

"If you want. I was going to do it thin, for the slaw."

"Then you do it. I'll cut it wrong and you'll be quietly disappointed in me for a week."

"I've never once—" He stopped, because she was already laughing, and because it was a little true.

She poured herself a glass of wine and leaned against the counter while he worked, telling him about a woman in the parking garage who'd tried to give away a bag of lemons. Marcus said she should have taken them. She said she didn't need eleven lemons.

The chicken went into the cast iron, and the whole kitchen filled with noise and smell. Priya set two plates on the table, then went back for forks. Somewhere in the neighborhood a dog was barking at nothing. It was six forty on a Tuesday, and the rice was almost done.


Marcus got home first, which meant he got to choose the music. He put on something low and jazzy while he unpacked the grocery bag—chicken thighs, a bag of green beans, the good butter because it had been that kind of week.

Danielle came in twenty minutes later, kicking off her shoes by the door in a way that would irritate him at some point but not tonight. "It smells like nothing in here," she said. "Are we eating?"

"We're eating. I'm searing the chicken. You're doing the beans."

"Am I."

"You're better at the beans."

She washed her hands, tied her hair back, and started snapping the ends off, dropping them into a colander in the sink. The kitchen was too small for two people, which they had known when they signed the lease and had chosen to ignore.

"Your mother called me," she said.

"Why you?"

"Because you don't answer. She wants to know if we're coming for Thanksgiving or if she should stop asking."

Marcus turned the chicken. The oil popped and he stepped back. "What'd you tell her?"

"I said I'd talk to you. Which I'm now doing, so."

"Can we decide Saturday?"

"We can decide Saturday." She ran water over the beans. "Do we have almonds?"

"Cabinet above the coffee. Behind the tea nobody drinks."

They worked mostly in silence after that, the way people do when they've cooked together three hundred times. She asked him to hand her the sheet pan. He asked her to taste something and she said it needed salt and he said he knew, he just wanted her to say it.

At the table she put her phone face-down without being asked. He noticed and didn't mention it.

"This is good," she said.

"It's the butter."

"It's not the butter."

He let her be right about it.


The kitchen light had that yellow evening quality by the time Marisol got the rice going. She'd changed out of her work clothes but still had her badge clipped to her waistband, forgotten there since the parking garage.

"There's only one bell pepper," she called toward the living room.

Dev came in with his laptop still open, set it on the counter beside the cutting board, and closed it halfway. "I thought I bought two."

"You bought one and a jalapeño, which nobody in this house eats."

"I eat them."

"You put one in a jar of pickle brine in March and it's still in there."

He opened the fridge and looked, honestly, as though he might find the second pepper hiding behind the oat milk. Then he pulled out the chicken thighs and started patting them dry with a paper towel while Marisol shook the rice pot to keep it from sticking.

"Aisha's mom texted about carpool," he said. "She wants to swap Tuesdays."

"Can we? I have the thing with the auditors."

"That's next Tuesday."

"That's every Tuesday now, apparently."

The oven beeped that it had preheated. Dev slid the sheet pan in with his forearm, holding the pan with a dish towel because the good mitt had gone missing sometime around Thanksgiving. Marisol wiped the counter with the sponge, then wiped it again in the same spot, thinking about something else.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Long day. Karen cried in the break room again."

"About the reorg?"

"About her cat, allegedly."

He laughed. She handed him two plates from the cabinet, and he set them on the table, and then went back for the forks he'd forgotten. Outside, someone's dog was barking at nothing in the alley. The rice hissed and settled. They ate standing up for the first few minutes, the way they always said they wouldn't, and then sat down.