Dana got home first, which meant she got to decide. She stood in front of the open fridge in her coat, looking at half a rotisserie chicken, a bag of green beans going limp at the tips, and a container of rice from Tuesday.

"Chicken and rice again?" Michael said from the doorway. He set his keys in the bowl by the door, the ceramic one his sister had made badly in a pottery class.

"Or we could do the pasta."

"We had pasta Sunday."

"Then it's chicken and rice." She pulled the container out and pried the lid off. "This smells fine. Does this smell fine?"

He leaned in, sniffed. "It smells like rice."

She put him on the green beans. He rinsed them in the colander and snapped the ends off with his thumbnail, dropping them into the sink instead of the compost bin, which she noticed and didn't mention. She shredded the chicken with two forks, pulling it off the bones in strings, and put the carcass in a bag in the freezer for stock she probably wouldn't make.

The microwave hummed. Michael cooked the beans in a skillet with olive oil and too much garlic, the way he liked, and she squeezed lemon over them at the end because otherwise they were just garlic.

They ate at the kitchen table with the mail still on it. Michael told her about a man at work who kept referring to himself in the third person during a meeting, and she laughed with her mouth full and then made him repeat the part about the whiteboard.

"There's more rice," she said.

"I'm good."

Afterward he washed and she dried, which was their arrangement because she hated standing with her hands in the water. She put the last plate away and turned the kitchen light off behind them.


Dana got home first, which meant she got to decide, and she decided on the chicken thighs before they went bad. She set the oven to 425 and stood in the cold light of the open refrigerator, doing inventory. Half a bag of green beans. A lemon that had gone a little soft on one end.

Marcus came in twenty minutes later, still holding his phone, still finishing an argument with someone at work about a delivery window. He put the phone face-down on the counter and kissed the side of her head.

"Thighs," he said, looking at the sheet pan.

"They expire tomorrow."

"I'm not complaining." He washed his hands and started trimming the beans, snapping the stem ends off with his thumbnail and dropping them into the sink because the compost bin was full and neither of them wanted to walk it out to the bin in the rain.

"Rice or nothing?" she asked.

"Nothing's fine. Actually, is there bread?"

There was, the heel of a sourdough loaf, and he put two slices in the toaster while she squeezed the lemon over the pan and shook on more salt than the recipe she wasn't following would have suggested. The oven ticked. The kitchen got warm and smelled like garlic and hot metal.

They ate at the table because Dana had asked, a few months back, if they could stop eating on the couch, and it had mostly stuck. Marcus told her about the delivery window. She told him that her sister had called and wanted to come in October, and he said October was fine as long as it wasn't the second week.

The chicken skin was good. The beans were slightly underdone, which Dana liked and Marcus didn't, so he ate around them.

Afterward he washed and she dried, and then they went and sat on the couch anyway, with the TV on, not really watching.


Dana got home first, which meant she got to choose. She stood in front of the open refrigerator with her coat still on, considering the half-package of chicken thighs she'd defrosted that morning and the bag of green beans going limp in the crisper.

By the time Marcus came in, she had the oven preheating and was trimming the beans over the sink.

"Traffic on the parkway," he said, dropping his keys in the dish by the door. "There's construction now by the exit."

"Since when?"

"Since today, apparently." He came up behind her and looked over her shoulder. "Chicken?"

"Unless you want to go get something."

"No, this is good." He washed his hands and started opening cabinets. "Rice?"

"There's the box of couscous."

"Couscous, then." He filled a small pot with water and set it on the back burner, then leaned against the counter while it heated. "Amy asked if we're coming Saturday."

"To the thing at her sister's?"

"The barbecue, yeah."

Dana pushed the beans into a pan with oil and salt. "Do we have to decide right now?"

"I told her probably."

"Probably's fine."

The chicken went in the oven with paprika and too much garlic powder, which was how they both liked it. Marcus set the timer on the microwave because the oven timer had stopped working in March and neither of them had called anyone. He got out two plates, the blue ones, and the forks, and put them on the table without a tablecloth.

They ate with the television off, which they'd started doing in January and mostly kept up. The chicken was a little dry at the edges.

"Not bad," Marcus said.

"The beans are good."

"The beans are good."

Afterward he washed and she dried, and she asked him what construction, exactly, and he tried to explain it, and neither of them fully understood the other's version of the road.


Dana got home first, so she started the rice. The bag said twenty minutes but she'd learned it needed twenty-five in their apartment, something about the altitude or the burner or the pot, she'd never figured out which.

Mark came in at six-twenty and set his keys in the ceramic dish by the door. "It's freezing," he said. "Did you feel it out there?"

"I was in the car."

He hung his coat over the back of a chair instead of in the closet, which she noticed and let go. He washed his hands, then opened the refrigerator and stood there.

"There's chicken thighs," she said. "The pack from Sunday."

"Do they still—" He sniffed them. "Yeah, they're fine."

He got out the cast iron, and she moved sideways to give him the front burner. He salted the chicken heavily, more than she would have, and she thought about saying something and didn't. The skin hissed when it hit the pan.

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

"Fine. He wants the whole report reformatted."

"Of course he does."

"Where's the broccoli?"

"Crisper. Bottom left."

He found it, rinsed it, and she took over cutting it because he always left the stems too long. She microwaved it in the glass bowl with a splash of water and a plate on top.

They ate at the table with the TV on in the other room, the sound just loud enough to hear. The chicken was good. The rice was slightly wet.

"I think the rice cooker is broken," she said.

"You made it on the stove."

"That's what I mean. We should get one that works."

Mark took another thigh. "We could put it on the list."

She got up and wrote *rice cooker* on the whiteboard, under *dish soap*, and sat back down while the broccoli was still warm.


Dana got home first, which meant she got to decide, and she decided on the thing that required the least of her: pasta, jar sauce, whatever vegetable hadn't turned in the crisper drawer. She filled the big pot and left it on the back burner while she changed out of her work clothes.

Marcus came in around six-twenty, dropping his keys in the dish by the door. "It smells like nothing in here," he said.

"Water doesn't smell." She was pulling a bag of frozen green beans out from under a bag of frozen corn. "Do you want these or should I do the broccoli?"

"The broccoli's got that thing on it."

"What thing?"

"The white stuff. Look at it."

She looked at it, decided he was right, and put the broccoli in the trash bag under the sink, which needed changing. Marcus salted the water without being asked, then stood in front of the open refrigerator for a while.

"There's half a jar of pesto," he said.

"From when?"

"It doesn't say. It just says use within." He put it back.

They ate at the table because Dana had made a rule about it in January and they were still mostly keeping it. Marcus grated Parmesan directly over his bowl until she said that was enough, that was plenty, and he did one more pass anyway.

"Your mom called me," he said. "About the thing in August."

"The reunion."

"She wants to know if we're driving or flying."

Dana twirled pasta against her spoon. "Tell her we haven't decided."

"I did tell her that. She said to call her when we decide."

"We'll decide in July."

He nodded and reached for the green beans, taking the ones nearest him, which were the ones she didn't want anyway. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped. She got up for the water pitcher.


Marguerite got home first, which meant she picked. She stood in front of the open refrigerator with her coat still on, doing the arithmetic: half a rotisserie chicken from Sunday, a bag of green beans going limp at the tips, three-quarters of a box of orzo.

"Chicken again," she called when she heard the door.

"I like chicken." Daniel dropped his keys in the bowl and came into the kitchen, loosening his collar. "Do we have that lemon?"

"There's a lemon. It's had a hard life."

He rolled it on the counter to see if it gave, decided it would do, and started cutting the beans while she got water going. They had worked out the geography of the kitchen years ago — he took the cutting board by the window, she took the stove — and moved around each other without much comment. He asked if she'd called about the water heater. She had, sort of; she'd left a message. He said that wasn't the same thing and she said she knew that.

The orzo took nine minutes. She pulled the chicken apart with two forks while it cooked, setting the skin aside on a paper towel because Daniel liked it and she didn't. He squeezed the lemon over the beans, added too much salt, tasted, made a face, and added more beans.

They ate at the table with the mail pushed to one end. Daniel told a long story about a coworker's parking dispute that didn't really have an ending. Marguerite said the beans were good. She was thinking about a work thing and he could tell, and let it go.

Afterward he washed, she dried, because he was faster and she was more thorough. The whole meal, start to finish, had taken thirty-five minutes. At eight they watched half an episode of something and Daniel fell asleep sitting up.


Dana got home first, which meant she got to choose. She stood in front of the open refrigerator with her coat still on, taking inventory: half a rotisserie chicken from Sunday, a bag of green beans going limp at the ends, a lemon.

"Chicken again?" Marcus said from the doorway. He'd come in quietly, the way he always did, and she hadn't heard the car.

"You had a better idea?"

"I had a thought about pizza."

"We had pizza Friday." She pulled the chicken out and set it on the counter. "Wash the beans."

He hung his jacket on the back of a chair instead of the hook, which she noticed and decided not to mention. At the sink he ran water over the beans in the colander, picking through them, snapping off the bad ends and dropping them in the compost bin under the sink.

"There's rice in the freezer," he said. "From when I made too much."

"Perfect."

They worked around each other in the narrow kitchen, a choreography worn smooth over eleven years. Dana shredded the chicken with two forks. Marcus microwaved the rice in its container, then dumped the beans in a skillet with butter and a little water and put a lid on it. Steam pushed out around the edges.

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

"Rescheduled. Third time." She squeezed the lemon over the beans when he lifted the lid. "I think she's avoiding it."

"Probably."

They ate at the table with the mail pushed to one side. The beans were slightly underdone and neither of them said so. Marcus told her about a guy at work who'd bought a boat with no place to keep it. Dana laughed with her mouth full.

Afterward she washed and he dried, and they were finished by seven-thirty.


Dana got home first, so she started the rice. The bag was almost empty; she scraped the last of it into the measuring cup and came up short of two cups, which she decided was fine.

Marcus came in at six-fifteen, stamping road salt off his boots in the entryway. "It's ugly out there," he said, hanging his coat on the second hook, which was his hook, though nobody had ever assigned them.

"Chicken or the black beans?" Dana asked. "There's two thighs left from Sunday."

"Beans. I had chicken for lunch."

He washed his hands and took over at the stove without being asked, because she always cooked the onions too fast. She handed him the wooden spoon and went to deal with the recycling, which had gotten out of hand—flattened cereal boxes leaning against the wall like a hand of cards.

"Did you call about the water heater?" she said from the pantry.

"I left a message. They're supposed to call back tomorrow between eight and noon, which means one o'clock."

"I can be here at one."

The beans went in with cumin and a bay leaf they'd had since moving in. Marcus tasted, added salt, tasted again, added more. Dana grated the last of a block of cheddar and put out the sour cream and the good hot sauce, the one from the Mexican grocery on Fillmore.

They ate at the kitchen table with the overhead light on because they'd never gotten around to replacing the bulb in the dining room fixture. The rice was slightly underdone. Neither of them mentioned it.

"Your sister texted me," Marcus said. "About Easter."

"What did you say?"

"That I'd ask you."

"Say we'll come Saturday and leave Sunday after lunch."

He nodded, chewing. Outside, a plow scraped past, and the window rattled once in its frame.

Marcus washed. Dana dried, and put things away in the places she liked them.


Dana got home first, which meant she got to decide. She stood in front of the open refrigerator with her coat still on, looking at the half bag of baby spinach, the eggs, the block of cheddar going slightly hard at one corner.

"Frittata?" she called when she heard the door.

"Sure." Mark came into the kitchen already unbuttoning his cuffs. "There's still bread from Sunday."

"It's stale."

"It's toast. That's what toast is for."

She cracked six eggs into a bowl while he found the cast iron pan, the good one, and set it on the back burner because the front one ran hot. He'd been meaning to call somebody about that since March.

"Do we have any of that hot sauce left? The green one?"

"Behind the pickles."

He shook oil into the pan, then added a knob of butter because Dana liked the taste better that way, and slid in the onion he'd cut into uneven half-moons. She whisked, holding the bowl against her hip.

"Kate texted," she said. "They want to do dinner Saturday."

"Their place or ours?"

"She didn't say. I assume ours."

"Then we should probably vacuum."

The spinach hissed and collapsed down to almost nothing, which always surprised them both. Dana poured in the eggs; Mark grated cheese directly over the pan, holding the block with two fingers, dropping the last stub in his mouth.

They ate at the table with the mail pushed to one side. The toast was too dry but the frittata was good, salty and soft in the middle. Mark ate his with hot sauce; Dana ate hers plain, then took some of his.

"Front burner," she said, pointing with her fork.

"I know."

"I'm not nagging. I'm just saying it out loud so it exists."

He nodded, chewing, and put the number in his phone.


Dana got home first, which meant she got to choose. She stood in front of the open refrigerator with her coat still on, taking inventory: half a rotisserie chicken from Sunday, a bag of green beans going limp at the tips, eggs, a heel of parmesan.

By the time Marcus came in, shaking rain off his jacket, she had a pot of water on and the chicken pulled off the bone in ragged strips.

"Pasta?" he said.

"Pasta."

He hung his jacket on the doorknob, which she had asked him not to do maybe two hundred times, and washed his hands at the kitchen sink. "You want me to do the beans?"

"They're kind of sad."

He picked one up and bent it. It folded without snapping. "They're fine. I'll cut the ends off."

She let him have it. He was better at the beans anyway—he did them in a hot pan with too much butter and a squeeze of lemon, and they came out browned in spots and salty. She dropped the penne in and set a timer on her phone because otherwise she forgot.

"Your mother called me," Marcus said.

"Called you?"

"On my phone. She wanted to know if we were coming for Easter, and she said she didn't want to bother you at work."

"I don't work Sundays."

"I know that." He shook the pan. "I said probably."

Dana grated the parmesan down to a nub, then threw the rind in the sauce, which was really just butter, garlic, and a splash of pasta water. They ate at the table because Dana had a rule about the table, though the television was audible from the other room where Marcus had left it on.

"This is good," he said, meaning it.

"It's leftovers."

"Still." He reached over with his fork and took a green bean off her plate, and she let that go too.


The rice cooker clicked to warm while Dana was still hunting for the good knife, the one that hadn't gone dull yet. She found it in the dish rack, where Malik had left it after making lunch.

"Chicken or the ground turkey?" she called.

"Turkey's been in there since Sunday." Malik came in from the living room, still holding his phone, and set it face-down on the counter — a small deliberate gesture, the kind of thing they'd worked out over eleven years. "I'll do it. You did last night."

"Last night was frozen pizza."

"You preheated the oven. That's cooking."

She let him have the stove and took the vegetables instead, a half bag of broccoli going slightly limp at the stems. She trimmed the bad parts into the compost bin under the sink, which needed emptying, which she noted and did not mention.

Malik broke up the turkey with a wooden spoon and shook in cumin, then paprika, then the garlic powder because they were out of actual garlic again. "Add garlic to the list."

"You have to say it into the app or I'll forget."

"You forget the app exists."

"That's why you have to say it."

The broccoli went into the microwave with a splash of water and a plate on top. The turkey spat. Malik turned the burner down, then reached past her for the soy sauce, his hand on her hip for a second as he moved by.

They ate at the kitchen table because the coffee table was covered in mail. Rice, seasoned turkey, broccoli that was somehow both mushy and raw in places. Malik put hot sauce on his, then on hers when she nodded.

"This is fine," she said.

"It's fine."

They talked about her sister's move, about whether the car noise was the brakes. Malik washed; Dana dried. By eight-thirty the kitchen was clean and the television was on.


Marcus got home first, which meant he started the rice. He measured it wrong on purpose—too much, always too much, because Dana liked leftovers for lunch and he liked not having to think about lunch. The cooker beeped its little startup chirp and he went to change out of his work clothes.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, keys hitting the bowl by the door, and immediately said, "It smells like nothing in here. What's the plan?"

"Chicken thighs. The ones from Sunday, before they turn."

"Ugh." She kicked off her shoes and left them exactly where Marcus would trip on them later. "I wanted something with vegetables in it."

"There's broccoli."

"Frozen broccoli."

"That's still a vegetable, Dana."

She was already in the fridge, moving a jar of pickles to see behind it. "There's half a bell pepper. And that bag of spinach we should probably deal with."

"Deal with it, then."

They worked around each other in a kitchen that was too small for two adults, which they'd complained about for six years and never done anything about. Marcus seared the thighs in the cast iron while Dana chopped the pepper into pieces he privately thought were too big. She told him about a woman at work who'd sent a company-wide email with the wrong attachment. He told her the mail carrier had left a package on the neighbor's porch again.

"Did you get it?"

"I got it. It's on the table."

"That's my thing for Rachel's baby shower."

"I figured it was something."

The rice cooker clicked over to warm. Dana pulled down two plates, then the good ones, then put the good ones back, because it was Tuesday. Marcus put the broccoli in the microwave with a splash of water and a plate on top.

"Do we have hot sauce?"

"Above the stove."

They ate on the couch with the TV on, which they'd agreed a year ago to stop doing.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who dealt with the mail pile and the dishwasher he'd forgotten to empty that morning. He was still in his work shirt, sleeves pushed up, stacking plates when Dana came in through the garage door with her laptop bag and a bag of groceries she'd grabbed on the way.

"They were out of the good sausage," she said, setting the bag on the counter. "I got the turkey kind."

"That's fine." He took the bag from her and started unpacking. "How was the Henderson thing?"

"Moved to Thursday." She kicked off her shoes by the door and pushed them against the wall with her foot, where they'd sit until one of them tripped over them. "Which is actually worse, because now it's the same day as the site visit."

He handed her the peppers. "You want to do these or the pasta water?"

"Peppers."

They worked around each other the way people do after eleven years, Dana at the cutting board, Marcus reaching past her for the colander, both of them saying "behind you" out of habit even when they could see each other fine. The radio was on low, some station Dana had put on weeks ago and neither of them had changed.

"Did your mom call you?" she asked.

"Twice. I called her back on the drive."

"And?"

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

Dana scraped the peppers into the pan and they hissed. "That's the wedding."

"That's what I told her." He salted the water. "She's going to try the thirteenth next."

"Then we say we have plans on the thirteenth."

"Do we?"

"We could." She glanced at him, half-smiling. "Watch the sauce, it's sticking."

He stirred it. Outside the window over the sink it was already dark, the neighbor's motion light clicking on for a cat or nothing at all. Dana set two plates on the counter, then a third by mistake, and put it back.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetable duty. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled up his sleeves, and started pulling things out of the crisper drawer—two bell peppers, half an onion wrapped in cling film from Sunday, a bag of carrots that had gone slightly rubbery.

"These carrots are questionable," he called out when he heard the front door.

Dev dropped his keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. "Questionable how?"

"Bendy."

"Bendy's fine. Bendy just means they need to be cooked." Dev came into the kitchen and looked over Marcus's shoulder at the cutting board. "Are we doing the stir-fry?"

"I was thinking stir-fry. There's still that container of rice."

"From when?"

"Tuesday."

Dev considered this, then opened the fridge and sniffed the container. "Tuesday's fine." He set it on the counter and started the kettle out of habit, then remembered they weren't having tea and turned it off. "How was the thing with Priya?"

"Rescheduled. Again." Marcus swept the pepper strips into a bowl with the flat of his knife. "Third time. At this point I think she's just avoiding telling me the budget got cut."

"Probably." Dev found the sesame oil behind the vinegar, where it always ended up. "Do you want me to do the chicken or are you doing the chicken?"

"You do it. I always undercook it."

"You do."

"I said that. I said it first."

The kitchen filled with noise—the hiss of oil, the fan overhead that had rattled since they moved in three years ago and that they kept meaning to have looked at. Dev bumped the drawer shut with his hip while holding the tongs. Marcus reached past him for the soy sauce and said "behind you" without looking.

They ate at the counter, standing, because sitting down felt like more of a production than either of them had in them. The dishes could wait until after the news.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetables. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled up his sleeves, and pulled a bag of green beans from the crisper drawer. The kitchen still smelled faintly of the coffee Dana had brewed at six that morning and forgotten to pour out.

She came in twenty minutes later, keys jangling, and dropped a plastic grocery bag on the counter.

"They didn't have the good chicken sausage," she said. "I got the turkey kind."

"That's fine. I've got beans going."

"Did you preheat the oven?"

He hadn't. She reached past him and turned it to four hundred, then leaned against the counter to pull off her shoes, one heel at a time, bracing a hand on his shoulder.

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

"He moved it to Thursday. Again." She lined the shoes up by the doorway. "So I sat there with my whole presentation ready and nowhere to put it."

"That's annoying."

"It's a little annoying."

The beans hissed when she added them to the pan. Marcus washed the cutting board, dried it, and put it back in the drawer where it didn't quite fit, which meant leaning on it. Dana turned the radio on low—some station playing songs from when they were in college—and started slicing the sausage on the diagonal, because she said it looked better that way.

"Your mother called me," she said.

"About the reunion?"

"About the reunion. I said we'd let her know by Sunday."

"That was generous of you."

"I thought so."

They ate at the kitchen table, not the dining room, with the mail pushed into a pile at one end. Dana talked about a coworker's dog. Marcus mostly listened, and got up once for the salt, and sat back down.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the chicken had been sitting in the fridge one day past when they'd planned to use it. He sniffed it, decided it was fine, and set it on the counter while he pulled off his tie and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair.

Priya came in twenty minutes later, dropping her bag by the door with a thud that suggested she'd carried too many folders home again.

"There's chicken," Marcus said.

"There's always chicken." She kicked off her shoes and came to look. "Is that the one from Sunday?"

"It's fine. I smelled it."

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

But she was already reaching past him for the cutting board. He put water on for rice and she started chopping an onion, badly, the way she always did, in uneven crescents that would cook at different rates. He'd stopped mentioning it years ago.

"Denise wants me to present at the regional thing," she said.

"The one in Columbus?"

"Cincinnati. I said I'd think about it." The knife paused. "Do we have cumin?"

He checked the cabinet, moved a jar of oregano, found it behind the paprika. The lid was crusted shut and he ran it under hot water.

"You should do it," he said.

"I know."

The onions went into the pan and the smell filled the kitchen, and Marcus opened the window over the sink because the smoke detector in the hall had a hair trigger. Outside, someone was mowing a lawn in the last good light of the day.

They ate at the counter, standing, because the table had mail on it. Priya scrolled her phone between bites. Marcus told her the neighbor's dog had gotten out again.

"Third time," she said.

"Third time."

She put her plate in the sink and said she'd do the dishes if he folded the towels, and he said fine, and that was more or less the whole negotiation.


Marisol got home first, which meant the mail landed on the counter unsorted and the oven preheated too early. She'd stopped at the store for chicken thighs and a bag of lemons, and she was halfway through peeling garlic when the front door opened and Dev came in shaking rain off his jacket.

"It's doing that thing where it's not really raining," he said, "but you get wet anyway."

"Mist," she said. "Wash your hands, I need the cutting board free."

He hung the jacket on the back of a chair instead of the hook, which she noticed and let go, then washed up and started clearing the mail into three piles: keep, shred, recycle. A postcard from his dentist. A letter from the county assessor that he set aside without opening.

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

"Rescheduled. Third time." He opened the fridge. "Do we have any of that rice left?"

"That was Sunday. It's gone."

"I'm making more, then."

He measured jasmine rice into the little pot with the loose handle, the one they kept meaning to replace. Marisol got the chicken into the cast iron and the kitchen filled with that sound, the good aggressive one. She squeezed lemon over it, added too much pepper, tasted the pan sauce with a spoon and made a face.

"Needs something."

Dev came over, tried it. "Butter."

"You always say butter."

"I'm always right about butter."

She added the butter. He set the table, two plates and the paper napkins from the drawer, and moved his jacket to the hook without comment. The rice cooker clicked. Outside, a car alarm went off down the block and stopped.

"Fifteen minutes," she said.

"I'll get the salad." He pulled the spinach from the crisper, half of it already going slimy, and picked through it patiently at the sink, saving what he could.


Marcus got home first, which meant the kitchen light was already on when Devon came through the side door, shaking rain off his jacket. The apartment smelled like garlic, which was optimistic — Marcus had only just started chopping.

"You're wet," Marcus said, not looking up.

"It's raining. Deductive reasoning." Devon hung his jacket on the hook that had been threatening to come out of the drywall since March. "What are we doing?"

"That chicken thing. The one with the lemon."

"We have lemons?"

Marcus paused with the knife. "We have a lemon."

"That's the one you've been rolling around the crisper since your mom visited."

"It's fine. Citrus is basically indestructible." He held it up. It had a soft brown patch on one end, like a bruise. Devon took it from him, cut off the bad part, and said nothing, which was its own kind of comment.

They fell into it without discussing it, the way they had for six years now. Devon washed the potatoes and set them boiling. Marcus browned the chicken thighs, skin-side down, and didn't move them, because he'd finally learned not to. The exhaust fan rattled. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped.

"Rhea asked if we're coming Saturday," Devon said.

"To the thing at her sister's?"

"To the thing at her sister's."

Marcus considered. "Is there a version where we say yes and then get sick?"

"There's a version where we say yes and go for ninety minutes and then leave." Devon drained the potatoes, steam fogging his glasses. "I already told her yes."

"Then why'd you ask me?"

"So you'd feel included."

Marcus laughed, a short surprised sound, and squeezed the lemon over the pan. It hissed. He mashed the potatoes with too much butter, which was the only correct amount, and they ate on the couch with the news muted, plates on their knees, the rain going steady against the window.


Marcus got home first, which meant he started the rice. The cooker had a dent in the lid from the time he'd knocked it off the counter reaching for the pepper grinder, and it whistled a little now when the steam built up. He set it going and shed his tie over the back of a kitchen chair, the way Priya had asked him not to a hundred times.

She came in at ten past six with a bag of groceries hooked over her wrist and her phone tucked between shoulder and ear. "No, I'll send it tonight, I promise. Yes. Okay. Bye." She hung up and set the bag down. "Tanya's freaking out about the audit."

"Is it a real freakout or a Tanya freakout?"

"Tanya freakout." She kissed his shoulder on her way to the sink. "You got the rice going."

"I did. There's chicken thighs in the fridge from Sunday. Are they still good?"

Priya opened the fridge, unwrapped the package, sniffed. "They're fine. Do you want them in the pan or in the oven?"

"Pan's faster."

She got out the cast iron while he chopped an onion, badly, the way he always did—too much of a rush, uneven pieces. She didn't say anything about it. The kitchen filled with the smell of oil and cumin and the low hum of the exhaust fan, which needed to be replaced but had needed to be replaced for two years.

"Did you call about the gutters?" she asked.

"I left a message. They said Thursday, maybe."

"Maybe."

"Maybe," he agreed.

She squeezed lemon over the chicken at the end, which she'd learned from her mother, and he set two plates on the small table by the window. Outside, someone's dog was barking at the recycling bins. They ate with the television off, talking about nothing in particular—her sister's move, a leak under the bathroom sink—until the rice cooker clicked off and neither of them got up right away to deal with it.


Marcus got home first, which meant he got to pick the music. He put on something with horns in it and set the grocery bag on the counter, unloading two chicken breasts, a bag of green beans, and the good sourdough from the place on Tremont.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, dropped her keys in the bowl by the door, and let her bag slide off her shoulder onto the bench. "The Hendricks thing got pushed to Thursday," she said, kicking off her shoes.

"Is that good or bad?"

"Neither. It's just three more days of Ellen emailing me about it." She washed her hands at the kitchen sink and looked at what he had going. "Chicken?"

"Chicken. There's that mustard thing you like, if we still have the honey."

She opened the cabinet, moved a box of orzo, and found the honey jar with crystallized sugar around the lid. "It's questionable."

"It's fine. Heat it up."

She ran hot water over the jar while he trimmed the beans, tossing the ends into the compost bin they still forgot to empty most weeks. The kitchen smelled like garlic and the faint scorch of the oven preheating with a baking sheet inside.

"Did you call about the gutters?" she asked.

"I called. They can come the ninth."

"That's after the rain."

"That's after all the rain, forever. There's no gutter guy who comes before rain."

Dana laughed and whisked mustard and honey together in a coffee mug because every actual bowl was in the dishwasher, dirty. Marcus slid the sheet pan out, and the beans hit the hot metal with a satisfying hiss.

They ate at the counter, standing at first, then sitting when Dana pulled the stools over. The bread was better than the chicken. Outside, someone's dog barked at nothing in particular, and neither of them got up to check.


The garage door groaned closed behind Dana's car at 5:40, which meant Marcus had already started the rice. She could smell it when she came through the mudroom—the faintly sweet steam, and under it, garlic.

"You're early," he said, not looking up from the cutting board. He was still in his work shirt with the sleeves shoved past his elbows.

"Bergman canceled at four. I didn't argue." She dropped her bag on the bench, toed off her shoes, and lined them up against the wall out of habit. "What are we doing?"

"That stir-fry thing. There's a bell pepper going soft, so it's now or the compost."

She washed her hands at the kitchen sink and pulled the broccoli out of the crisper drawer. "This is from last week."

"Is it bad?"

"It's fine. It's just tired." She rinsed it anyway and started cutting florets, standing at the counter beside him, their elbows occasionally bumping. The dishwasher, which they'd meant to run that morning, sat full and silent.

"Your mother called the house phone," Marcus said.

"Why does she still do that."

"Because it's free, apparently. She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

"It's September."

"I told her that. She said that's exactly why." He scraped the peppers into the bowl with the flat of the knife. "I said we'd figure it out this weekend."

Dana made a noise that wasn't quite agreement. She reached past him for the soy sauce, found the sesame oil instead, put it back. "Did you feed Rooster?"

"He ate at five. He's lying about it if he says otherwise."

The cat, hearing his name, appeared in the doorway and looked at them both with enormous accusation.

Marcus turned the burner up and the pan began to hiss. Dana pushed the vegetables toward him and went to set two places at the table, moving the mail stack onto a chair, and neither of them said anything for a while, which was fine.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetables. He set his bag by the door, rolled his sleeves past the elbow, and pulled the bag of carrots from the crisper drawer, the one that always stuck.

Dev came in around six-fifteen, still on the phone with his sister, saying "mm-hm, mm-hm, I know, Priya" in the tone that meant he'd been saying it for twenty minutes. He mouthed *sorry* at Marcus, set his keys in the bowl, and kept nodding.

"She's redoing the bathroom," he said, finally hanging up. "Again."

"The tile?"

"The tile. She hates the grout color now." Dev opened the fridge, looked at nothing in particular, and closed it. "What are we doing?"

"That chicken thing. With the lemon."

"We have lemons?"

"We have one lemon. It's had a hard life, but we have one."

Dev found it in the bowl on the counter, wrinkled at one end, and rolled it against the cutting board to soften it up the way his mother did. Marcus scraped carrot ends into the compost bin, which needed emptying, which neither of them mentioned.

"Emily's thing is Thursday," Dev said. "The retirement dinner."

"Thursday I have the dentist."

"That's morning."

"Right." Marcus turned on the oven. "Then yes. Thursday."

The kitchen got warm. Dev put on music, low, some playlist he'd made in 2019 and never updated. He halved the lemon and squeezed it over the chicken, catching seeds with his fingers.

"Did you call about the gutters?"

"I left a message."

"That's not calling."

"It's the first half of calling," Marcus said, and Dev laughed despite himself, sliding the pan into the oven, forty minutes, the timer set on the microwave because the oven timer had stopped working in March and neither of them had done anything about that either.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the chicken had been sitting in the sink since morning, still mostly frozen. He swore under his breath and ran cold water over it while he toed off his shoes by the back door.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, dropping her bag on the kitchen chair the way she always did, the way he'd stopped mentioning three years into the marriage.

"Traffic on 40 was insane," she said. "There was a whole thing with a boat. Someone was towing a boat and it just—came apart."

"Came apart how?"

"I don't know. Pieces. It was on the shoulder." She opened the fridge, considered it, closed it. "What are we doing?"

"Chicken, if it ever thaws. There's rice."

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

"Then that."

She washed her hands and started on the broccoli while he got the rice going, measuring water by the knuckle the way his mother had taught him, which Dana had teased him about for eleven years and now did herself.

"Your sister called me," she said. "At work."

"About Thanksgiving?"

"About Thanksgiving. I said we'd talk about it."

"We're not driving to Ohio."

"That's what I said, basically. Nicer than that." She scraped the broccoli into a pan. "She's going to call you now."

"I know she is."

The chicken finally gave. He cut it into strips, seasoned it with the garlic powder and the paprika and too much black pepper, and the kitchen filled with the smell of it while Dana set two places at the counter instead of the table, because neither of them had the energy for the table.

They ate standing at first, then sitting, talking about the boat again, and about whether the gutters could wait until spring. They decided they could.


The Thursday Dinner

Marcus got home first, which meant he was on chopping duty. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled up his sleeves, and pulled the onions from the wire basket on the counter.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, keys jangling, and dropped her purse on the chair that had held purses for eleven years despite being a dining chair.

"They moved the meeting to Friday," she said, kicking off her shoes.

"So you actually get a weekend?"

"I get a Saturday. I'll take it." She washed her hands at the sink and nudged him sideways with her hip to get to the cutting board. "What are we making?"

"That chicken thing with the peppers. There's rice in the cooker."

She frowned at the onions, which were in uneven chunks. "You dice like a man who's angry at the onion."

"The onion knows what it did."

Dana laughed and pulled the peppers out of the crisper drawer, along with a bag of spinach that had gone slimy at the bottom. She held it up.

"That was going to be for the salads," Marcus said.

"That was going to be for the salads two weeks ago."

She dropped it in the trash and washed her hands again. The kitchen smelled like garlic and hot oil. Somewhere in the living room, the dog scratched at his bed, circling.

"Did you call about the water heater?" Marcus asked.

"I called. They said Tuesday between eight and noon, which means Tuesday at four."

"Great."

They worked around each other easily, a choreography of twelve years. Dana turned the heat down when Marcus wasn't looking. Marcus salted the rice she'd forgotten to salt. She told him about a coworker's divorce; he told her about a broken printer and a man in accounting who cried about it.

By seven-fifteen they were sitting down, plates full, the TV off, the day already softening behind them.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to choose the music. She put on the salsa playlist her mother had made her, turned it down low, and started pulling things out of the refrigerator: a package of chicken thighs, half an onion wrapped in plastic, a bell pepper that had gone a little soft on one side.

Dana came in around six-fifteen, still in her scrubs, and dropped her bag by the door. "It smells like you started already."

"I'm cutting the onion. You want to do the rice?"

"Give me one minute." Dana went to wash her hands, then came back rolling up her sleeves. She measured rice into the pot the way she always did, by eye, and Marisol always said something about it, and tonight was no different.

"You're going to make it gummy again."

"I've been making rice since I was nine."

"And it's been gummy since then."

Dana flicked water at her from the sink. They worked around each other in the narrow kitchen, the way they had for eleven years — Dana reaching over Marisol's shoulder for the salt, Marisol stepping back without looking to let her past.

"Your sister called me," Dana said. "She wants to know if we're coming for Thanksgiving or if she should tell your mom we're not."

Marisol scraped the onions into the pan. "What did you say?"

"I said I'd ask you, which is what I always say."

"That's fair." She pressed the flat of the knife against a garlic clove. "We should go. Last year I said we'd go and then we didn't."

"Okay. I'll take the Friday off."

The chicken hit the oil and the smell filled the kitchen. Dana set the table — two plates, the mismatched forks, the paper towels they used instead of napkins on weeknights. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped.

"Ten minutes," Marisol said.

"I'll wait."


Marcus got home first, which meant he'd already started the rice by the time Jenna's key turned in the lock. She dropped her bag on the bench by the door and toed off her shoes, one heel catching on the rug the way it always did.

"There's mail on the counter," he called from the kitchen. "Something from the dentist."

"That's a bill." She came in and leaned against the doorframe, watching him rummage in the vegetable drawer. "Don't open it. I'll deal with it Saturday when I'm feeling stronger."

He held up a bell pepper that had gone soft on one side. "This is questionable."

"Cut around it."

"That's what I thought, I just wanted permission." He set it on the cutting board and started slicing. "How was the thing with Denise?"

"Ninety minutes. Could have been an email." Jenna washed her hands and pulled the chicken out of the fridge. "She wants a whole workflow document by the fifteenth."

"Is that a real thing or a Denise thing?"

"It's a Denise thing that becomes a real thing if I ignore it."

They worked around each other without much talking after that. He'd learned years ago to leave the left side of the counter clear because that's where she liked to stage things. She stepped over the dog, who had positioned himself in the exact center of the floor, as dogs do.

"Did you take Buster out?"

"Short one. He'll want another after dinner."

The rice cooker clicked. Marcus scraped peppers into the pan and the kitchen filled with that sharp green smell.

"Oh," Jenna said, "your mom called me. She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That you'd call her back."

"Traitor."

"I did my part." She reached past him for the soy sauce. "You're burning the garlic."

"I'm not burning it. It's aggressive browning."

She turned the heat down anyway. He let her.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the kitchen still smelled faintly like the burnt garlic from Sunday. He opened the window over the sink, then stood in front of the refrigerator with the door hanging open, doing the arithmetic of leftovers.

"Don't just stand there letting the cold out," Dana said, coming in through the garage with her laptop bag still on her shoulder. She dropped it on a chair and kissed the side of his head.

"I'm assessing."

"There's the chicken from Tuesday."

"That's what I'm assessing." He pulled out the container anyway, along with half a bag of green beans and a lemon that had seen better days. "Rice or pasta?"

"Rice. There's that box thing in the pantry."

She kicked off her shoes by the door and went to change, and he heard her upstairs talking to the cat, who did not care. By the time she came back down in sweatpants and one of his old college T-shirts, he had the beans in the skillet and was mangling the lemon with a dull knife.

"We need to sharpen these," she said, taking over the rice. "Or buy new ones. Or both."

"Add it to the list."

"The list is a myth."

They worked around each other in the narrow galley, a choreography they'd worked out over eleven years and three apartments. She told him about a coworker who kept scheduling four-thirty meetings. He told her the mechanic had called about the Civic, and it was going to be more than they'd hoped.

"Of course it is," she said.

"Of course it is."

They ate at the kitchen table because the dining room had become a place where mail went to die. Outside, someone's dog was barking at nothing. Dana reached over and stole a green bean off his plate, and he let her.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the sink full of breakfast dishes neither of them had dealt with. He set his laptop bag on the bench by the door, toed off his shoes, and ran the water hot.

Priya came in twenty minutes later, keys jangling, and dropped a paper bag on the counter. "They were out of the good cilantro. I got the sad cilantro."

"Sad cilantro is still cilantro."

"You say that now." She kissed the back of his neck on her way to the fridge, then stood there with the door open the way she always did, surveying. "Do we have limes?"

"Bottom drawer. Behind the celery we're never going to eat."

She found them, and celery too, which she held up accusingly before putting it back. "Someday."

They fell into it without discussing it. She started the rice cooker; he pulled the chicken out of the marinade it had been sitting in since morning, when he'd remembered at 6:40 a.m. that he'd promised to. The kitchen was narrow enough that they had to do a little dance around each other — a hand on a hip, an *excuse me, babe* — which after eleven years neither of them noticed anymore.

"Your mom called me," Priya said, chopping.

"About Thanksgiving."

"About Thanksgiving. I said we'd talk about it."

"That's the right answer." He turned the burner down. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to not think about it until October."

"Deal."

The rice cooker clicked. Somewhere outside a car door slammed, and the neighbor's dog started up. Marcus tasted the sauce, made a face, added more soy.

"Better?" she asked.

He held out the spoon. She tasted it, considered, and shrugged. "It's Tuesday food."

"It's Tuesday food," he agreed, and started setting the table.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the kitchen still smelled faintly like the burnt garlic from Sunday. He opened the window over the sink, then stood there a minute with his tie loosened, watching a neighbor drag a recycling bin down the driveway.

Dana came in at 6:20, kicked off her shoes by the door, and dropped her bag on the chair that had become the bag chair.

"Did you eat the leftover rice?" she asked.

"There was leftover rice?"

"There was maybe a cup of it. I was building a whole plan around it."

"Then no. It's probably behind the yogurt."

She found it, held the container up to the light, decided it was fine. Marcus started chopping an onion badly, the way he always did, in uneven chunks he called rustic. Dana got the chicken thighs out and patted them dry with a paper towel while telling him about the meeting that had gone forty minutes over because nobody would just say the number out loud.

"So what's the number?"

"Nobody said it out loud."

The pan spat oil. He turned on the fan, which rattled. They'd been meaning to call someone about the fan since March.

"Salad?" he asked.

"There's that spinach that's on its last day."

"That's a yes or a no."

"It's a yes with reservations."

He washed the spinach. She scraped the onions around with a wooden spoon, tasted the sauce, added soy sauce, tasted it again, added a little more. The dog, who was named Biscuit and had no dignity, sat directly behind her heels.

"Move, buddy."

"He's not going to move."

"He might."

He didn't.

They ate at the table because Dana had a rule about it, though the television murmured from the other room where Marcus had forgotten to turn it off. Neither of them got up. The chicken was good. The spinach was fine, with reservations.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the chicken had been sitting in the sink thawing since morning, a puddle of pink water beneath it. He set his laptop bag on the bench by the door and rolled up his sleeves.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, still in her scrubs, and dropped her keys in the ceramic dish they'd bought at a street fair four summers ago. "It smells like garlic in here."

"That's the plan," Marcus said. "You want rice or those potatoes we've been ignoring?"

"Potatoes. They're getting eyes."

She washed her hands at the kitchen sink and started pulling the sprouts off with her thumbnail while Marcus seared the chicken thighs. The exhaust fan rattled the way it always did. Outside, someone was mowing a lawn in the last hour of daylight.

"Ellen from radiology is retiring," Dana said. "They're doing a thing on Friday. Cake in the break room."

"You going?"

"I'll show my face." She cut the potatoes into uneven chunks and slid them into a pot. "Did you call about the gutter guy?"

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

"He never calls back."

"He called back in March."

"That was his son."

Marcus turned the chicken and lowered the heat. The cat wandered in, sat down in the middle of the floor, and stared at them both with an expression of profound disappointment.

"She ate," Dana said. "I saw the bowl."

"She's lying with her body."

They ate at the kitchen table, because the dining room table had a jigsaw puzzle on it that neither of them had touched in a month. Dana put her feet up on the empty chair. Marcus told her about a coworker who kept microwaving fish. She laughed with her mouth full and then apologized for it, and he said he'd seen worse, and she said not much worse, and that was more or less the whole evening.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetable duty. He set his bag by the door, rolled up his sleeves, and started washing a head of broccoli in the sink while the oven preheated. The kitchen still smelled faintly like the coffee they'd made that morning and forgotten to finish.

Dana came in twenty minutes later, keys jangling, and dropped her tote on a chair. "Traffic on Cleveland was a nightmare. Somebody hit a light pole."

"Anyone hurt?"

"Didn't look like it. Just a lot of orange cones." She kissed the side of his head and peered into the sink. "Are we doing the chicken thing?"

"The chicken thing with the lemon. I already put it in."

"Good, because I'm starving." She opened the fridge, considered it, and closed it again. "We're out of the good mustard."

"I'll get it Saturday."

Dana got the cutting board down and started slicing the broccoli into florets while Marcus set the water on for rice. They moved around each other the way people do after eleven years — she stepped back, he stepped left, neither of them thinking about it.

"Your mom called," she said. "She wants to know if we're coming for Easter."

"What'd you tell her?"

"I said I'd ask you, which is code for I don't want to drive four hours."

Marcus laughed. "We could do the Saturday and leave Sunday morning."

"Maybe." She scraped the broccoli into a bowl and drizzled olive oil over it, salt, a little garlic powder. "Did you take the trash out?"

"It's Thursday."

"It's Wednesday."

He checked his phone. "Huh."

"Yeah."

The timer went off. Marcus pulled the chicken out, the lemon slices gone brown and curling at the edges, and Dana slid the broccoli onto the rack below. They ate at the kitchen table forty minutes later, half-watching the news, the dishwasher already humming.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetables. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled his sleeves, and started washing the broccoli in the colander while the oven preheated. The kitchen still smelled faintly of the coffee they'd burned that morning.

Dana came in at six-twenty, keys jangling, and dropped a canvas bag of groceries on the counter. "They were out of the good chicken thighs, so I got the family pack. We'll freeze half."

"Fine by me." He nudged the cutting board toward her. "There's wine open from Sunday. Might be turned."

She sniffed the bottle, made a face, and poured it down the drain. "Water, then. I have that call at eight anyway."

They moved around each other with the ease of nine years of shared square footage. Dana trimmed the chicken and Marcus tossed the broccoli in olive oil, too much of it, the way he always did. She reached past him for the sheet pan; he leaned back without looking.

"Your mom called me," she said. "She wants to know if we're coming for Easter."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That I'd ask you. Which I am now doing."

Marcus slid the pan into the oven. "We could drive up Saturday, leave Sunday after dinner. That's two nights of my dad asking about my 401(k)."

"One and a half," Dana said. "I'll run interference."

The chicken went in twelve minutes after the broccoli. Marcus wiped the counter while Dana scrolled her phone against the fridge, reading him a headline about the school board that neither of them fully understood. The timer went off. She pulled the pan out with a dish towel because the good mitt was in the laundry.

They ate at the kitchen table, plates on placemats, the TV off. Halfway through, Dana said the broccoli was burnt on the edges.

"That's the best part," Marcus said, and took hers.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the sink still held that morning's cereal bowls. He rinsed them, stacked them in the dishwasher, and pulled the chicken thighs out of the fridge to sit while the oven preheated.

Diane came in at ten past six, kicked off her shoes by the door, and dropped her bag on the bench. "It's freezing out there."

"There's coffee left. It's probably terrible."

"I'll take terrible." She poured half a mug and leaned against the counter. "How was your day?"

"Long. The Peterson thing got pushed again. Third time." He was patting the chicken dry with paper towels. "Can you check if we still have that lemon pepper?"

She opened the cabinet, moved a box of couscous, found the jar behind it. "Expired in June."

"Does spice really expire?"

"It says it does."

"Use it."

Diane handed it over and started on the salad, tearing romaine into the wooden bowl her mother had given them years ago, the one with the crack they kept meaning to replace. The oven beeped. Marcus slid the pan in and set a timer on his phone.

"Ellie called," she said. "She's thinking about coming for Thanksgiving. Bringing someone."

"Someone with a name?"

"Josh. That's all I got. She got weird when I asked more."

"Then it's serious."

"That's what I thought." She dumped cherry tomatoes on the cutting board and halved them, fast, the way she'd learned working at the deli in college. "We'd have to do something about the guest room."

"We'd have to do something about the guest room regardless."

The kitchen filled up with the smell of roasting chicken. Marcus opened a beer and set a second one down beside the cutting board without asking. Diane took it, drank, and went back to the tomatoes. Outside the window over the sink it had gone fully dark, and the neighbor's porch light clicked on the way it did every night around this time.


Dana got home first, which meant she was on vegetables. She dropped her bag by the stairs, kicked off her shoes without untying them, and stood in front of the open refrigerator for a full thirty seconds before remembering they had broccoli.

Marcus came in at ten after six, still in his work polo, and set a paper bag on the counter. "They were out of the sourdough, so I got the potato bread. Also I got those crackers you like."

"The rosemary ones?"

"The rosemary ones."

"Then you're forgiven for the bread."

He washed his hands and took over the stove, because Dana ran the chicken too hot and they both knew it. She trimmed the broccoli into florets and told him about a coworker who had scheduled a meeting to discuss the agenda of another meeting. Marcus laughed and said his day had mostly been a printer.

"A printer?"

"Just a printer. Four hours of a printer."

The kitchen filled with the sound of oil and the clatter of the colander in the sink. Dana put on the radio and then turned it off, because neither of them was really listening. She asked whether his mother had called back about Thanksgiving. He said not yet, and made a face that meant he wasn't going to be the one to call again.

"I'll call her Saturday," Dana said.

"You're a saint."

"I'm a coward who wants to know how many people to buy chairs for."

They ate at the kitchen table instead of the couch, which was a rule they kept maybe half the time. Marcus salted his chicken and Dana pointed out he hadn't tasted it yet. He tasted it, then salted it anyway. Outside, a neighbor's car door slammed, then another, and the light through the window over the sink went from gold to gray while they were still deciding whose turn it was to do the dishes.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Denise walked in, keys still in her hand, mail tucked under her arm.

"Smells good," she said, dropping the stack on the counter—two credit card offers, a water bill, a postcard from the dentist reminding them about Marcus's cleaning.

"Don't get excited. It's the chicken thighs from Sunday." Marcus was at the stove, sleeves pushed to his elbows, poking at something in the pan with a wooden spoon. "I was going to do that lemon thing but we're out of lemons."

"I thought I bought lemons."

"You bought limes."

"Huh." She peered into the pan. "That's fine. Limes are basically lemons."

"They are objectively not." He moved the pan off the burner. "Can you do the salad? There's that bag of spinach that's about to turn."

She washed her hands, dried them on the towel hanging off the oven handle, and pulled the spinach from the crisper drawer. A few leaves at the bottom had gone slimy. She picked those out over the trash can.

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

"Rescheduled. Again. Third time." She shook the rest into a bowl. "At this point I think she just doesn't want to tell me no."

"Probably." He tasted the sauce, made a face, added salt. "My mom called. She wants to know if we're coming for Easter."

"It's February."

"I know. I told her we'd figure it out."

Denise found the good olive oil behind the vinegar, poured some over the spinach, cracked pepper on top. "We should just go. It's easier than not going."

"That's what I said."

They ate at the small table by the window because the big one had a puzzle on it, half-finished, that neither of them had touched in eleven days. Marcus put on the radio, low. Outside, someone's car alarm went off, then stopped.

"It's good," Denise said. "The chicken."

"Would've been better with lemons."


Dana got home first, which meant she inherited the dishes from breakfast. She ran hot water over the cereal bowls, left them in the rack, and pulled the package of chicken thighs from the fridge, where it had been thawing since morning under a Post-it that said DINNER — DO NOT EAT (it was a joke from years ago that neither of them had retired).

Marcus came in at ten after six, keys landing in the dish by the door with the sound she could hear from anywhere in the house.

"How was the thing?" she asked.

"The thing was a meeting about scheduling another meeting." He set down his bag, kissed the side of her head, and looked at the counter. "Thighs. Nice. Are we doing the mustard thing?"

"I was going to do the mustard thing."

"I'll do the potatoes, then."

He washed his hands, then went digging in the pantry for the bag of small red potatoes, which had migrated behind the rice. Dana whisked mustard, honey, and vinegar in a coffee mug because the small bowls were dirty, then poured it over the chicken in the baking dish.

"Oven's not on," Marcus said.

"I was getting there."

"I'm just narrating."

She set it to 400 and leaned against the counter while it preheated, scrolling through her phone. He halved the potatoes, tossed them in oil and salt, and told her about a coworker who'd brought a whole rotisserie chicken to eat at his desk, no plate.

"That's not a story," Dana said. "That's just a man."

"It was a whole chicken."

Everything went in the oven together. Marcus set a timer on the microwave; Dana set one on her phone, because she didn't trust the microwave one to be loud enough. They washed lettuce, argued mildly about whether there was still Italian dressing, and found it behind the milk.

Forty minutes later they ate at the kitchen table with the TV on low in the other room.


Dana got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did. She dropped her keys in the ceramic dish by the door, kicked her shoes toward the closet, and stood in front of the open refrigerator the way people do, hoping something new had appeared since morning.

"There's that chicken," she said out loud, to nobody.

Marcus came in twenty minutes later, still in his work jacket, carrying the mail. "The Hendersons' catalog again. And something from the dentist."

"Reminder card. I already put it on the calendar." She had the chicken thighs out on the cutting board now, patting them dry with a paper towel. "Can you do the potatoes? There's a bag under the sink."

He hung his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair, which she had asked him not to do roughly four hundred times, and got the potatoes. "Boiled or roasted?"

"Roasted. Oven's already going."

They worked around each other in a kitchen too small for two people, a choreography they'd developed over eleven years — he stepped back when she turned, she reached over him for the olive oil. He peeled potatoes into a plastic grocery bag propped in the sink.

"Trevor's leaving," he said.

"Trevor from your team?"

"Trevor from my team. Two weeks' notice today. Going to that startup in Bellevue."

"Are you sad or are you annoyed?"

Marcus considered it, knife going. "Annoyed. He was the only one who knew the old billing system."

"So now you know the old billing system."

"Now I know the old billing system."

She salted the chicken, laid it skin-side up in the cast iron, and slid it into the oven. Steam had fogged the window over the sink. Outside, the neighbor's motion light clicked on, then off.

"Forty minutes," she said, and sat down at the table across from his jacket, and let him tell her the rest of it.


Marcus got home first, which meant he inherited the dishes from that morning. He ran the water hot and worked through the cereal bowls while the news murmured from the living room speaker, some segment about school funding he half-listened to.

Priya came in at six-twenty, keys hitting the ceramic dish by the door, and dropped her bag on the chair that had become, by unspoken agreement, the bag chair.

"There's a thing in the fridge," Marcus said. "The chicken from Sunday. I think it's fine."

"You think."

"It smelled fine."

She opened the fridge and leaned in, doing her own assessment. "It's fine. Rice?"

"Rice." He was already reaching for the pot.

She changed out of her work clothes and came back in the gray sweatshirt with the college logo worn nearly off, and started chopping an onion at the counter beside him. The kitchen was narrow enough that they'd learned to move around each other, a small choreography of hips and elbows.

"Dana asked if we're coming to the thing in November," she said.

"What thing?"

"The anniversary party. Her parents."

"Is that a whole weekend?"

"It's a Saturday. She said Saturday."

He measured the rice with the little cup that lived in the bag. "Then probably yes. Ask me again in October."

The onion went into the pan and the sound filled the room for a minute. Priya reached past him for the soy sauce and knocked the pepper grinder over; he caught it against the counter edge without looking up.

"Nice," she said.

They ate at the table because Priya preferred it, though Marcus would have been happy on the couch. The chicken was fine. They talked about her coworker who kept microwaving fish, and about whether the upstairs window seal was actually failing or just cold.

Afterward he washed and she dried, and then they watched forty minutes of something before she fell asleep sitting up.


Marcus got home first, which meant he'd already started the rice by the time Priya's key turned in the lock. He heard her drop her bag on the bench, heard the particular sigh she made when her shoes came off.

"There's mail on the counter," he called. "Something from the dentist."

"Reminder or bill?"

"Didn't open it. Boundaries."

She came into the kitchen still in her work clothes, blazer draped over one arm, and hung it on the back of a chair where it would stay until one of them moved it tomorrow. She looked in the pot. "Jasmine or basmati?"

"Whatever was in the container. I think basmati."

"That's the good one. We're saving that."

"For what occasion, exactly?"

She didn't have an answer. She washed her hands and started on the vegetables — a bell pepper going soft on one side, half an onion wrapped in cling film that had been in the fridge since Sunday. Marcus turned down the burner and took the chicken out of the marinade, and for a while they worked around each other in the narrow galley kitchen, the choreography worn smooth by nine years of it: she stepped back, he slid past, neither of them commented.

"Deshawn called," he said. "They're doing something for his mom's birthday in October."

"October when?"

"He didn't say. He just wanted to know if we'd come."

"We'll come." She scraped the peppers off the board into the pan and it hissed. "Remind me to put it in the calendar or I'll forget."

The exhaust fan rattled the way it had since spring. Marcus made a note to look at it, the same note he'd made in March.

They ate at the table because Priya insisted on it, though the television murmured from the other room. The chicken was slightly overcooked. Neither of them mentioned it.


Marcus got home first, which meant he started the rice. He measured it wrong on purpose—always an extra half cup, because Dana packed leftovers for lunch and complained when there wasn't enough.

She came in at 6:20, dropping her bag by the stairs instead of hanging it, which he noticed and decided not to mention. Third time this week.

"The Hendersons canceled again," she said, toeing off her shoes. "So now I've got a whole Saturday and no idea what to do with it."

"Sleep."

"That's your answer to everything."

"It's a good answer." He was pulling chicken thighs out of the package, patting them dry with paper towels. "Can you get the sheet pan? The one that isn't warped."

"They're all warped."

"The less warped one."

She found it in the drawer under the oven, banging it against something on the way out. The kitchen was small enough that they'd learned a choreography—she went behind him, he leaned forward, neither one thought about it anymore. Eleven years of that.

"Did you call the roof guy?"

"I left a message." He was seasoning the chicken now, more paprika than the recipe said. "He'll call back Thursday and then not show up."

"You're so cynical."

"I'm right, though."

Dana started on the broccoli, breaking it into florets with her hands rather than getting the knife dirty. Outside, someone's dog was barking at something. The rice cooker clicked over.

"My mom asked about Thanksgiving," she said.

"What'd you tell her?"

"That I'd talk to you."

He slid the pan into the oven and set the timer. Twenty-two minutes. "So we're going."

"We're going."

"I need to get the tires done before then." He wiped his hands on the dish towel that should have been washed two days ago. "Wine?"

"Half a glass."

He poured a full one. She didn't say anything about it.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetable duty. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled his sleeves, and started washing the bell peppers Dana had bought Sunday, the ones already going soft in one corner. He cut around the bad spots the way his mother used to, saving what he could.

Dana came in at six-fifteen, keys jangling, complaining before the door shut. "Whitmore moved the meeting to four-thirty again. Four-thirty. He knows I leave at five."

"You leave at five-fifteen."

"I *intend* to leave at five." She kissed the side of his head, dropped her bag on the counter he'd just wiped, then noticed and moved it. "Chicken?"

"Thighs. They were on sale."

"Good." She got the rice out and measured it into the pot without asking how much he wanted, because after eleven years she knew: he wanted more than she did, and there would be leftovers either way, and he'd eat them cold from the container tomorrow standing at the fridge, which she'd complain about and he'd keep doing.

The kitchen filled with garlic smell. Their daughter's soccer schedule was pinned to the fridge under a magnet from Gatlinburg, and Dana squinted at it while stirring.

"She's got practice Thursday. Can you get her?"

"I've got the dentist."

"Right." Dana made a note on her phone. "I'll shuffle something."

Marcus tasted the sauce, made a face, added vinegar. Outside, the neighbor's dog started up. The rice lid rattled.

"How was yours?" Dana asked, finally, turning around.

"Fine. Long. Bill retired, apparently. Nobody told me until today."

"Bill from Accounts?"

"Bill from Accounts."

"Huh," she said, and neither of them said anything else for a minute, and it was comfortable, the two of them moving around each other in eight square feet like they'd rehearsed it.

"Ten minutes," Marcus said.

"I'll set the table."


Rain had started around four, so Marcus came in through the garage shaking water off his jacket and left his shoes by the washer. The kitchen smelled like onions already. Dana was at the stove in her work blouse with the sleeves pushed up, phone propped against the sugar canister playing something she'd half-abandoned.

"You beat me," he said.

"Barely. Left at four-fifteen because Kelsey rescheduled the budget thing again." She tipped the cutting board over the pan, and the onions hissed. "There's chicken thawed. I couldn't decide."

He washed his hands and looked in the fridge, which was in its Thursday state—a lot of condiments, half a bag of spinach, a lemon that had seen better weeks. "We could do the sheet pan thing. Potatoes are sprouting a little but they're fine."

"Fine like fine, or fine like last time?"

"Last time was the sweet potatoes and you know it."

She snorted. He got out the potatoes and started cutting them into uneven chunks, which she noticed and didn't mention, because he'd mentioned it once about her carrots and it had turned into a whole thing. The oven beeped that it was preheated. Outside, the gutter over the back door was doing its clunking sound again.

"Did you call about that?" she asked.

"I called. They said next Tuesday between eight and twelve."

"Which means noon."

"Which means noon."

She added garlic, then a splash of the white wine that had been open since Sunday. He slid the pan into the oven and set the timer for thirty-five, then leaned against the counter and told her about the guy at work who'd microwaved fish again. She said the thing she always said about that guy. The rain kept up.

At some point she handed him a fork with a piece of chicken on it, and he said it needed salt, and she said she knew.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who found the dog had gotten into the recycling again. He was still picking up flattened cans when Dana came through the garage door, her laptop bag sliding off her shoulder onto the bench.

"Don't ask," he said.

"I wasn't going to." She toed off her shoes and looked at the mess. "Okay, I was going to."

They'd figured out years ago that the only way weeknight dinner happened was if neither of them tried to be a hero about it. Dana pulled the chicken thighs from the fridge—she'd remembered to thaw them, a small triumph—while Marcus put water on for rice and started chopping an onion that had gone slightly soft at one end.

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

"Moved to Thursday. Which is fine, except now Thursday is a nightmare." She salted the chicken more than he would have, which he'd stopped commenting on around year three. "Your mom called me, by the way."

"On your phone?"

"She said yours goes to voicemail."

"It does not." He checked. It did. "Huh."

The kitchen filled with the smell of onions and thyme. Dana leaned against the counter with a glass of the white wine that had been open since Sunday and was probably past its best, watching him tilt the pan. Their kitchen was small enough that they'd developed a choreography—she stepped left, he reached past her for the tongs, neither of them looking.

"There's broccoli," she said. "It's been in there a while."

He opened the crisper drawer, considered it, closed it. "Let's call it a two-vegetable night. Rice counts."

"Rice is not a vegetable."

"Rice is a plant."

She laughed and got the plates down. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and then stopped, and the dog lifted his head, and neither of them moved to check.


Marisol got home first, which meant she'd already changed into sweatpants and started the rice by the time Dev came through the door with the mail tucked under his arm.

"There's another one from the dentist," he said, dropping a stack on the counter. "I think they've given up on calling."

"I'll deal with it." She lifted the lid off the pot, decided it needed another few minutes, and put it back. "Can you do the chicken? It's thawed, I think."

Dev washed his hands and pulled the package from the fridge. It was still cold in the middle. "Mostly thawed."

"Mostly is fine."

He set the cutting board down and started trimming, working slowly because he'd never quite gotten over the feeling that he was doing it wrong. Marisol pulled a bag of broccoli from the crisper drawer and found it slightly limp but salvageable.

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

"Postponed. Again. He's got the second kid now, so." Dev shrugged, knife pausing. "I said I'd just come out there in October."

"October's good. I have that conference the first week, but after that."

The kitchen filled with the smell of oil hitting the pan. Dev leaned back against the counter while it heated, watching her rinse the broccoli in the colander.

"Did you take the trash out?" she said.

"I will."

"You said that yesterday."

"I took it out yesterday. This is a new bag." He grinned at her, and she flicked water at him from the colander.

They ate at the table because they'd made a rule about it in January, and mostly they'd kept it. The chicken was a little dry. Marisol said so, and Dev said he knew, and neither of them minded much. Outside, someone's dog was barking at the recycling bins, and the light was going gold and long across the neighbor's fence.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did. He set his keys in the ceramic dish by the door—the one Priya's mother had made, slightly lopsided—and started pulling things out of the refrigerator without a plan, which was how most Tuesdays went.

Priya came in twenty minutes later, still on the phone with someone from work, mouthing *sorry* and holding up one finger. She dropped her bag on the kitchen chair, kicked her shoes toward the mat, and mostly missed.

"—no, I'll send it tonight. Yes. Okay. Bye." She hung up and exhaled. "What are we doing?"

"There's chicken thighs, and I think that broccoli's still good."

She opened the crisper drawer and made a face. "It's *mostly* still good."

"That's what I said."

She rinsed the broccoli while he got the cast iron heating, and for a minute neither of them talked, just the water running and the click of the burner. Then she said, "Ellen's leaving. She told me in the parking lot."

"Leaving leaving?"

"March. She's going to her sister's firm in Charlotte."

Marcus laid the thighs in skin-side down and they hissed. "Are you okay with that?"

"I don't know yet." She started chopping. "It's not my business to be not okay with it."

"Sure it is."

She smiled a little at the cutting board.

The chicken needed turning; he turned it. She found the rice in the back of the pantry behind a bag of flour they'd bought for a bread phase that lasted eleven days. The measuring cup was in the dishwasher, dirty, so she eyeballed it.

"Did you call about the gutters?" she asked.

"I called. They're coming Thursday. Maybe."

"Maybe Thursday."

"That's what the man said."

She set the pot on to boil and leaned against the counter beside him, and they stood there together, waiting on things to cook.


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 bag of green beans from the crisper drawer. The kitchen still smelled faintly like the coffee Dana had made at six that morning and forgotten to pour out.

She came in twenty minutes later, keys jangling, and dropped a plastic bag on the counter. "They didn't have the chicken thighs on sale, so I got the breasts. Sorry."

"Breasts are fine." He was snapping the ends off beans, dropping them into a colander. "Did you remember butter?"

"I remembered butter." She held it up, then opened the fridge and stood there a second too long, the way she always did, like something new might have appeared since morning. "Do we want rice or those little potatoes?"

"Potatoes. The rice takes forever and I'm starving."

Dana got the cast iron down from the hook, which took two hands and a small grunt. She had been meaning to ask him to move it to a lower shelf for about four years.

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

"Fine. She's still convinced they're going to reorganize us in the fall." Dana ran cold water over the potatoes, rubbing dirt off with her thumb. "I don't think she has any actual information. She just likes to be worried."

"That's most of her personality."

"That's uncharitable." She smiled at the sink.

The chicken went in and the kitchen filled with sound. Marcus salted the beans, then salted them again, then tasted one and made a face. Dana leaned over and tasted one too.

"It's fine. It's beans."

"It's underwhelming beans."

"Put lemon on it."

He found half a lemon in the door of the fridge, wrapped in plastic, older than he'd like. He squeezed it anyway.

They ate at the counter, standing, because sitting down felt like more of a commitment than either of them had left.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the sink full of breakfast dishes neither of them had dealt with. He set his keys in the ceramic bowl by the door, rolled his sleeves, and started rinsing.

Priya came in twenty minutes later, dropping her bag on the kitchen chair. "Traffic on 35 was insane. Someone's car was on fire."

"Actually on fire?"

"Actually on fire. Fire trucks and everything." She kissed the side of his head and opened the fridge, standing there in the cold air the way she always did, the way he'd stopped commenting on years ago. "Do we still have that chicken?"

"Bottom shelf, behind the yogurt."

She found it, sniffed it skeptically, and set it on the counter. "We should use it tonight or it's gone."

"Fine by me. There's rice."

They moved around each other in the narrow galley kitchen with the practiced choreography of eleven years. Priya seasoned the chicken while Marcus dug through the pantry for the good olive oil, then gave up and used the regular kind. The rice cooker clicked on. Outside, someone's dog was barking at nothing.

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

"Did you tell her we haven't decided?"

"I told her you'd call her back."

"Coward."

"Absolutely."

Priya laughed and tossed a dish towel at him. He caught it one-handed, pleased with himself, and started setting the small table by the window. Two plates, the mismatched forks, the salt.

The chicken hissed in the pan. Priya turned it, checked the color, turned it again. Marcus poured water into two glasses and sat down, scrolling through his phone until she said his name, and then he got up to carry the pan over, holding it with the folded towel because they still hadn't replaced the oven mitt that burned last spring.

They ate. It was fine. It was Tuesday.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who dealt with the mail pile on the counter and the sink full of breakfast dishes nobody had gotten to. He put water on to boil before he'd even taken off his shoes.

Priya came in twenty minutes later, dropping her bag by the door and saying, "Don't let me forget I have to email Sandra tonight," which was how she said hello most days.

"Noted." He was slicing a red pepper badly, the way he always did, in uneven strips. "There's that sauce from Sunday. I thought pasta."

"I thought pasta too." She washed her hands and took over the pepper without saying anything about it, and he let her, moving to the stove. "How was the thing with the auditors?"

"Postponed. Again." He stirred the sauce, which had separated a little in the fridge and needed coaxing. "Which is fine, except now it's the same week as your parents."

"They're only here Thursday to Sunday."

"That's four days, Priya."

"That's three and a half." She scraped the peppers into the pan. "Do we have any parmesan or did you finish it?"

He checked. "I finished it."

"Marcus."

"I'll get some tomorrow. Put it on the list."

She wrote it on the whiteboard on the fridge, under *paper towels* and *call about the gutters*, which had been up there since August. The kitchen smelled like garlic and the burnt edge of the pepper skins. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and then stopped.

"Salad?" she asked.

"There's that arugula that's getting slimy."

"So no salad."

"So no salad."

They ate at the kitchen table because the dining room table had a jigsaw puzzle on it, half-finished, that neither of them wanted to be the one to give up on. He told her about a coworker's divorce. She told him she'd seen a hawk in the parking garage. It was Tuesday, and neither of them said anything they'd remember.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetables. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled up his sleeves, and started washing the broccoli in the colander, the cold water numbing his fingers. The kitchen still smelled faintly like the coffee Deb had burned that morning.

She came in at ten after six, keys jingling, and dropped a bag of groceries on the counter.

"They were out of the good chicken thighs," she said, unwinding her scarf. "I got the family pack. We can freeze half."

"That's fine." Marcus reached past her for the cutting board. "How was the meeting?"

"Long. Denise talked for forty minutes about the parking lot." Deb pulled off her boots by the back door and left them there, which he had stopped mentioning years ago. "How was your day?"

"Fine. Long. Nobody talked about parking lots."

She laughed and started unpacking. He heard the specific sounds of it — the fridge door, the crinkle of the salad bag, the drawer that stuck and had to be lifted slightly.

"Do you want rice or those potatoes?" she asked.

"Potatoes. The rice takes forever."

"It takes twenty minutes."

"Which is forever."

Deb got the potatoes out and started quartering them, and Marcus moved to the stove to get the pan hot. They worked around each other without much thought, one of them stepping back as the other reached, the kitchen too narrow for anything else. He salted the chicken. She poured olive oil over the potatoes and put too much rosemary on, the way she always did, and he didn't say anything about that either.

"Your mother called me," Deb said.

"About Thanksgiving?"

"About Thanksgiving."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That we'd talk about it." She slid the pan into the oven and set the timer. "So. We should talk about it."

"After dinner," Marcus said, and turned the chicken.


Marcus got home first, which meant he got to choose the music. He put on something old and low—Bill Withers—and started pulling things out of the fridge without a plan. Half a rotisserie chicken from Sunday. A bag of spinach going soft at the edges. Three eggs.

Dev came in twenty minutes later, dropped his bag by the stairs, and stood in the kitchen doorway with his coat still on.

"There's chicken," Marcus said.

"How old?"

"Sunday."

Dev made a face, then shrugged and hung up his coat. "Fine. It's fine. I'll do the rice."

They worked around each other the way they had for eleven years, which meant Marcus reached over Dev's shoulder for the cutting board without asking and Dev stepped left without looking. The rice cooker beeped. Somebody had left the pantry door open again, and both of them chose not to mention it.

"Sunil called," Dev said, measuring rice with the plastic cup that came with the machine. "He wants to know if we're coming in August."

"To Michigan?"

"To Michigan."

Marcus pulled the chicken apart with his hands. "Is his mother going to be there?"

"His mother is always going to be there."

"Then I need to think about it."

Dev laughed, a short one. He ran water over the rice and swirled it with his fingers, poured it off cloudy. "I told him probably."

"Then why are you asking me?"

"Because I'm polite."

The spinach went into the pan with garlic and too much olive oil, wilting down to almost nothing, the way it always did. Marcus salted it and had Dev taste it off the wooden spoon. Dev said it needed lemon. There wasn't a lemon. Dev found half a lime in the door of the fridge, dried out on one side, and it worked well enough.

They ate at the counter, standing, because the table had mail on it. Neither of them suggested moving the mail.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was the one who noticed the dishwasher hadn't been run. He started it, then pulled the chicken thighs out of the fridge and set them on the counter to lose their chill.

Priya came in twenty minutes later, keys jangling, coat still zipped. "It's freezing," she said. "The car thermometer said thirty-four."

"There's coffee left if you want it warmed up."

"That's from this morning." She said it without accusation, hanging her coat on the hook that was really meant for umbrellas. Then she came into the kitchen, kissed the side of his head, and looked at the chicken. "Are we doing the sheet pan thing?"

"That was the idea. Unless you're sick of it."

"I'm not sick of it. I just want potatoes with it and not the sweet potatoes."

"There's a bag of the little red ones."

She found them in the pantry and started quartering them while he seasoned the chicken. The radio was on low, the local station doing the traffic report for a commute they'd both already finished. Outside, the neighbor's motion light clicked on and off.

"Ravi called," Priya said. "He wants to know if we're coming down for the weekend of the fifteenth."

"That's the same weekend as the thing with Dana."

"I know. I told him I'd check with you."

"We could drive down Saturday afternoon, maybe."

"That's four hours each way for a day and a half."

"So we say no."

"I don't want to say no. I want you to want to go." She said this lightly, dumping the potatoes onto the pan, and he laughed because it was funny and also because it was true.

The oven beeped that it was ready. He slid the pan in and set the timer for forty minutes, and she leaned against the counter and started telling him about the email her manager had sent at 4:50, which was the real thing she'd come home wanting to talk about.


Dana got home first, which meant she started the rice. The cooker's lid had a crack in it from the time it slipped in the sink, but it still worked, so neither of them had replaced it.

Marcus came in at ten after six, dropped his keys in the ceramic bowl by the door, and made a sound like a deflating tire.

"That bad?" Dana called.

"Rhonda scheduled the vendor call for four-forty-five on a Thursday. Four-forty-five." He came into the kitchen, kissed the side of her head, and opened the fridge. "We have chicken thighs?"

"Bottom shelf. Behind the yogurt."

He found them, set them on the counter, and started hunting for the good knife, which was in the dishwasher, dirty, because Dana had used it on a bagel and felt vaguely guilty about that now.

"There's the paring knife," she offered.

"I'm not butterflying chicken with a paring knife."

"Then wash the big one."

He washed the big one. Water ran. Outside, somebody's dog was losing its mind about something.

"Did you call your mom back?" Dana asked.

"Tomorrow. She wants to talk about Thanksgiving and I need to have eaten first."

Dana laughed and started chopping broccoli, the stalks going into the compost bin that always smelled a little worse than she expected. Marcus got a pan hot, oil shimmering, and laid the thighs down skin-side first. The sizzle filled the room and they both stopped talking for a second, the way people do around a good sound.

"Salt's out," he said.

"There's a backup box in the pantry. Left side."

He found it. He always found it, eventually, and she always knew exactly where it was, and neither of them had ever really commented on this.

They ate at the table with the mail pushed to one end. The chicken was slightly overdone. Nobody mentioned it.


Marisol got home first, which meant she had the sink to herself for ten minutes. She rinsed the rice twice, the way her mother had taught her, water clouding and clearing, and set it on the back burner. The mail sat on the counter where she'd dropped it: a dentist reminder, a flyer for gutter cleaning, something from the county.

Dev came in at ten after six, keys clattering into the ceramic dish they'd bought at a craft fair four summers ago and never quite liked.

"They repaved half of Clairmont," he said, hanging his jacket on the chair instead of the hook. "Took me twenty minutes to go six blocks."

"Did you get the peppers?"

He held up the bag. "And limes. They were selling them four for a dollar so I got eight."

"What are we going to do with eight limes?"

"I don't know. Something." He set them on the counter and started washing his hands. "How was the Kaplan thing?"

"Postponed. Again." She handed him the cutting board. "Thin, not chunks."

He sliced peppers while she got the chicken out of the marinade, the plastic container sweating on the counter. The radio was on low, some station playing music neither of them had chosen. Outside, a neighbor's dog was making its usual six-thirty complaint.

"Your mom called me," Dev said. "About Thanksgiving."

"She called you?"

"She said you don't pick up."

"I pick up." Marisol slid the chicken into the pan and it hissed. "I just don't pick up at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday."

"I told her we'd figure it out by next week."

"That's generous of you."

"I'm a generous man." He scraped the peppers off the board with the flat of the knife, which she had asked him not to do maybe forty times. She let it go.

The rice lid started rattling. He turned it down without being asked.


Marcus got home first, which meant he was on vegetables. He set his laptop bag by the stairs, rolled his sleeves, and started washing broccoli in the colander while the oven preheated. The kitchen still smelled faintly like the coffee Priya had burned that morning.

She came in at ten past six, keys jangling, and dropped her tote on the counter with a sigh that had a whole workday inside it.

"Hey," Marcus said, not turning around. "Chicken's thawed. I was going to do the sheet-pan thing."

"With the lemon?"

"With the lemon."

"Good." She kissed the back of his neck on her way to the fridge, pulled out a beer, and thought better of it, putting it back and taking the seltzer instead. "Sarah's leaving. She told our whole team today like it was nothing."

"Sarah who trained you?"

"Sarah who trained me." Priya found the cutting board and started on the onion, standing far enough back that her eyes wouldn't sting. "Which means I get her accounts, obviously, and nobody's said a word about money."

"You have to say the word about money."

"I know. I'm working up to it." The knife knocked steadily against the board. "How was yours?"

"Fine. Long. The Delgado permit came through."

"Finally."

"Finally." He slid the tray into the oven and set the timer on the microwave, which they used because the oven timer had been broken since they moved in. "Forty minutes. Do you want rice or that couscous?"

"Couscous. It's faster."

They moved around each other easily, the way people do after eleven years, him reaching over her for the olive oil, her stepping aside without looking up. The dishwasher needed emptying and neither of them did it. Outside the window over the sink, the neighbor's motion light snapped on, then off.

"I'll ask on Thursday," Priya said. "About the money."

Marcus nodded. "Thursday," he said, and started setting the table.


Marcus got home first, which meant the radio came on before the lights did — the same college station he'd listened to for twenty years, static and all. He set his keys in the ceramic dish by the door, the one with the chip on the rim they'd never gotten around to replacing.

By the time Dana came in, shaking rain off her jacket, he had the chicken thighs out and was rummaging in the cabinet.

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

"We're out of the good everything. I made a list, it's on the fridge."

"There are four lists on the fridge."

"The one in blue pen." She hung her jacket on the back of a chair instead of the hook, and he didn't say anything, which she noticed and appreciated. "How was the meeting?"

"Long. Rescheduled to Thursday anyway." He started the oven. "Rice or those potatoes?"

"Potatoes. The rice takes forever and I'm starving."

She washed her hands, then took over the potatoes, quartering them with the knife that needed sharpening while he seasoned the chicken with what paprika there was. The kitchen was small enough that they'd learned to move around each other without thinking — she stepped left, he reached past her for the sheet pan, neither of them looked up.

"Your mother called the house line," Dana said.

"Why does she still call the house line?"

"Because it's the number she memorized in 1998." She scraped the potatoes into a bowl and doused them in olive oil. "She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

"It's September."

"Tell her that, not me."

The oven beeped. Marcus slid the pan in and set the timer on his phone, because the one on the stove had been off by six minutes for a year.

They ate at the counter, standing, because the table had a stack of mail on it. Neither of them minded.


Marisol got home first, which meant the radio went on—the classical station, because she said it made chopping onions feel important. By the time Dev came in through the garage door at ten past six, she had a cutting board full of them and her eyes were streaming.

"You okay?" he asked, setting his laptop bag on the bench by the coat hooks.

"It's the onions. Don't say anything nice to me or I'll actually cry."

He kissed the back of her head on his way to the sink, washed his hands, and looked at what she'd laid out: chicken thighs, a can of coconut milk, a lime rolling slowly toward the edge of the counter. He caught it.

"Curry?"

"Sort of. I'm improvising. There's no ginger."

"There's ginger in the freezer. The knob from October."

"That thing is a fossil."

"It grates fine frozen." He dug through the freezer drawer, past the peas and the ice pack from his knee thing last spring, and came up with it. He grated ginger while she got the rice going, and neither of them said much for a minute except when he asked whether she'd heard back from the roofers.

"They're coming Thursday. Between eight and noon, which means eleven fifty-eight."

"Naturally."

The kitchen got loud in a good way—rice lid rattling, oil popping. She told him about the woman at work who microwaves fish. He told her his brother had called about Thanksgiving already, in September, which was insane. They agreed it was insane.

At some point she handed him a spoon of the sauce.

"More salt," he said.

"That's what you always say."

"Because it's always true."

She salted it. He set the table, two plates and the good napkins for no reason, and moved the mail stack onto the counter so they'd have room.