The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Deshawn came through the door, shaking rain off his jacket. He hung it on the hook that had been half-loose since March, and it held, mostly.

"You're early," Priya said from the kitchen. She had her hair twisted up with a pen through it, which meant she'd been working from the couch again and had migrated without noticing.

"Meeting got canceled. Guy's kid has strep." He kissed the side of her head and looked past her at the cutting board. "What are we doing?"

"That chicken thing. The one with the lemon. Except I forgot lemons."

"So it's the chicken thing with no lemon."

"It's the chicken thing with lime, which is basically the same molecule."

"That's not how molecules work." He washed his hands and took over the onion, because she cut them into shapes he privately thought of as geological. She let him. She always let him, which he suspected was strategic.

They fell into it. She got the pan hot while he chopped; he passed her garlic; she asked him to grab the good olive oil from the back of the cabinet, behind the vinegar they'd bought for one recipe in 2022. The radiator ticked. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped.

"My mom called," Priya said, not looking up. "She wants to know if we're coming at Thanksgiving."

"Are we?"

"I said probably. She said probably isn't a plane ticket."

"Fair." He scraped the onion in and it hissed. "Let's book it Saturday."

"Okay." She stirred, tasted, made a face, added salt. "Too much lime."

"Told you about the molecules."

"Get the plates, Bill Nye."

He got the plates — the mismatched ones, the blue and the white — and set the table around her laptop, which neither of them moved.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dani got home, which meant Theo had started dinner without her again. She dropped her bag by the shoe rack and found him at the counter, sleeves shoved up, slicing a bell pepper with the dull knife he refused to let her sharpen.

"You're using the bad knife."

"It's not bad, it's characterful." He tipped the pepper into a bowl. "How was the meeting?"

"Long. Marcus talked for forty minutes about a slide deck nobody read." She washed her hands, nudging him aside at the sink. "Did you defrost the chicken?"

"This morning. It's in the colander." He said it with a little pride, because last week he'd forgotten and they'd eaten cereal at eight-thirty.

She got the pan going, oil first, then garlic, and the smell filled the kitchen fast. Theo leaned against the counter scrolling his phone until she pointed the spatula at the cabinet.

"Plates. And the soy sauce is behind the vinegar."

"Why is it always behind the vinegar."

"Because you put it there."

He set two plates on the small table, moved the mail pile to a chair, and lit the candle stub they'd been burning down for a month. From the living room the radiator knocked twice, the way it did every evening around six.

"Your mom called me," he said. "She wants to know if we're coming Sunday."

"Did you say yes?"

"I said I'd ask you, like a coward."

Dani laughed and shook the pan. "We'll go. But we're leaving by four."

"Four. Written in stone."

She scooped rice, he carried the chicken, and they sat down with the window fogging over and the neighbor's dog barking at nothing. Theo took a bite and made a face of exaggerated approval.

"Too much soy," she said.

"Little bit," he agreed, and kept eating anyway.


Marisol got home first, which meant the kitchen radio was already on when Dev's key turned in the lock. She had the oven preheating and was slicing an onion badly, the way she always did, holding the knife too far back on the handle.

"You're going to lose a knuckle," Dev said, dropping his bag by the coat hooks.

"I've been losing knuckles for thirty-one years and still have all of them." She scraped the onion into a bowl anyway and moved aside so he could wash his hands. "How was the thing?"

"The thing was a meeting about scheduling another meeting." He dried his hands on the towel hanging from the stove handle, then took over the cutting board without asking. "Chicken?"

"Chicken. There's that jar of harissa Priya gave us."

"That was Christmas."

"It's a jar of chili paste, Dev, it's not milk."

He checked the date anyway, shrugged, and set it on the counter. The apartment smelled like the sheet pan they never fully cleaned, that faint scorched-oil smell that came back every time the oven ran. Marisol pulled potatoes from the bag under the sink and started quartering them while Dev seasoned the chicken thighs with more salt than she would have used.

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

"Are we?"

"I said probably. Is that a yes?"

"That's a yes if we drive back Sunday night and not Monday morning."

"Deal."

The sheet pan went in at 425. Dev opened a beer, poured half into a glass for her without being asked, and leaned against the counter while she wiped down the cutting board. They talked about the leak under the bathroom sink, about whether the landlord would actually call back, about a coworker of his whose name she could never keep straight.

Forty minutes later they ate on the couch with plates on their knees, television on low, arguing mildly about whether the potatoes were done enough.


Maya got home first, which meant the radio went on—the classical station, because she liked the way it filled the kitchen without demanding anything. She set her bag on the chair by the door, kicked off her shoes, and stood in front of the open refrigerator for a full minute the way her mother always had.

"There's that chicken," she called out when she heard Danny's key.

"From Sunday?"

"From Sunday."

He came in with his jacket already half off, the mail tucked under his arm. "It'll be fine. We can do the thing with the rice."

"You always say 'the thing with the rice' like it's a recipe."

"It works, doesn't it?"

She pulled out the container, the half onion wrapped in cling film, a lemon that had gone a little soft. Danny sorted the mail into two piles on the counter—junk and not junk—and reported that the electric bill had come, and it was higher than last month.

"It's July," Maya said.

"I know it's July. I'm just saying it out loud so it exists."

He washed his hands and took over the onion, because she'd told him once, years ago, that his knife work was better, and he had never let it go. She started the rice, measuring the water with her finger against the pot instead of a cup. The kitchen got hot. Danny opened the window over the sink and the sound of somebody's sprinkler came in.

"Your sister called me," he said. "About August."

"And?"

"And I said we'd talk about it."

"That's a very diplomatic non-answer."

"I've been practicing."

The chicken went into the pan and hissed. Maya leaned against the counter with a glass of water, watching him push the onions around, and didn't say anything for a while, and neither did he, and that was fine.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Nadia got her boots off. She left them by the door, next to Theo's, which he'd kicked into the middle of the hallway again.

"I moved your boots," she called.

"Thank you." He was at the stove, sleeves shoved up, poking at something in the big pan. "There's wine open. It's the one from your sister."

She poured a glass and leaned against the counter. The kitchen smelled like garlic and something scorched. "What happened?"

"The onions got away from me. I was on the phone with the insurance people." He tilted the pan so she could see. "It's fine. It's rustic."

"It's black."

"It's caramelized." He scraped the pan anyway and started a new batch, and she took over the cutting board, working through the bell peppers he'd left in a pile. They'd fallen into this a couple years ago without ever discussing it — he started, she finished, or the other way around, depending on who got home first.

"Did they say anything useful?" she asked.

"They said the claim's processing. Which means nothing." He reached past her for the soy sauce, and she leaned back so he could get it. "My mom called too. She wants to know if we're coming for Easter."

"Are we?"

"I said probably. Is that all right?"

"That's fine. I just want to leave Sunday morning, not Sunday night." She swept the peppers into the pan and they hissed. "Last time we got stuck outside Harrisburg for two hours."

"Sunday morning. Noted."

He set the table while she finished, two plates, the mismatched forks. The dishwasher needed emptying and neither of them did it. They ate at the small table by the window with the TV off, talking about nothing much — a coworker's weird email, whether the upstairs neighbor had gotten a dog. Afterward Theo washed and Nadia dried, and the radiator knocked, and it was Tuesday.


The kitchen light flickered once before settling, the way it had for three months now. Dana dropped her keys in the ceramic bowl by the door and toed off her shoes.

"You're home early," Marcus called from the stove. He had a dish towel slung over his shoulder and was doing something aggressive to a bag of frozen green beans.

"Meeting got canceled. Angela's kid has strep." Dana came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. "Is that the chicken from Sunday?"

"It's fine. I smelled it."

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

"It's *a* standard." He handed her the beans anyway. "Can you do these? I have to start the rice or we're eating at nine again."

She ran water into the colander while he measured rice with a coffee mug, the way he always did, having lost the actual measuring cup sometime during the move. The apartment smelled like garlic and the neighbor's laundry, the dryer vent that always vented right into their kitchen window.

"Your mom called me," she said.

"Why?"

"Because you don't answer your phone. She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

Marcus scraped the chicken around the pan. "What'd you say?"

"I said I'd ask you. Which I'm doing now. Formally."

"Can we talk about it after we eat?"

"That's what you said last week." She dumped the beans into a pot and turned the burner on. The knob was loose; you had to press in to make it catch. "I'm not trying to corner you. I just need to book a flight or not book a flight."

"Book it," he said, after a minute. "It'll be fine. She's not as bad as she was."

Dana found the plates, the two good ones and the chipped one they fought over politely. She set the table while he plated, and they sat, and the beans were slightly underdone, and neither of them mentioned it.


Marisol got home first, which meant the kitchen was already warm when Dev walked in at six-forty, still holding his bike helmet. She had the oven going and a bag of frozen green beans thawing in a colander.

"There's a thing with the chicken," she said, not turning around. "I think it went bad."

Dev set his helmet on the bench by the door and came to look. The package sat open on the counter, and he leaned over it briefly and straightened up.

"Yeah, no. That's done." He tied the bag shut and took it out to the bin in the alley so it wouldn't sit in the kitchen trash overnight. When he came back he washed his hands twice, which she teased him about, and he said, "You're the one who's squeamish."

"I'm the one who noticed."

They landed on pasta because there was always pasta. Marisol filled the pot and Dev started chopping half an onion and the last two cloves of garlic, which were slightly green in the middle. He pulled the sprouts out with the tip of the knife.

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

"Moved to Thursday. Which is fine, except Thursday I have my dad's appointment."

"Do you want me to take him?"

"He'd rather it was me." She dumped the beans into the pan with a little olive oil. "But ask me again Wednesday."

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table had a stack of mail and a broken lamp on it that Dev kept saying he'd rewire. The pasta was slightly overcooked. Marisol grated the parmesan directly onto her own bowl and then his, holding the grater at an angle so nothing fell on the couch.

Afterward he washed and she dried, and they argued mildly about whether the pan was clean, and it was.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dana came through the door, shaking rain off her jacket. She hung it on the hook that had been loose since March.

"You're early," Marcus said from the kitchen, where he was slicing a red bell pepper with the good knife, the one they'd gotten half-price at an outlet store in Delaware.

"Meeting got canceled. Sandra's kid has strep." Dana set her bag on the chair and came to look over his shoulder. "Stir fry?"

"Unless you have a better idea. There's still that chicken from Sunday, but I think it's questionable."

"Toss it." She opened the fridge and stood in the cold light. "We have snap peas. And half a bag of those baby carrots that are getting slimy."

"Don't put the slimy ones in."

"I'm not going to put the slimy ones in." She rinsed the peas in the colander, then leaned against the counter. "Did you call about the water heater?"

Marcus made a sound. "I called. They said someone can come Thursday between eight and noon, which means I have to move my ten-thirty."

"Or I could work from home."

"You have that thing with the auditors."

"That's Friday." She started snapping the ends off the peas, dropping them into the compost bin that always needed emptying. "I'll take Thursday. You owe me for the DMV."

"I'll never stop owing you for the DMV."

He got the wok hot, poured in oil, and the kitchen filled with that sharp bright smell. Dana turned on the exhaust fan, which rattled. They moved around each other the way people do after four years in a small kitchen—she reached past him for the soy sauce, he stepped left without looking.

"Garlic?"

"Always garlic."

Outside, the rain picked up. They ate at the coffee table, plates on their knees, arguing mildly about whether the peas had been undercooked.


Nadia got home first, which meant the kitchen was already warm when Theo came through the door with his laptop bag still slung across his chest. She'd put the rice on and was standing over the cutting board, working through a bell pepper with the dull knife they kept meaning to replace.

"You want me to do the chicken?" he asked, dropping his bag by the closet.

"If you wash your hands for longer than two seconds this time."

He made a show of it at the sink, counting out loud, and she flicked water at him from her fingertips. The chicken was in a Tupperware in the fridge, thawed since morning because she'd remembered to move it and he hadn't. He got out the good pan, the heavy one his mother had given them when they moved in together, and let it heat while he pulled the package apart.

"Marissa's doing that thing again," Nadia said. "The one where she schedules a meeting at four fifty."

"On a Wednesday?"

"On a Wednesday." She scraped the peppers off the board with the flat of the blade. "I said I had a hard stop. She said, 'Oh, no problem,' and then talked for thirty-five minutes."

"Did you leave?"

"I muted myself and cleaned the bathroom."

Theo laughed, then swore quietly as oil spat at his forearm. The smoke alarm in the hall gave its usual warning chirp, and Nadia opened the window over the sink without being asked, the way she always did, letting in the cold and the sound of someone's car alarm two houses down.

They ate at the coffee table because the dining chairs still had laundry on them. Halfway through, Theo said they should probably fold that. Nadia said probably. Neither of them moved, and the rice was good, and the show they were behind on was still there when they finished.


Marcus got home first, which meant he had already dealt with the mail and started the rice before Dana's key turned in the lock at ten past six.

"It's freezing out there," she said, dropping her bag on the chair by the door. "Did you hear about the pileup on 35? I sat through four cycles of the same light."

"That's why I take Colfax." He was slicing an onion badly, the way he always did, and she took the knife from him without comment when she came into the kitchen.

"You're crushing it. Watch." She rocked the blade properly, and the pieces fell into neat crescents. "Where's the chicken?"

"Still in the sink. I forgot to take it out this morning."

Dana sighed, but not unkindly. She'd forgotten the same thing on Monday. "Fine. Eggs? We have that spinach that's about to turn."

"Frittata."

"Frittata."

He got the cast iron down while she cracked eggs into a mixing bowl, one-handed, showing off a little. The radiator in the next room clanked twice and went quiet. Outside, someone's car alarm chirped.

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

"Oh God. Why?"

"She wants to know about Thanksgiving. Whether we're coming out or if she should book something." Dana whisked. "I said I'd talk to you, which is what I always say, and then you never call her."

"I'll call her." He grated cheese over the bowl. "Saturday."

"That's what you said about the gutters."

"The gutters are a bigger job."

She laughed. He poured the eggs in and they sizzled, and she leaned against the counter with her arms crossed, watching the edges set. There were dishes in the sink from breakfast and a load of towels still in the dryer, and neither of them mentioned it. The oven timer was already going for the rice.

"Ten minutes," he said.

"I'll set the table."


Marcus got home first, which meant the kitchen was already warm when Priya came through the door at six-fifteen, shaking rain off her jacket.

"There's no garlic," he said by way of greeting. He was standing at the open fridge, holding a package of chicken thighs like evidence.

"I put it on the list."

"You put it on the list app. I use the paper one on the fridge."

"That's — okay." She hung her coat on the hook that was still slightly loose from when they'd moved in fourteen months ago. "We have garlic powder."

He made a face but reached for the spice cabinet anyway. Priya washed her hands, then started on the sweet potatoes, cubing them badly, the way she always did, uneven pieces that would cook at different rates. Marcus had stopped commenting on this around month four.

"How was the Kessler thing?" she asked.

"Postponed. Again." He got the cast iron going. "Rick thinks it's dead but won't say so."

"Rick's the one who cried at the holiday party?"

"That's Rich."

"God, there are too many of them."

The kitchen filled with the smell of chicken skin hitting hot oil. Priya tossed the sweet potatoes with olive oil and too much salt, then not enough pepper, and slid the sheet pan into the oven. She wiped her hands on the dish towel that was supposed to be for dishes, not hands.

"Your mom called me," Marcus said.

"On your phone?"

"She wanted to know if we're coming in July."

"What did you say?"

"I said I'd ask you." He turned the chicken. "So I'm asking."

Priya opened the wine, an eight-dollar bottle they'd been working through since Sunday. She poured two glasses and set one near his elbow, out of splatter range.

"July's fine," she said.

"Okay."

"Did she ask about anything else?"

"No," Marcus said, and neither of them pushed it further. The oven timer had twenty-two minutes left.


The apartment smelled like burnt garlic before Priya even got her coat off.

"I'm handling it," Marcus called from the kitchen, waving a dish towel at the smoke detector. "It's fine. It's mostly fine."

She dropped her bag by the door and toed off her shoes, leaving them beside his sneakers on the mat that had been crooked for three weeks. "How much garlic did you put in?"

"Six cloves."

"Marcus."

"The recipe said four to six. I rounded up." He scraped the blackened bits into the trash and started over, and she came up behind him, resting her forehead between his shoulder blades for a second before reaching around him for the cutting board.

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

"Rescheduled to Thursday. Which means I now have a meeting Thursday at four-thirty, which is a war crime." He slid the pan back onto the burner. "How was yours?"

"Long. Alicia's still out, so I covered her intake calls." She started slicing an onion, then paused. "Do we have that lemon still?"

"Back of the crisper drawer. Might be sad."

It was sad — soft on one side — but the other half was fine, so she cut around it. The radiator clanked. Somewhere below them a dog started barking and then thought better of it.

"Your mom called the landline," she said.

"We have a landline?"

"Apparently. She left a voicemail about Thanksgiving. She wants to know if we're driving up Wednesday or Thursday."

Marcus stirred the pan and didn't answer right away. "Wednesday's better. Less traffic."

"That's what I said. I told her you'd call her back."

"Traitor."

"I'm not doing your family logistics." She scraped the onions in, and they hissed. "Set the table. And not on top of the mail this time."

He grabbed two plates. "The mail was a placemat."

"The mail was a fire hazard."

They ate at seven-forty, standing up half the time, and it turned out fine.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the playlist Danny hated—the one with too much accordion—and started pulling things out of the fridge: half an onion wrapped in cling film, a package of chicken thighs she'd bought Sunday and needed to use tonight or throw out.

Danny came in at ten after six, dropped his keys in the ceramic dish by the door, and stood in the kitchen doorway loosening his tie.

"You're playing this on purpose," he said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He kissed the side of her head and went to change. When he came back in sweatpants and a Michigan State T-shirt with a hole in the collar, she handed him the cutting board and the onion.

"Small dice," she said. "Not the chunks you did last time."

"Those were rustic."

"They were golf balls."

He diced. She got the rice going, then realized they were out of chicken broth and used water with a bouillon cube, which she felt vaguely guilty about. Danny told her about the guy at work who kept microwaving fish, and how someone had finally left a passive-aggressive note on the break room fridge, and how he suspected it was Karen from accounting because of the handwriting.

"You should start a betting pool," Marisol said.

"That's a great idea. That's genuinely a great idea."

The chicken hit the pan and spat oil onto the stovetop she'd cleaned two days ago. Danny reached past her for the paprika, found it behind the cinnamon, and made a small noise of triumph.

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

"She called *you*?"

"She said you don't answer."

"I answer."

"Sometimes."

They ate at the coffee table because the dining table had become a place where mail went to die. Neither of them mentioned it.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on something with a lot of bass while she pulled chicken thighs out of the fridge, and by the time Danny came in shaking rain off his jacket, she had the oven preheating and half an onion diced.

"It's disgusting out there," he said, hanging the jacket on the hook by the door, where it would drip onto the mat they'd bought specifically because his jacket always dripped. "Did you get the mail?"

"Not yet."

"I'll get it." He didn't move. He leaned against the counter instead and watched her scrape onion off the cutting board with the side of the knife, which he'd told her twice would dull the blade. He'd decided not to say it a third time.

"There's a bag of potatoes in the pantry that's turning," she said. "If we don't use them tonight we're throwing them out."

"I can do potatoes." He washed his hands and started hunting for the peeler, which was, as always, in the drawer with the whisks instead of the drawer with the knives. "Your mom called me today."

"She called you?"

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

Marisol laughed. "She wanted to ask you because she knows you'll say yes."

"I said we'd talk about it."

"That's basically yes."

"It's basically a maybe." He started peeling into the sink, which she hated, so he moved to the trash can without being asked.

The oven beeped. She slid the pan in, set a timer on her phone, and then stood there for a second with her hands on her hips, doing the mental inventory of a meal in progress.

"Salad?" she said.

"There's that spinach."

"That spinach is a science experiment."

"Then no salad," Danny said, and went to get the mail.


The kitchen light flickered once before settling, the way it had for three months now. Dana had promised to look at it. She hadn't.

"You want the chicken or should we just do eggs again?" Marcus called from the fridge, one hand braced on the door.

"Chicken." Dana dropped her bag by the stairs and toed off her shoes. "I've had eggs twice today."

"Twice?"

"Breakfast, and then Priya brought in that frittata thing for the team meeting." She came up behind him and looked over his shoulder into the fridge. "Is that lettuce still good?"

Marcus pulled out the bag, squeezed it, made a face. "It's got that smell."

"Toss it."

He tossed it. The pedal bin was already too full, so the bag perched on top like a bird's nest. Dana ran water into a pot and set it on the back burner, then started rummaging in the cabinet for the good olive oil, the one Marcus's sister had brought back from Italy, which they were saving for something and had never quite spent.

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

"Moved to Thursday." He was slicing an onion, badly, in thick uneven crescents. "Which is fine. Gives me the weekend to actually read the deck."

"Or it gives you until Wednesday night to panic."

"That's also true." He scraped the onion off the board with the flat of the knife. "There's rice from Sunday."

"Is it still—"

"It's Wednesday. It's fine."

Dana found the oil, considered it, put it back and got the regular kind. She salted the water. Behind her, the pan hissed as Marcus put the onions in too early, before the oil was hot, which he always did and she had stopped mentioning around year two.

"Radio?" she said.

"Sure."

He turned it on with wet hands. Something from the eighties, low. They worked around each other in the small space, sidestepping without looking, and outside the window the light went orange, then gray.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dana came through the door, still holding her keys and a bag of limes she'd grabbed at the corner store because she couldn't remember if they had any.

"We had three," Marcus said from the stove, not looking up. "In the crisper drawer, behind the celery."

"Then now we have six." She set them on the counter and kicked off her shoes by the mat, where they joined his boots in the loose pile they both kept meaning to organize. "It smells good in here."

"It's the ginger. I burned some of it, so half of it smells like regret." He tipped the pan toward her so she could see the chicken thighs going brown at the edges. "Taste this and tell me if it needs more soy."

She took the spoon he offered, blew on it, tasted. "More soy. Maybe some of the rice vinegar."

"The rice vinegar's empty. I used the last of it on Sunday."

"Then more soy and we pretend."

He added a splash while she started on the broccoli, running it under the tap and breaking the crowns apart with her hands instead of getting the knife dirty. Their kitchen was narrow, so they'd worked out a rhythm over three years of living together — she stepped back when he needed the drawer, he angled sideways when she crossed to the sink.

"How was the thing with your manager?" she asked.

"Postponed. Again. Which is somehow worse than it going badly."

"That's the third time."

"Fourth." He turned the heat down. "How's your mom?"

"Fine. She asked about Thanksgiving." Dana dumped the broccoli into the steamer basket. "I said I'd call her back."

"You always say that."

"I know. That's why it works."

He laughed and reached past her for two plates, and she moved without being asked.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Devin came in through the side door, still in his work boots, tracking the smell of cold air and cut lumber into the kitchen.

"Don't," Maya said without turning around. "I just swept."

He toed the boots off by the mat and left them there, half in the doorway, the way he always did. She'd move them later and say nothing about it, the same as she had for three years.

"What are we doing?" he asked.

"Chicken thighs. There's that jar of curry paste from the Indian place on Dell, the one your mom brought."

"That's been open since October."

"It's a preservative-heavy product." She was slicing an onion, blinking hard. "Can you check the date if it bothers you."

He checked. It was fine. He got out the big skillet, the one with the loose handle, and set it on the burner while she scraped the onion off the board with the flat of the knife.

"Rob asked if we're coming Saturday," he said.

"To the thing at the lake?"

"It's not a thing at the lake. It's his house. There's a lake nearby."

"That's what a thing at the lake is." She dumped the onion in and it hissed. "I have to work Sunday morning, so if we go, we're not staying late."

"We never stay late."

"We stayed until one at Kev's."

"That was February." He was getting plates down, two, and the smaller bowls in case she wanted rice separate, which she sometimes did and sometimes didn't. "You want a beer?"

"Half of yours."

He opened one anyway and set it near her cutting board. Outside the window over the sink it had gone fully dark, and the neighbor's motion light snapped on for a cat or the wind. Maya turned the heat down. Devin got the forks.


The apartment smelled like burnt garlic before Nadia even got her shoes off.

"I'm fixing it," Owen called from the kitchen. "I'm on it."

She came around the corner and found him scraping blackened bits out of the pan with a wooden spoon, the exhaust fan roaring uselessly above him. Two cloves sat mangled on the cutting board, still in their skins.

"You put them in cold oil?"

"I put them in hot oil. That was the problem." He dumped the pan in the sink, where it hissed. "How was the meeting?"

"Long. Deborah wants the whole deck redone by Thursday." Nadia opened the fridge, moved a container of leftover pad thai neither of them was going to eat, and pulled out the chicken thighs she'd defrosted that morning. "Did you get shallots?"

"I got onions. They were out of shallots."

"They're never out of shallots."

"They were today." He took the package from her and started trimming fat with the good knife, the one they'd gotten from his sister two Christmases ago. "How long do these need?"

"Twenty-five, maybe. Four-twenty-five." She rinsed the pan, dried it, and started over with fresh oil, lower heat this time. Behind her, Owen was narrating something about a guy at work who kept microwaving fish, and she made the appropriate noises while she watched the onions go translucent.

The dishwasher was still full of clean dishes from Sunday. Neither of them mentioned it.

"Rice or that couscous?" he asked.

"Couscous. It's faster."

He set the timer on his phone, then leaned against the counter beside her, close enough that his elbow touched hers. For a minute neither of them said anything. The oven ticked as it preheated. Someone upstairs dragged a chair across the floor.

"I'll do the dishwasher," he said finally.

"Tonight?"

"Tonight-ish."

She smiled at the pan. "Okay."


Marisol got home first, which meant the kitchen radio was already tuned to the station that played too many commercials. She'd changed out of her work clothes into sweatpants and one of Dev's old college shirts, the collar stretched out from years of washing.

"Did you take the chicken out?" Dev called from the entryway, dropping his keys in the dish by the door.

"This morning. It's been thawing since seven."

He came in loosening his tie, kissed the side of her head, and looked over her shoulder at the cutting board. "Is that the last of the peppers?"

"Yeah. We need to go Saturday. I made a list on the fridge, but you can add to it."

Dev washed his hands and started on the rice, measuring water into the pot with the dented handle they kept meaning to replace. "Chandra's flying in the twenty-third," he said. "She wants to know if she can sleep on the couch."

"She can have the couch. Or the air mattress, if the couch bothers her back again."

"She won't say anything if it bothers her."

"That's why I'm offering the air mattress."

He laughed. The smoke alarm chirped once, low battery, the same chirp it had been making for four days. Marisol pointed the knife at it. "That."

"Tomorrow. I promise."

She scraped the peppers into the pan and they hissed. Dev leaned against the counter with a beer he hadn't opened yet, telling her about a meeting that ran long, about a coworker who kept saying *circle back*. Marisol half-listened, turning the chicken, adding cumin because she always added more cumin than the recipe said.

They ate at the coffee table with the TV on mute, plates warm on their knees. Afterward Dev washed and Marisol dried, and neither of them mentioned the smoke alarm again, and it chirped once more around nine, and they let it.


Marisol got home first, which meant the kitchen was already warm when Deon came through the door, still in his work fleece, smelling like the cold parking garage.

"There's a package on the step," he said, setting a flat cardboard box on the counter. "Filter for the humidifier?"

"That was three weeks ago." She was standing at the stove with a wooden spoon, hair clipped up, one sock half off her heel. "Open it, I don't remember."

He slid a key under the tape and pulled out a shower caddy, the kind with suction cups. "Oh, right," she said. "For the second bathroom. Which we still haven't cleaned."

"We haven't cleaned it because nobody uses it."

"My mother uses it in April."

"It's February."

She pointed the spoon at him without turning around, and he laughed and went to wash his hands. The pot on the stove was chicken thighs and rice, the kind she made without measuring anything, throwing in cumin and a splash of the vinegar they kept next to the olive oil. He opened the fridge, considered it, and pulled out a bag of spinach that was two days from going bad.

"Salad?"

"If you make the dressing. Not the mustard one."

"You liked the mustard one."

"I tolerated the mustard one."

He made lemon and olive oil and too much garlic, and she stole a piece of chicken from the pan with her fingers and burned her tongue and said it was worth it. The radiator clanked. Somewhere upstairs the neighbor's dog scrabbled across the floor.

They ate at the small table by the window, plates on top of yesterday's mail, and talked about his brother's new apartment and whether they should finally get a second set of sheets. She left half her rice. He finished it standing up while she rinsed the pan, and neither of them said anything for a while, which was fine.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the playlist Dev pretended to hate—early 2000s pop, mostly—and started pulling things out of the fridge. Half an onion wrapped in cling film, a package of chicken thighs she'd taken out that morning, a bag of green beans that were maybe two days past their prime.

Dev came in at 6:20, dropped his bag by the door, and said, "It smells like you already started."

"I browned the onions. Don't get excited."

He washed his hands at the kitchen sink instead of the bathroom, which she had told him not to do maybe four hundred times, and she let it go because he'd had a long week. He looked at the counter and said, "Are we doing rice?"

"If you make it."

"I always make it." He got the pot down, measured out the rice, rinsed it twice in the mesh strainer. His mother's method. He'd been doing it that way as long as she'd known him.

"Your sister called me," Marisol said, poking at the chicken. "She wants to know if we're coming to the thing in April."

"What thing?"

"The christening. Which I said we'd go to. In February."

"I don't remember any February conversation."

"You were watching the game."

"That would explain it." He set the rice on low and leaned against the counter, and for a minute neither of them said anything. The extractor fan rattled the way it always did.

"Beans," she said, and handed him the bag.

He trimmed the ends with a paring knife, sliding them into a colander, and told her about a guy at work who'd been microwaving fish all week. She laughed harder than the story deserved. The rice took eighteen minutes. They ate at the coffee table, plates on their knees, the TV on with the sound low.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dani got home, twenty minutes later than she'd said she would.

"Sorry," she called, dropping her bag by the shoe rack. "There was a wreck on Cypress and everybody decided to merge at once."

"I figured." Marcus was at the counter with a cutting board, working through a bell pepper with more force than it required. "I already texted you and then remembered you don't look at your phone when you drive."

"Which is a virtue."

"It's a virtue that leaves me guessing."

She came into the kitchen and looked over the situation: chicken thighs thawed on a plate, a half-chopped onion, the pepper, a jar of curry paste with the lid loose beside it. "Is this the coconut milk one?"

"If we have coconut milk."

"We don't. I used it in that soup."

Marcus stopped. "Then it's the other one. The tomato one."

"Do we have tomatoes?"

"We have a can of crushed tomatoes older than this apartment." He opened the pantry and held it up like evidence. "September."

"That's fine. Cans are basically forever." She washed her hands, took the knife from him without asking, and finished the pepper in a quarter of the time. He didn't argue; they'd sorted out years ago who was faster at what.

He got the skillet hot while she talked about a coworker who kept scheduling meetings at 4:45. He said the guy sounded like a sociopath. She said he was just bad at calendars, which was worse.

When the onions went in, the smell filled the whole first floor, and the cat came in to sit hopefully by the stove.

"Not for you," Marcus told him.

They ate on the couch, plates on their knees, the TV on low with an episode neither of them was following. Dani put her feet on his lap. Outside, a car alarm went off and stopped.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Devon got the door open, arms full of a paper bag that was already splitting at the bottom corner.

"I got the wrong tofu," he announced.

Priya looked up from the cutting board. "Extra firm?"

"Silken. I grabbed it off the shelf without looking." He set the bag on the counter and started unloading. "I can go back."

"It's eight minutes each way and I'm hungry. We'll figure it out." She wiped her hands on the dish towel hanging off the oven handle and came over to inspect the damage. The package sweated in her palm. "Soup?"

"We don't have broth."

"We have that miso paste your mom sent."

"That was March."

"Miso doesn't go bad. Miso is basically already bad, that's the point of it." She was already opening the fridge, crouching to dig through the door shelf. Behind her, Devon started chopping the scallions she'd left out, the knife tapping unevenly because he never learned to do it properly and she'd stopped correcting him around year two.

The apartment smelled like the garlic she'd started earlier. Somewhere down the hall a dog was barking at nothing, the same dog that barked every evening around this time.

"How was the thing with Marcus?" she asked, still in the fridge.

"Fine. He wants me to come in Saturday morning."

"Saturday."

"Just for a couple hours." He swept the scallions into a bowl with the flat of the blade. "I said probably."

She stood up with the miso container, checked the lid, made a face at it, and set it by the stove anyway. "Your sister lands at four."

"I know. I said a couple hours."

"You said probably."

"Then I'll say no." He shrugged, and it seemed to actually be that simple to him, which annoyed her and also didn't.

She ran water into the pot. He got out two bowls, then a third, out of habit, and put it back.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on something with a lot of horns and dropped her bag by the door, then remembered Devon hated that and moved it to the hook.

The fridge held less than she'd hoped. Half a rotisserie chicken from Sunday, a bag of spinach that had gone slippery at the bottom, two eggs, and a block of cheddar with one corner sweating. She was still standing there with the door open when the deadbolt turned.

"You're letting all the cold out," Devon said, not looking up as he toed off his shoes.

"I'm assessing."

"That's what you call it." He came over, kissed the side of her head, and reached past her for a beer. "How was the thing with Ramirez?"

"Moved to Thursday. Which is fine except I already made the slides." She pulled out the chicken and the cheese. "Quesadillas? We have those tortillas."

"The ones from March?"

"They're fine. Tortillas don't go bad, they go stale."

He looked skeptical but got out the cast iron anyway and set it on the back burner. Marisol shredded the chicken with two forks while he grated cheese, and for a while neither of them said anything, just the horns and the sound of the grater.

"My mom called," he said eventually.

"Mm."

"She asked about Thanksgiving. Again."

"And you said?"

"I said we hadn't talked about it." He scraped the cheese into a bowl. "So now we've talked about it."

Marisol laughed. "That's not talking about it."

"It's a start." He flipped the first quesadilla and it held together, mostly. "Do we have sour cream?"

"There's that yogurt."

"That's not the same."

"It's close enough."

They ate standing at the counter because the table had mail on it, and neither of them wanted to move the mail.


The rice cooker clicked to warm just as Dana came in through the garage, dropping her keys in the bowl by the door. "It's freezing out there," she said, shrugging out of her coat. "The car took forever to defrost."

"I turned the thermostat up to sixty-eight," Marcus said from the kitchen. He was standing at the counter with a cutting board, working through a bell pepper with the dull knife they kept meaning to replace. "Don't tell me about it, I already know it's a crime against the gas bill."

"I wasn't going to say anything." She came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. "Is that the chicken from Sunday?"

"It was going to go bad tomorrow." He tipped the peppers into a bowl. "Can you get the soy sauce? It migrated again."

She found it behind the vinegar, where it always ended up, and set it by the stove. Then she started unloading the dishwasher, stacking plates in the cabinet above the microwave, clinking silverware into the drawer.

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

"Rescheduled. Third time." Dana pushed the drawer shut with her hip. "I think she's avoiding me, honestly."

"She has three kids under six."

"That's a very generous read."

Marcus laughed and turned the burner up. Oil popped in the pan. He added the peppers, then the chicken, and the smell filled the kitchen fast, garlicky and sharp. Dana set two plates on the small table by the window, along with the good chopsticks and a roll of paper towels because they were out of napkins again.

"Do we have anything green?" he asked.

"There's half a bag of that spinach. It's probably slimy."

He checked. It was fine. He threw it in at the end and it collapsed down to almost nothing, the way it always did, and they ate at the table with the radiator ticking behind them, talking about whether to go to his mother's for Thanksgiving.


The kitchen light flickered once before settling, the way it had for three months now. Dana kicked off her shoes by the door and dropped her bag on the chair that had become the bag chair sometime last winter.

"Traffic?" Marcus called from the stove.

"Construction on Ninth again. They've been at that intersection since March." She came around the counter and looked into the pot. "Is that the sauce from Sunday?"

"It's better on day four. Trust the process."

"I do trust the process. I'm just noting that it's day four."

He handed her a wooden spoon without turning around, and she stirred while he opened the fridge and stood there in the cold light, deciding. There was half a bag of spinach going soft in the drawer, a lemon, a container of something neither of them had labeled.

"That's got to go," Dana said, without looking.

"You don't even know what I'm holding."

"I know it's the round one with the blue lid. That's been in there since the thing at your sister's."

He tossed it in the trash, then fished it back out and dumped the contents so he could rinse the container. She watched him do it and felt a small, unremarkable fondness, the kind that didn't need saying.

The pasta water finally came up. Marcus salted it more than she would have, and she let it go. Dana set the table with the mismatched forks, the good one and the bent one, and poured water into two jam jars because the real glasses were still in the dishwasher from last night.

"How was the meeting?" she asked.

"Moved to Thursday. Which means I'll be re-writing the deck Wednesday night."

"So I'll see you Friday."

"You'll see me sulking on the couch." He drained the pasta into the colander, steam blooming up around his face. "Grab the cheese?"

She did.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dana came through the door, shaking rain off her jacket. She hung it on the hook that had been half-loose since March.

"You're early," Marcus said from the stove. He was standing over a pan of chicken thighs, skin-side down, not touching them.

"Meeting got canceled. Rodriguez's kid has strep." She set her bag on the chair by the door instead of carrying it to the bedroom, which she would regret at eleven o'clock. "What's happening here?"

"That thing your mom made. With the lemon and the olives."

"You don't have olives."

Marcus tipped the pan slightly, watching the fat pool. "I have capers."

"That's not the same thing at all."

"It's a briny situation. It's in the family."

Dana pulled the fridge open and stood in the light of it, which he hated and she knew he hated. There was half a bag of arugula going slimy at the bottom and a carton of buttermilk from a pancake ambition in October.

"We need to throw this out," she said.

"Then throw it out."

"I'm just observing." She took the arugula anyway, picked through it at the sink, salvaged maybe two handfuls. "Did you call about the dishwasher?"

"I called. They can come Thursday between eight and four."

"Eight and four is not a time."

"I said that. He said that's the window." Marcus flipped the chicken and stepped back from the spitting. "You could work from home."

"I could." She squeezed a lemon over the arugula with her hand cupped underneath to catch seeds. "I might just wash them by hand until we die."

"That's one option."

The rain picked up against the kitchen window. She set two plates on the counter, then a third by accident, then put it back. He squeezed past her to get the tongs and put a hand on her hip on the way, briefly, the way you'd steady a door.

"Five minutes," he said.

"I'll get the wine."


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dani got her boots off. She left them by the door, on the mat that never quite caught all the mud, and shrugged out of her coat.

"You're home early," Marcus called from the kitchen. He had the radio on low, the local station that played too many commercials.

"Meeting got cancelled. Ellis got the flu." She came in and set her bag on the chair that had become a bag chair sometime last spring. "What's the plan?"

"Stir fry. There's that chicken from Sunday that we need to use." He was working through a bell pepper, the knife slightly dull, making him press harder than he should. "Also I think the broccoli's on its way out."

Dani opened the fridge and stood in the cold light. "It's fine. Just cut the brown parts off." She pulled out the broccoli, a beer, hesitated, put the beer back. "Did you get soy sauce?"

"I thought you were getting soy sauce."

"I said I might."

"You said you'd swing by Kroger."

"That was Tuesday." She found the bottle behind the vinegar anyway, maybe a third full, and held it up. "We're okay. Barely."

They worked around each other with the practiced choreography of four years in the same eight hundred square feet — she at the sink, him at the stove, both reaching past each other for the tongs, the salt, the good pan.

"Your mom called me," Marcus said, tipping the peppers in. They hissed.

"Called you?"

"Wanted to know if we're coming for Easter. She said she couldn't get through to you."

"I've been busy." Dani chopped broccoli into small trees. "What'd you say?"

"I said I'd ask you."

"Good answer."

"That's why they pay me the big money." He shook the pan. "So are we?"

She scraped the broccoli off the board and into the oil. "Probably. Ask me Sunday."

He nodded, and turned the heat down, and neither of them said anything else for a while.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got the radio, and she turned it up loud enough to hear over the water while she rinsed the rice. The apartment still smelled faintly like the burnt toast from that morning.

Devin came in at six-twenty, tie already loosened, and set a plastic grocery bag on the counter without saying anything, which was how she knew the day had been long.

"They didn't have the cilantro?"

"They had cilantro. They had four bunches and every one of them looked like it had been stepped on." He pulled out a bag of limes instead. "I got these. Figured we could fake it."

"You can't fake cilantro."

"You can fake anything if you're confident."

She let him have that one. He washed his hands, bumped her hip with his to get at the cutting board, and started in on an onion while she pulled the chicken thighs out of the marinade she'd made Sunday and forgotten about until noon.

"Is this still good?" She held the container out toward him.

He leaned over and sniffed. "It's lime juice and garlic. It's basically a preservative."

"That's not a yes."

"It's a yes."

The rice cooker clicked. Devin scraped the onions into the skillet and they hissed, and he stepped back the way he always did, like they might come after him.

"Kevin's coming Saturday to look at the disposal," she said.

"I told you I could look at it."

"You did look at it. You looked at it for six weeks."

He didn't argue. He turned the heat down, tasted the onions off the wooden spoon, and made a face. "Needs salt."

"Everything needs salt."

They ate on the couch, plates on their knees, the TV on but muted, and neither of them mentioned that they'd forgotten to make anything green again.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got the kitchen radio, which meant the apartment smelled like garlic and sounded like a station that played too many commercials for personal injury attorneys. She had the cutting board out and a yellow onion half-diced when Dev came in, shaking rain off his jacket and hanging it on the hook that had been loose since March.

"It's doing that thing again," he said. "Where it rains but only on our block."

"You always say that."

"It's always true." He kissed the top of her head on the way to the sink, washed his hands, and looked in the pan. "Are we doing the chicken thing?"

"We're doing the chicken thing. There's a pepper in the crisper if you want to cut it up."

He found the pepper, which had gone a little soft on one side, and trimmed around it without comment. Marisol scraped the onion into the oil and it hissed and she stepped back the way she always did, like it might come for her.

"Deena asked if we're coming Saturday," Dev said.

"To the thing with the boat?"

"It's not a boat. It's a dock. There's a dock and a grill."

"I told her maybe." She stirred. "I have to do my mother's taxes."

"You have to *start* your mother's taxes."

"Don't."

He grinned and dumped the pepper in. They worked around each other in the narrow galley, a choreography built over three years and two apartments — he opened the drawer, she reached over him for the tongs, he moved his hip without looking.

The rice cooker clicked. Dev set the table, which meant two plates and the good forks because the regular ones were in the dishwasher, unrun.

"We should run that," Marisol said.

"After."

They both knew it would be after.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Danielle got the door open with her hip, arms full of grocery bags and her laptop case sliding off her shoulder.

"I got the cilantro," she called. "They were out of the good limes, so we have the sad ones."

Marcus came out of the bedroom in a t-shirt and gym shorts, still smelling faintly like the office. He took the heaviest bag from her before it split. "Sad limes are fine. You want me to start the chicken?"

"If you want. There's that marinade in the little container, the one from Sunday."

He opened the fridge and stood there too long, the way he always did. "Which little container."

"The one behind the yogurt."

"There are four containers behind the yogurt."

"The green lid." She was already washing the cilantro, shaking it out over the sink. "If it smells like garlic and regret, that's the one."

He found it. The skillet went on, the burner ticking three times before it caught. Danielle put on the playlist they'd been sharing since March, and neither of them commented on it.

"Jenna asked if we're doing anything for the Fourth," she said.

"Are we?"

"I said I'd ask you. Her parents have the lake house."

Marcus turned the chicken over. It hissed. "I'd have to check with Dave about the on-call schedule. But probably."

"That's a probably, not a no?"

"That's a probably."

She got out two plates, then the mismatched forks, because the good ones were still in the dishwasher from yesterday. He'd meant to run it. She didn't mention it, and he noticed her not mentioning it, and ran it after.

They ate at the counter because the table had mail on it. The chicken was slightly dry. Neither of them said so. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped, and the evening went on being Tuesday.


The kitchen light flickered when Diane hit the switch, the way it had for three weeks now, and Marcus said, from the couch, "I'll get to it Saturday."

"You said that last Saturday."

"Last Saturday I regrouted the shower."

She let it go and started unloading the grocery bag—two chicken breasts, a bag of green beans that had gone slightly limp in her trunk, a lemon. Marcus came in still wearing his work polo with the embroidered logo, kissed the side of her head, and opened the fridge with the particular hopefulness of a man who had already looked in it that morning.

"There's the leftover rice," she said.

"I saw it."

"So heat it up."

He filled a pot and set it on the back burner while she trimmed the beans, dropping the ends into the compost bin she'd bought in March and he still forgot existed. The radio was on low, some NPR piece about a water dispute out west neither of them was fully listening to.

"Renee called," he said. "She wants to know if we're coming to the thing in October."

"The wedding?"

"The engagement party. The wedding's next spring."

Diane turned the chicken in the pan. It spat and she stepped back. "Tell her yes. But if her boyfriend does the guitar thing again, we're leaving early."

"You liked the guitar thing."

"I tolerated the guitar thing."

Marcus set two plates on the counter, then the forks, then remembered napkins. The rice steamed. Outside, a neighbor's dog was going off at something, and the sky over the fence had gone that late-summer orange that made the whole yard look like a photograph of itself.

"Beans need another minute," Diane said.

"They're fine."

"They're squeaky."

He tried one, made a face, and put the lid back on. They ate at the counter, standing, because the table had mail on it.


The kitchen light flickered twice before settling, the way it had since March. Dana kicked off her shoes by the door and dropped her bag on the chair that had become, over four years, the bag chair.

"There's chicken thawing," Marcus called from the living room. "Been out since noon."

"Since noon?" She opened the fridge. The package sat in a shallow puddle on the bottom shelf. "That's fine. That's fine, right?"

"It's been in the fridge, not on the counter." He came in still wearing his work polo, the one with the embroidered logo peeling at the edges. "You want me to do the thing with the mustard?"

"The thing with the mustard is good."

He got out the cutting board while she rinsed rice, running her fingers through it in the strainer until the water went clear. Neither of them had planned this division of labor; it had simply calcified. He handled proteins. She handled everything that required waiting.

"Kayla texted," Dana said. "She wants to know if we're coming to the thing in October."

"What thing?"

"Her dad's retirement party."

Marcus scraped garlic off the knife with his thumb. "Do we like her dad?"

"We've met him twice."

"So that's a no."

"That's a maybe." She set the rice on the back burner and turned it to high, then immediately turned it down, because she always overshot. "It's in Delaware."

"Then it's a no."

The chicken hit the pan and the sound filled the kitchen, and for a minute neither of them said anything. Dana wiped the counter around the stove, which didn't need wiping. Marcus moved the pieces around with tongs.

"I paid the electric," he said eventually.

"I saw."

"It went up again."

"I saw that too."

She got two plates down. The blue one had a chip in it now, but they still used it, and neither of them had ever suggested otherwise.


Marisol got home first, which meant the kitchen was already warm when Dev came through the door, shaking rain off his jacket. She had the radio on low, some station that played too many commercials, and she was standing at the counter cutting an onion badly.

"You're crying," he said.

"I'm chopping. There's a difference." She wiped her wrist across her eye. "The good knife's dirty. It's been dirty since Sunday."

"That's a me problem, I know." He hung the jacket on the hook by the door, the one that always came half out of the drywall, and went to the sink. There were three mugs in there and the good knife, plus a pot she'd soaked and forgotten.

"How was the thing?" she asked.

"The thing was fine. Miriam's leaving in March, so now everyone's doing that thing where they talk about her like she's already gone." He rinsed the knife, dried it on the towel that hung off the oven handle. "Here."

They traded places without discussing it. He took over the onion; she got the ground turkey out of the fridge and squinted at the date.

"It's Wednesday," she said. "It says Thursday. So we're fine."

"We're fine."

She browned the meat while he did the onion and half a red pepper that had gotten soft on one side. The window over the sink fogged. Somebody's car alarm went off down the block and stopped.

"Did you call about the heater?"

"I left a message. They didn't call back."

"They never call back."

"They never call back," he agreed, and slid the cutting board over so she could scrape everything in.

They ate on the couch, bowls on their knees, because the table had become a place where mail lived. She put her cold feet under his leg and he let her, and complained about it, and let her.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the playlist Dev hated—early 2000s pop, mostly—and started pulling things out of the fridge. Two chicken thighs, a half-bag of green beans, a lemon that had gone a little soft on one side.

Dev came in at 6:40, dropped his bag by the shoe rack, and stood in the kitchen doorway with his coat still on.

"You're playing this on purpose," he said.

"It's called joy."

"It's called Nickelback adjacent."

"It's Kelly Clarkson. Get the cutting board."

He hung up his coat and washed his hands, then took over the green beans while she seasoned the chicken. They'd figured out this division of labor without ever discussing it—she handled anything with raw meat, he handled anything that needed trimming or chopping, because he was slower and more precise and she found that unbearable to watch when she was hungry.

"Your mom called me," he said.

"About what?"

"The thing in August. She wants to know if we're driving or flying."

Marisol scraped the chicken into the hot pan and it hissed. "What'd you say?"

"I said I'd ask you. Then she talked about her knee for eleven minutes."

"That's the correct amount of time for the knee."

The kitchen filled with the smell of browning skin and lemon. Dev found the good olive oil behind the vinegar, tossed the beans, and slid the sheet pan into the oven under the chicken. Marisol leaned against the counter with her phone, scrolling but not really reading.

"There's rice from Sunday," she said.

"Is it still good?"

"Define good."

He opened the container, sniffed it, shrugged, and put it in the microwave.

They ate at the coffee table because the dining table had mail on it, and neither of them mentioned the mail.


The kitchen light in the Delgado-Whitmore apartment flickered once before settling, the way it had since March. Nadia dropped her tote bag on the chair by the door and toed off her flats.

"There's a package on the counter," Sam called from the sink. He was rinsing rice, one hand cupped under the stream, water running cloudy through his fingers. "I think it's your book club thing."

"It's the shower curtain rings." She peered into the box. "The old ones keep popping off."

"Those aren't shower curtain rings."

"They're shower curtain rings, Sam."

He glanced over his shoulder. "That's a bath mat."

She held up the folded gray rectangle and made a sound of genuine surprise. "Huh. Well, we needed one of those too."

Sam laughed and shook the colander. He'd already put the rice cooker on the counter, the one his mother gave them two Christmases ago that they'd sworn they wouldn't use and now used four nights a week. Nadia opened the fridge, moved a container of leftover pad thai she suspected was past saving, and pulled out the chicken thighs.

"Did you take these out this morning?"

"I did. I'm a hero."

"You're a hero." She set them on the cutting board and reached past him for the soy sauce. He shifted sideways without being asked, an old choreography. The kitchen was too narrow for two people who weren't paying attention.

"Ellen asked if we're coming Saturday," Nadia said, trimming fat. "I said probably."

"Probably means yes."

"Probably means I wanted to check with you first."

"Then yes." He set the rice cooker running and started on the broccoli, snapping off the woody ends. "But we're leaving by nine. I have that call Sunday."

Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped. The rice cooker clicked. Nadia turned the burner on and stood there a moment, waiting for the pan to heat, listening to the ordinary sound of Sam chopping behind her.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Devin came through the back door, still in his work boots, tracking a little gravel onto the mat.

"Shoes," Marisol said without looking up from the cutting board.

"I know, I know." He toed them off and left them by the dryer, then came up behind her and looked over her shoulder at the pile of scallions. "Stir-fry?"

"If the chicken's thawed. I forgot to take it out until like two."

He opened the fridge and prodded the package. "It's mostly there. I can microwave the middle."

"Don't microwave it, it gets rubbery."

"Then it's stir-fry with cold spots." He set it on the counter anyway and got the good knife out of the block. "How was the thing with Karen?"

"Long. She wants the whole report reformatted, which is fine, except she told me last Thursday she liked the format." Marisol swept the scallions into a bowl. "Can you get the sesame oil? It migrated."

Devin found it behind the vinegar, wiped the sticky ring off the bottom with a paper towel, and handed it over. He started cubing the chicken while she got the wok hot, and for a minute there was just the sound of the knife and the exhaust fan, which rattled at the highest setting.

"We need to call somebody about that fan," he said.

"Add it to the list."

"The list is a myth. The list is folklore."

She laughed and threw in the garlic, and the kitchen filled with that smell. He passed her the chicken, then leaned against the counter with a beer he'd opened and didn't drink much of yet.

"Your mom called me," he said. "Asked if we were coming Sunday."

"She called *you*?"

"She's very strategic."

Marisol shook the wok. "Grab plates. We'll talk about it while we eat."


Marisol got home first, which meant she started the rice. She dumped a cup and a half into the pot, rinsed it twice the way her mother had taught her, and set it on the back burner. The apartment smelled faintly of the trash they'd both forgotten to take out that morning.

Dev came in at 6:20, dropping his bag by the door and immediately picking it up again when she gave him a look.

"Long one?" she asked.

"Chen rescheduled the review. Third time." He kissed the back of her neck on his way to the fridge. "We have chicken thighs?"

"Bottom shelf, behind the yogurt. I thought you were doing the peppers."

"I'm doing both. I'm a multitasker." He found the chicken, sniffed it, made a face that meant it was fine. "Did you defrost this?"

"This morning. You're welcome."

He set a pan heating and started slicing peppers, red and green, a little unevenly. Marisol leaned against the counter with a glass of the wine they'd opened Sunday and told him about the woman at the DMV who'd argued for twenty minutes about a form she hadn't filled out.

"Twenty minutes," Dev said. "That's dedication."

"I admired her, honestly."

The rice hissed over. Marisol lunged for it and knocked the lid onto the floor, where it spun loudly for what felt like a long time. Dev laughed. She rinsed the lid, set it back crooked, turned the heat down.

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table had a laptop and a stack of mail on it that neither of them had dealt with since Saturday. Dev put on the show they were three episodes behind on. Marisol made him pause it twice to explain who a character was.

"You always do this," he said.

"You always let me."

He didn't argue. He got up and brought her more wine.


The kitchen light was the yellow kind that made everything look warmer than it was. Dani got home first, so she started the rice, measuring it wrong the way she always did and adding water until it looked right.

Marcus came in twenty minutes later, dropping his bag by the door instead of the hook. "It's the hook," Dani said without turning around.

"I know where the hook is." He hung it up. "Traffic on Grand was insane. There's construction now, apparently, forever."

"Did you get the peppers?"

He held up a plastic bag, then paused. "I got two red ones. They were out of green."

"That's fine." She was chopping an onion, her eyes watering, and she wiped them with her forearm. "Can you do the chicken? It's in the fridge, the bottom shelf."

He washed his hands longer than necessary, which she'd noticed he did when he was tired, like he was buying himself thirty seconds. Then he pulled out the cutting board — the plastic one, not the wooden one, because they'd had an argument about salmonella in March that neither of them had won.

"Steph texted me," he said, slicing. "She wants to know if we're coming Saturday."

"To the thing at her sister's?"

"Yeah."

Dani scraped the onion into the pan. It hissed. "Do you want to go?"

"I don't not want to go."

"That's not an answer."

"It's a little bit of an answer."

She laughed. The oil popped and she stepped back, and Marcus reached past her to turn the burner down without saying anything about it, which she appreciated and also found faintly annoying.

They ate at the coffee table, because the kitchen table had mail on it, and had for eleven days. The TV played something neither of them was watching. Marcus put his feet up on the ottoman and said the rice was good, and it was, mostly.


The kitchen smelled like garlic before Nadia even set her bag down. Theo was at the stove in his work polo, sleeves pushed up, pushing sliced onions around a pan with a wooden spoon he'd burned the handle of two apartments ago.

"You're home early," she said.

"Meeting got canceled. I already started the rice." He tilted his head for a kiss and she gave him one, then went to hang her coat on the hook by the door, the one that had been loose since March.

"Did you get the chicken out?"

"It's been thawing since this morning. I texted you."

"I saw it, I just didn't believe you." She washed her hands, dried them on the towel looped through the oven handle, and opened the fridge. "We have half a bell pepper and something that used to be cilantro."

"Use the pepper. Toss the other thing."

She dumped the cilantro in the compost bin under the sink and started slicing the pepper on the cutting board that always slid unless you put a damp paper towel under it. Theo turned the burner down.

"Kelsey called," he said. "She wants to know if we're doing anything for the Fourth."

"It's April."

"That's what I said. She's making a spreadsheet."

Nadia laughed. "Of course she is." She scraped the pepper into the pan and it hissed. "Did you pay the water bill?"

"Sunday."

"Okay. I'll do the internet one this weekend."

The rice cooker clicked over to warm. Theo got two plates down, the blue ones, and Nadia moved the mail stack off the table to the counter where it would sit for another four days. They ate at the small table with the window cracked open, the neighbor's TV faintly audible through the wall, and argued mildly about whether they had enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the old Tom Petty record her dad had given her, kicked her shoes toward the closet, and stood in front of the open refrigerator for a full minute before admitting there was no plan for dinner.

Dev came in at six twenty, tie already loosened, holding a plastic bag from the corner market. "I got the chicken thighs," he said. "They didn't have the cilantro, though. The guy said Thursday."

"Parsley's fine."

"Parsley isn't cilantro."

"It's fine," she said. "Nobody's grading us."

He set the bag on the counter and started unloading. A lemon rolled toward the edge and he caught it without looking, which he always did, and which she still found unreasonably attractive after four years.

She rinsed rice while he heated the cast iron. They had a rhythm by now: he cooked meat, she handled everything green, and neither of them touched the other's pan. The kitchen was small enough that they said "behind you" a dozen times a night, half of it unnecessary.

"Your mom called me," Dev said, salting the thighs.

"About Thanksgiving."

"About Thanksgiving."

"What'd you say?"

"I said we'd talk about it." He laid the chicken down and it hissed. "She asked if we were 'still thinking about things.'"

Marisol laughed. "That's her polite way."

"I know what it is."

"Are we still thinking about things?"

"I think about things constantly," he said. "I thought about the dishwasher filter today for twenty minutes."

She flicked water at him. He didn't dodge.

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table had a laptop and two piles of mail on it, and neither of them had moved either pile in nine days. The chicken was good. The parsley was fine.

Afterward he washed and she dried, and the record ended, and neither of them got up to flip it.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dana got home, and Marcus heard her keys hit the bowl by the door before he heard her voice.

"It's freezing out there," she said, shrugging off her coat. "The heat in my car took the entire drive to work."

"You want tea?"

"I want to sit down for one minute." She did, on the arm of the couch, still in her boots. From the kitchen came the sound of a knife on the cutting board, uneven, like he was hurrying.

"There's chicken thawed," he called. "I was going to do the lemon thing."

"With the capers?"

"We're out of capers."

"So the lemon thing without the lemon thing."

"Basically."

She got up, finally, and came in to wash her hands at the sink, bumping his hip to make room. The kitchen was small enough that they'd developed a choreography without meaning to—she took the stove, he took the counter, and whoever needed the trash can announced it.

"How was Terry?" she asked, tipping oil into the pan.

"Still convinced the printer's haunted. He unplugged it for eleven minutes and it started working."

"That's not haunted, that's a reset."

"I told him that."

The chicken hit the oil loudly. She turned down the burner. He scraped the broccoli off the board into a bowl and ran water over it, then remembered they were supposed to be using the steamer basket that had been in the drawer since her mother sent it.

"Do we have parmesan?"

"Little bit. Behind the yogurt."

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table had a laptop and a stack of mail on it that neither of them had moved in six days. On the TV, a nature documentary neither was watching. Dana said the chicken was good. Marcus said the broccoli was undercooked. She said she liked it that way, and he said he knew, which was why he'd done it.

Afterward he washed, she dried, and the radiator ticked in the hall.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Denise came in through the side door, shaking rain off her coat. She hung it on the hook that had been loose since March and dropped her bag on the bench.

"It's really coming down," she said.

Marcus was at the counter with a knife, working through a bell pepper. "I heard it on the roof. Did you get the thing from the pharmacy?"

"Damn." She stopped with one shoe off. "I completely blanked. I passed it twice."

"It's fine. I'll go tomorrow, I'm out that way." He slid the pepper strips off the cutting board into a bowl. "There's wine open from Sunday if it's still good."

She poured a glass, sniffed it, made a face, and poured it down the drain. Then she leaned against the counter next to him and started peeling the garlic he'd set out, pressing each clove with the flat of the knife the way he'd shown her a few years back.

"Sherry called," he said. "She wants to know if we're coming to the thing in October."

"The wedding?"

"The shower."

"Both, probably." She scraped the garlic into the pan. It hit the oil and hissed and she stepped back. "Do we have to decide tonight?"

"No. I just said I'd tell you."

They moved around each other without much thought. He got the chicken from the fridge; she found the good tongs in the drawer with the takeout menus nobody used anymore. The window over the sink fogged at the bottom edge.

"This burner runs hot," she said, turning it down.

"Everything on that side runs hot."

They ate at the kitchen table because the dining table had a laptop and a stack of mail on it. Afterward she washed and he dried, and they talked a little about the leak in the hall closet, and then not much at all.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Dana got the door open with her elbow, groceries hanging from both hands.

"You're late," Marcus said from the stove, not turning around. He was pushing chicken thighs around in the cast iron, and the kitchen smelled like garlic and something slightly scorched.

"Bus got rerouted. There's construction on Fremont." She set the bags on the counter and started unpacking. "They didn't have the good soy sauce so I got the low sodium one."

"That's fine. We'll just use more."

She laughed and hung her coat over the back of a chair instead of putting it in the closet, which she knew he'd noticed. He always noticed. He never said anything about it anymore, which was either growth or surrender.

"Can you do the broccoli?" he asked. "I've got maybe six minutes on this."

She washed her hands and pulled out the cutting board, the plastic one with the deep knife scars from before they knew better. "My mother called."

"Yeah?"

"She wants to know if we're coming for Easter."

Marcus flipped a thigh. The oil spat. "Are we?"

"I said I'd ask you."

"So ask me."

Dana chopped the broccoli into uneven florets, some huge, some tiny. He'd complain later. "Do you want to go to Easter at my mother's house?"

"Not really. But I will." He reached past her for a lid, his hip bumping hers, and neither of them moved. "Is Gary going to be there?"

"Probably."

"Then I definitely don't want to go. But I still will."

She dumped the broccoli into the steamer basket and ran water into the pot. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped. Marcus turned the burner down and finally looked at her.

"You want to eat on the couch?"

"Obviously," she said.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Danielle came through the door, shaking rain off her jacket. She hung it on the hook by the closet, the one that had been loose for three months, and it sagged slightly under the weight.

"That hook's going to come out of the wall," Marcus said from the kitchen. He was standing at the counter in his work shirt with the sleeves shoved up, slicing a bell pepper into strips that were not quite uniform.

"You've been saying that since March."

"I'm building suspense." He slid the pepper into a bowl. "How was the thing with Priya?"

"She's fine. She wants us to come to the housewarming, but it's in Rockford, so." Danielle set her bag on the chair and looked at the stove. "Are we doing the stir-fry?"

"Chicken's marinating. There was one of those little containers of oyster sauce left in the door, but I think it's from when we made this in the spring."

She opened the fridge, found it, unscrewed the cap and sniffed. "It's fine. Sauces don't go bad."

"That's absolutely not true."

"It's fine, Marcus."

She washed her hands and started on the broccoli while he got the wok going, the burner ticking three times before it caught. The window over the sink fogged at the corners. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped.

"Did you pay the water bill?" he asked, over the sizzle.

"I did it Sunday. I sent you the confirmation."

"I didn't see it."

"I sent it to your work email by accident."

He laughed and added the chicken, which spat oil onto the back of his hand. He swore mildly and shook it out.

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table had a laundry basket on it, and neither of them moved it, and neither of them mentioned it.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the playlist she'd made in October and hadn't updated since, dropped her bag on the chair by the door, and started pulling things out of the fridge — the chicken thighs she'd moved from the freezer that morning, half a lemon wrapped in cling film, a bag of green beans that was one day from being a problem.

Dev came in twenty minutes later, still on the phone with his brother, holding up one finger. He mouthed *sorry*, set down a plastic bag from the corner store, and disappeared into the bedroom to change. When he came back out in sweatpants he said, "He's doing the thing again where he wants me to talk to Mom for him."

"Are you going to?"

"Probably. Not tonight." He looked at the counter. "You want me to do the beans?"

"If you trim them. Last time you just threw them in with the stems."

"That was a stylistic choice."

She handed him the colander. He rinsed the beans and started snapping the ends off, standing at the counter beside her while she got the pan hot. The apartment smelled like garlic and hot oil almost immediately, and the smoke detector — which they'd been meaning to move for a year — chirped once as a warning.

"Window," she said, and he reached over and cranked it open without stopping what he was doing.

They talked about nothing much. A coworker of his who kept scheduling 4:45 meetings. Whether they had enough rice for tomorrow. Her sister's birthday, coming up, and whether a gift card was too impersonal.

"It's fine," Dev said. "People like money."

"It's not money, it's a gift card."

"It's money that expires."

She laughed and turned the chicken. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped. He set the table with the mismatched forks, and they ate on the couch anyway.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the old bossa nova playlist her mother used to run through the kitchen on Sundays, dropped her bag by the shoe rack, and started pulling things out of the fridge: half an onion wrapped in cling film, a package of chicken thighs, the bag of green beans that had maybe two days left in it.

Dev came in twenty minutes later, still on the phone with his sister, mouthing *sorry* and holding up one finger. He kicked off his shoes, kissed the top of Marisol's head, and kept talking about their mother's car insurance while he washed his hands and took over the green beans, snapping the ends off into the compost bin.

"She wants me to call the adjuster," he said when he hung up. "Because apparently I'm the one who's good at talking to people."

"You are good at talking to people."

"I'm good at *not* yelling at people. It's different." He looked at the cutting board. "You want these whole or halved?"

"Halved. And can you check if we have rice? I think we're out."

They had rice, but only the brown, which took forty minutes, so they made couscous instead. Dev found a lemon in the crisper drawer that had gone slightly soft on one side and cut around it. Marisol got the chicken going in the cast iron, and the smell filled the apartment fast, the way it always did, because the vent above the stove had never worked and the landlord kept saying he'd look at it.

"Your day okay?" Dev asked.

"Long. Priya's out, so I covered the two o'clock."

"Sorry."

"It's fine." She turned the thighs over. "Set the table? Not the good plates. The other ones."

He set the table. They ate at seven, mostly quiet, the way people are when they're comfortable.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Danny came in through the side door, still in his work boots, tracking a half-moon of gravel dust onto the mat.

"Boots," Priya said, not looking up from the cutting board.

"I know, I know." He toed them off and left them by the washer, then came into the kitchen and looked over her shoulder at the pile of scallions. "That the tofu from Sunday?"

"It was going to go bad." She tipped the board into the skillet and the oil spat. "Can you check if we still have that chili crisp? I think it's behind the peanut butter."

He opened the cabinet, moved a box of instant oatmeal, found the jar with maybe two spoonfuls left. "We're almost out."

"Put it on the list."

"The list on the fridge or the list on your phone?"

"The fridge one. I never look at the phone one."

He wrote it under *paper towels* and *lightbulb for the hall*, which had been there for three weeks. Then he filled a glass at the tap and leaned against the counter.

"Ellis called," he said. "He wants to know if we're doing anything for his birthday thing."

"When is it?"

"The twenty-second. It's a Saturday."

"I have my mom that weekend." She scraped the scallions in. "You should go, though. Take the car."

"I might." He reached past her for two bowls, then set out forks instead of chopsticks, because they only had the one good pair and neither of them had done the dishes at lunch. "This smells like the place on Hollis."

"It's not going to taste like the place on Hollis."

"I didn't say it would."

They ate at the kitchen table with the mail pushed to one side, the radiator knocking, talking about nothing much—his supervisor, her sister's dog, whether the leak under the sink was actually worse. Afterward he washed and she dried, and neither of them turned on the television until almost nine.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Danielle came through the door, shaking rain off her jacket. She hung it on the hook by the closet, the one that had been loose for three months and would probably stay loose for three more.

"You beat me," she said.

"Barely." Marcus was at the counter, sleeves pushed up, cutting broccoli into pieces that were not quite the same size. "There was construction on Ferndale again. They've got it down to one lane."

"They've had it down to one lane since April."

"I'm aware. I sat in it." He slid the broccoli into a bowl. "There's a beer in the fridge if you want. I got the one you like, the grapefruit one."

Danielle opened the fridge and stood in the cold light for a moment, the way she always did, looking at everything before taking what she'd come for. "Do we still have that hoisin?"

"Back left. Behind the pickles."

She found it, wiped the sticky ring off the bottom with her thumb, and set it on the counter. Marcus moved over without being asked. She got the chicken out and started trimming it while he heated the pan, and the kitchen filled with the smell of oil and garlic and the sound of the exhaust fan, which rattled.

"Your mom called me," she said.

"Oh no."

"It was fine. She wanted to know if we're coming for Thanksgiving. I said probably, I'd have to check with you."

"We're coming for Thanksgiving," Marcus said. "I already told her that. Twice."

"Well, now she's heard it three times."

He laughed. The chicken hit the pan and hissed, and Danielle stepped back from the spatter, and outside the rain kept on against the window over the sink. They ate at the table, because they'd made a rule about it in January, and mostly they still kept it.


The rain had started around four, and by the time Marisol got home the kitchen windows were fogged at the corners. Dev was already there, still in his work shirt with the sleeves shoved up, standing over a cutting board with his phone propped against the toaster.

"You're home early," she said, hanging her coat on the hook that always threatened to pull out of the drywall.

"Meeting got canceled. I started the rice." He didn't look up. "There's like three carrots left. I don't know what happened to the rest of them."

"I put them in that soup on Sunday." She kicked off her shoes and left them by the door, which she knew he hated, and then, because she knew, she nudged them into the line with her toe. "Are we doing the stir-fry thing?"

"That was the plan. Unless you want to order."

"No, I have to stop doing that." She washed her hands and took over the carrots so he could get the chicken out of the fridge. The knife was dull. It had been dull for a year. Neither of them had bought a sharpener.

"Your mom called the house phone," Dev said.

"We have a house phone?"

"Apparently. It rang. I didn't answer it."

She laughed. The oil hit the pan and started spitting, and she stepped back, and he reached past her for the soy sauce, one hand briefly on her hip as he went by, not really thinking about it.

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table had mail on it. On the TV, a show they'd seen before played at low volume. He put his feet up. She told him about her coworker's divorce, and he said the right things at the right times, and outside the rain kept going, steady and unremarkable, into the dark.


Tuesday, 6:40 p.m. Renée got home first and had already changed into sweatpants by the time Marcus came through the door, dropping his keys in the ceramic dish they'd bought at a street fair two summers ago.

"There's a chicken thawed," she said from the couch, not looking up from her phone. "I've been staring at it since five."

"Very productive."

"I answered a work email. From the couch. That counts."

He washed his hands at the kitchen sink, which had a slow drain they kept meaning to call someone about. The chicken sat in a shallow dish on the counter, pale and unpromising. Marcus opened the fridge, assessed. Half a lemon, hardening. A bag of green beans. Most of a jar of Dijon.

"Sheet pan?" he called.

"Sure." Renée got up, pulled the oven open to check that nobody had left a pizza stone in there. Somebody had. She wrestled it out and set it on the stovetop with a clang.

"Sorry," Marcus said.

"You always do that."

"I know. I'll get better."

"You won't."

He laughed, because she was right, and started cutting the chicken into pieces while she trimmed beans, tossing the ends into the compost bin that needed emptying. They talked about small things: his coworker Dev who'd taken a job in Denver, her mother's cataract surgery scheduled for the eleventh, whether they should go to the wedding in Asheville or send a nice gift and stay home. The oven beeped that it was preheated.

"Wine?" Marcus asked.

"Half a glass."

He poured her more than half. She noticed and didn't say anything. The pan went in, the timer went on, and they stood in the kitchen with the fan running, leaning against opposite counters, the way they did most nights, waiting for the smell to change.


The kitchen light flickered once before settling, the way it had for three months now, and Dana made a note to buy a new bulb she would probably forget again.

"Did you thaw the chicken?" she called.

Marcus was still in the hallway, toeing off his work boots. "It's been in the fridge since this morning. Bottom shelf, behind the milk."

She found it, pressed a thumb against the plastic. Still cold, but soft enough. She set the package on the counter and started digging for the good cutting board, the one that hadn't warped.

Marcus came in smelling like the outside — cold air and the diesel from the lot. He kissed the side of her head, then went straight for the sink to wash his hands, elbowing the faucet on because his palms were dirty.

"Long one?"

"Bergstrom's truck came in with a bad alternator and then the guy wanted to argue about the estimate." He dried his hands on the towel hanging from the oven handle. "What are we doing with this?"

"I thought that lemon thing. With the rice."

"Do we have rice?"

She opened the pantry, moved a box of pasta aside. "We have rice."

He got the pot down and filled it, and she started cutting the chicken into strips, and for a while it was just the sounds — water, the knife on the board, the click-click-whoosh of the burner catching.

"Your mom called," he said. "She left a voicemail on the house phone."

"We still have a house phone?"

"Apparently. She wants to know about Thanksgiving."

Dana scraped the chicken into the skillet, and it hissed. "Tell her we'll come Thursday and leave Friday."

"You tell her. She likes you better."

"She likes you better. She thinks I don't feed you."

Marcus opened the fridge, looked at nothing in particular, closed it. "Should we do a vegetable?"

"There's broccoli."

"Frozen broccoli."

"It's still broccoli."

He got out the bag.


The kitchen light flickered once before settling, the way it had for three months now, and Dana made the same note in her head she made every night: buy a new bulb, or maybe it was the fixture.

"It's the ballast," Marcus said, hanging his jacket on the chair back instead of the hook by the door. "I looked it up."

"Then fix the ballast."

"That involves the breaker box." He said it like the breaker box was a distant relative he owed money to.

She had rice going already, and a package of chicken thighs sweating on the counter. He washed his hands, took the cutting board down, and started on the onion without being asked, which was one of the small mercies of living with someone for four years.

"How was the thing with Prasad?"

"Moved to Thursday." He scraped the onion into the pan and it hissed. "Which means I'm doing the deck on Saturday instead. Unless your mom's still coming."

"She said Sunday. She'll say Saturday on Friday."

"Yeah."

The chicken went in. He was heavy-handed with the paprika and she let him be, mostly. The dog, an old shepherd mix named Bunt, arranged himself directly in the traffic lane between stove and sink, and they stepped over him in turns.

"There's half a bag of that spinach," Dana said. "It's borderline."

He opened it, sniffed, made a face that meant it was fine, and dumped it in.

They ate at the counter because the table had mail on it, and neither of them mentioned the mail. He told her about a guy at work who'd started bringing a hard-boiled egg every day and peeling it at his desk. She laughed with her mouth full.

Afterward he washed and she dried, and she said, "Get the bulb tomorrow. Just try the bulb."

"It's not the bulb."

"Try it anyway."

He said he would. He probably meant it.


The rice cooker clicked over to "warm" just as Danielle came through the door, shaking rain off her jacket. She hung it on the hook by the closet, the one that had been loose since March.

"It's coming down out there," she said.

"I know. I got the mail before it started." Marcus was at the counter, sleeves pushed up, working a knife through a bell pepper with more force than necessary. "Something for you from the dentist. And a coupon book."

"Recycling."

"Already did."

She kicked off her shoes and came into the kitchen, resting a hand briefly on his back as she passed to the fridge. "Did you thaw the chicken?"

"This morning. It's in the colander." He tilted his head toward the sink. "I was going to do the thing with the soy sauce and the honey, but we're almost out of honey."

"There's a backup. Behind the vinegar."

He opened the cabinet, moved two things, and found it. "How does that get back there."

"You put it back there."

"I doubt that." He was smiling a little.

She washed her hands and started on the chicken, cutting it into strips on the plastic board while he got the oil heating. The window over the sink had fogged at the corners. Somewhere down the block a car alarm went off and stopped.

"Karen asked if we're coming Saturday," Danielle said.

"To the thing at her sister's?"

"The birthday."

He considered it, scraping the peppers into the pan, where they hissed. "I told Owen I'd help him with his fence."

"So that's a no."

"That's a maybe. Fences don't take all day."

"Yours did."

"Our fence had a tree on it."

She laughed and passed him the chicken. He stirred, and the kitchen filled up with the smell of garlic, and outside it kept raining.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to pick the music. She put on the playlist Devon claimed to hate—early 2000s R&B—and started pulling things out of the fridge before she'd even taken off her work shoes.

By the time he came through the door at six-forty, she had chicken thighs patting dry on a paper towel and the oven preheating.

"You started without me," he said, dropping his bag by the coat hooks.

"You were late."

"There was a wreck on 35." He kissed the side of her head on his way to the sink. "Also I stopped for tortillas because you texted me about tortillas."

"I texted you three hours ago."

"And I remembered. That's the impressive part."

He washed his hands and took over the cutting board, dicing an onion badly, the way he always did—chunks too big, one of them practically a wedge. She didn't say anything. She'd said something about it in year one and it hadn't taken.

"Your mom called me," he said.

"Why does she call you?"

"Because you don't answer. She wants to know if we're coming for Easter."

Marisol slid the pan into the oven and set a timer on her phone. "Did you commit us?"

"I said I'd talk to you. See how diplomatic that is?"

"Very." She leaned against the counter. "We should go. She'll make the thing with the potatoes."

The rice cooker clicked over. Devon found the good knife, then couldn't find the colander, and Marisol pointed at the dish rack without looking up from her phone. Somebody's neighbor was running a leaf blower.

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table had a laptop and a stack of unopened mail on it, and neither of them had felt like moving it. He put on a show they'd both seen. She fell asleep during the second episode, and he let the credits run a while before he woke her up.


The rice cooker clicked over to "warm" just as Dana got home, hauling a canvas bag of groceries she'd forgotten she needed until she was already at the store.

"You bought more garlic," Marcus said from the stove, not turning around. "We have garlic."

"We have one clove and it's soft."

"That's still garlic."

She set the bag on the counter and started unloading. Two heads of garlic, a bag of spinach that would probably rot, a lime because the recipe on her phone had said lime. Marcus was pushing chicken thighs around a cast-iron pan with a pair of tongs, and the kitchen smelled like paprika and something faintly burning.

"Is the fan on?"

"It doesn't do anything."

"It does a little."

He reached over and flipped the switch, and the vent hood rattled to life, doing very little. Dana leaned against the counter and pulled off her shoes, one heel against the other, and left them where they landed. Marcus glanced at them but said nothing, which she noticed, and appreciated.

"How was the thing with Priya?"

"Moved to Thursday. Which is fine, except now Thursday is insane." She found a knife and started on the spinach, trimming stems she probably didn't need to trim. "Did you call about the water heater?"

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

"That's not calling about the water heater."

"It's the first half of calling about the water heater."

She laughed, and he grinned at the pan. The chicken hissed. Outside, someone's car alarm went off for four seconds and stopped.

They ate at the coffee table with the TV on mute because neither of them wanted to decide on a show. Marcus put his feet up on the ottoman. Dana ate the crispy skin first, the way she always did, and he took the piece she left on her plate, the way he always did, and neither of them mentioned it.