The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Dana dropped in two sweaters, then took one out, then put it back.

"It's the mountains in October," Ray said from the doorway. "You'll want it."

"I know what I want." She said it lightly, and he laughed, because she'd said the same thing about the sweaters last year, and then borrowed his fleece both nights.

He went down to check the coffee maker, the stove, the back door. The house made its familiar small sounds around him — the refrigerator's hum, the radiator ticking as it woke for the season. He turned the thermostat down to fifty-eight and wrote it on a sticky note so he'd remember to explain the cold to the cat sitter.

Upstairs, Dana was arguing with the toiletry bag. The shampoo had leaked in July and she still hadn't replaced the bottle. She wrapped it in a plastic grocery sack, knotted it twice, and felt briefly, absurdly competent.

They loaded the car at ten past nine, later than planned, which was also familiar. Ray put the bags in the trunk; Dana handed down the cooler with sandwiches and two apples and the good mustard, because they always said they'd stop somewhere and then never did.

"Phone charger," she said.

"Got it."

"The one that works?"

He went back inside for the one that worked.

Then they stood a second in the driveway, both of them looking at the house — the gutter that needed cleaning, the porch light they'd left on by accident and decided to leave on anyway. The neighbor's dog barked twice and gave up.

Dana got in on the passenger side and put her feet on the dash, which he pretended to mind. Ray backed out slowly, turned at the stop sign, and the town let go of them without much ceremony, the way it always did.


Margaret found the suitcase in the back of the hall closet, behind the vacuum and a box of Christmas lights they'd meant to sort through in January. It smelled faintly of the last trip, three years ago now, before her mother got sick.

"Do you want the blue sweater or the gray one?" she called.

David was in the kitchen, unplugging the coffee maker and checking the burners twice, the way he always did. "Whichever one," he said, which she knew meant the gray. She packed both.

He'd made a list on the back of an envelope: dog to Karen's, mail on hold, thermostat down to sixty. He'd already dropped Biscuit off that morning, and the house felt too quiet without the tags jingling. Margaret kept expecting to hear them.

"Did you get the good pillow?" he asked from the doorway.

"It's in the car."

"You put it in the car already?"

"I put it in the car at seven."

He laughed, a short surprised sound. It was a two-hour drive to the coast, and they'd booked a room at a place that advertised itself as historic, which David suspected meant the plumbing would be temperamental.

They walked through the house together at ten past nine. Margaret turned off the lamp in the living room. David locked the back slider and tested it with his shoulder. She checked the stove burners again, and he didn't say anything about it.

In the driveway, he loaded the suitcase into the trunk beside the cooler with sandwiches and two cans of iced tea. Margaret buckled in and set her purse at her feet.

"Ready?" he said.

"Ready."

He backed out slowly, pausing at the end of the drive to glance at the house—the porch light they'd left burning, the crooked gutter he kept meaning to fix. Then he turned onto the road, and Margaret reached over and put her hand on his knee, and neither of them said anything for a while.


Marisol found the duffel bag in the hall closet, wedged behind a vacuum they never used and a box of Christmas lights they'd meant to throw away. She dragged it out and set it on the bed, where Dev was folding shirts with more precision than the occasion required.

"Two days," she said. "You're packing like it's a month."

"I'm packing like it might rain." He held up a windbreaker. "The forecast said forty percent."

They moved around each other the way people do after eleven years, without collision. She pulled her toothbrush from the holder and remembered, halfway to the bedroom, that she'd forgotten sunscreen, and turned back. He checked the coffee maker twice, then the stove, then the back door lock, and she didn't tease him about it because she'd stopped finding it funny years ago and started finding it something closer to comforting.

The dog went to the neighbor's at eight. Marisol handed over the leash and a bag of food while Dev idled the car at the curb, elbow out the window. The neighbor asked where they were headed and Marisol said a cabin, two hours north, nothing fancy, and realized as she said it that she was looking forward to it more than she'd admitted.

Dev had made a playlist. She discovered this eight minutes onto the highway, when a song came on that had been playing in a restaurant in Chicago in 2014, and she looked at him, and he kept his eyes on the road but the corner of his mouth moved.

"Subtle," she said.

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

She put her feet on the dashboard, which he hated, and he said nothing about it. The exit signs counted down. Somewhere behind them the house sat empty and locked and checked twice, and neither of them thought about it again until Sunday.


Marisol found the duffel bag in the hall closet, behind the winter coats, still smelling faintly of the beach trip they'd taken two summers ago. She carried it to the bedroom, where Dev was pairing socks on the edge of the mattress.

"Two nights or one?" he asked.

"One. We leave Friday after work, back Sunday afternoon." She unzipped the bag and shook it out. A grain of sand fell onto the comforter.

Dev packed his own things quickly — jeans, two shirts, the good boots, the paperback he'd been failing to finish since March. Marisol took longer, standing in front of her closet with her hands on her hips, pulling out a sweater and putting it back twice. The forecast said fifty-eight and cloudy in the mountains, which could mean anything.

They divided the rest of it without discussing much. He filled the cooler with seltzer, apples, and a hunk of cheddar from the back of the fridge. She wrote a list for their neighbor Kathy: mail, plants, the cat's medication crushed into wet food at seven. She left it on the counter under a magnet shaped like Ohio, though neither of them had ever lived there.

Friday came slow and then all at once. Dev got home first and loaded the car, wedging the cooler behind the passenger seat so it wouldn't slide. Marisol arrived at ten past five, changed out of her work clothes in four minutes flat, and did one last circuit of the house — coffee maker off, back door locked, thermostat down to sixty-two.

"Cat," she said, from the doorway.

He held up the cat, who tolerated one kiss on the head from each of them before demanding to be released.

In the driveway, Marisol adjusted the mirror while Dev queued up a playlist he'd been assembling all week. The engine turned over. They backed out past the recycling bins, and by the time they hit the highway, neither of them was thinking about Monday.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed, and Dana was losing the argument with it.

"You can't need four pairs of shoes for two days," Marcus said from the doorway, holding two travel mugs.

"I need options." She wedged in a pair of hiking boots anyway. "You packed a single duffel and I know for a fact you forgot socks."

He set the mugs on the dresser and checked. He had forgotten socks. He didn't say anything, just crossed to the drawer and grabbed three pairs while she made a small triumphant noise behind him.

They moved through the house the way they'd learned to over eleven years — she watered the ferns and unplugged the toaster, he took out the trash and checked the back door twice. The thermostat went down to sixty-two. The cat, Waffles, was already sulking under the couch, aware something was happening.

"Neighbor's coming at nine tomorrow," Dana said. "I left the food scoop on the counter and a note."

"You left three notes."

"She's ninety-one, Marcus."

The car took two trips to load. Marcus rearranged everything after Dana loaded it, which she'd expected, and she let him, which he'd expected. It was a little after seven, early enough that the street was still gray and quiet, a sprinkler ticking somewhere.

They were four blocks out when Dana said, "The garage door."

He turned around. It was closed. Neither of them mentioned it again.

The interstate opened up past the last light. Dana put her feet on the dash, which he hated, and handed him his coffee, which he loved, and scrolled until she found a station playing something from before they'd met. Two hundred miles to the lake house. Marcus set the cruise control and let his hand rest on her knee, and for a while neither of them said anything at all.


Maya found the suitcase in the hall closet, behind the vacuum and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to hanging. She set it open on the bed and started with the practical things: socks, the phone charger, the little bag of travel-sized shampoos she'd been hoarding since their last trip.

"Do I need a jacket?" Owen called from the bathroom.

"It's supposed to rain Saturday afternoon."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes. Bring the gray one."

He came out with his toothbrush still in his mouth, holding two shirts on hangers, eyebrows raised. She pointed at the blue one without looking up. He nodded and went back.

They had gotten good at this over eleven years — the shorthand, the division of labor. She packed; he handled the house. He went around unplugging the toaster and the coffee maker, checked that the back door was locked, set the thermostat to sixty-two. He texted their neighbor Denise about the mail and got back a thumbs-up and a photo of her cat, which he showed Maya, who said "cute" without meaning it much.

At nine-forty they carried everything out to the car. It was colder than either of them expected, the kind of morning where the windshield had a thin skin of frost. Owen ran the defroster while Maya went back inside for the water bottles she'd left on the counter, and then again for her sunglasses.

"That's it," she said, buckling in. "That's everything."

"You said that twice already."

"This time I mean it."

He backed out of the driveway slowly, the way he always did, watching for the neighbor kid who rode his bike in the street without looking. At the stop sign he reached over and put his hand on her knee, and she put hers on top of it, and neither of them said anything for a while, which was fine.


Maya found the suitcase in the back of the closet, still holding a paper cup from their last trip. She dumped it in the trash and set the bag open on the bed.

"Two days," Daniel called from the hallway. "That's four shirts, right? Two for each day?"

"That's how days work."

He appeared in the doorway with an armful of clothes he clearly hadn't sorted. "I'm bringing the green sweater."

"It's supposed to be seventy."

"At night it won't be."

She let it go. He folded things badly and she refolded them when he wasn't looking, and they both knew this and had agreed years ago not to discuss it.

Downstairs, Daniel emptied the coffee grounds and ran the disposal while Maya went through the refrigerator, tossing a half-bag of spinach that had turned to liquid at the bottom. She texted their neighbor Ruth about the mail. Daniel checked that the back door was locked, then checked again on his way past.

"Did you get the thing?" Maya asked.

"The reservation? It's on my phone."

"The charger for your phone."

He went back upstairs.

By nine-forty they were in the driveway. The car had been sitting since Tuesday and started slow, coughing before it caught. Maya put the bag in the trunk beside a folding chair neither of them had used since summer. Daniel adjusted the mirror, though it hadn't moved.

"Bathroom before we go?" she said.

"I'm fine."

"You always say that."

"I'm always fine."

She raised an eyebrow. He got out, went inside, came back three minutes later without comment. Maya was already scrolling for a playlist.

He backed down the driveway, stopped, looked at the house once more the way he always did. Then he turned onto the street, and the house slid out of the frame, and Maya reached over and put her hand on his knee.


The alarm went off at five-thirty, and Dana hit snooze before Marcus could stop her. Ten minutes later, he nudged her shoulder. "We said six on the road."

"We always say six," she mumbled into the pillow. "We've never once left at six."

He conceded the point and went downstairs to start the coffee. The kitchen still smelled faintly of last night's takeout, and he moved the containers to the recycling bin while the machine gurgled. Through the window, the neighbor's motion light snapped on for a raccoon.

Upstairs, Dana rolled her suitcase to the landing and started a mental inventory. Rain jacket. Hiking boots, which were somewhere in the hall closet under the vacuum. The good sunscreen, not the crusty tube from two summers ago. She found her boots, found the sunscreen, and could not find her sunglasses anywhere.

"Check the car," Marcus called up. "Driver's side door."

They were, in fact, in the driver's side door.

By six-forty they had the bags in the trunk, along with a cooler holding string cheese, two apples, a bag of pretzels, and four bottles of water. Marcus went back inside twice—once for the phone charger, once because he genuinely could not remember whether he'd locked the back slider. He had.

Dana set the thermostat to sixty-two and texted their neighbor Ruth about the mail. Marcus stood in the driveway looking at the house the way he always did before a trip, like he was memorizing it.

"It'll be here," she said.

"I know."

She took the first driving shift because she liked the empty highway before traffic thickened. Marcus handled the music and the navigation, reading the exit numbers aloud even though she knew the route. Fog hung low over the fields on either side of the interstate, and the sun came up somewhere behind it, turning everything a pale, ordinary gold.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Dana dropped in two folded sweaters, then reconsidered and took one back out.

"Are you bringing the gray one?" Marcus called from the bathroom, where he was rummaging for the travel-sized toothpaste they'd bought and immediately lost.

"I'm bringing the gray one."

"Then I'm bringing the blue."

They had been married eleven years and had developed a wardrobe diplomacy that neither of them could explain to outsiders. Dana zipped the suitcase halfway, then remembered chargers. She unzipped it.

Marcus emerged holding the toothpaste aloft like a trophy. "It was behind the contact solution. Behind, not in front. Someone reorganized."

"Someone was tired of the mess."

He kissed the top of her head on his way past, which was his method of conceding a point.

The plan was modest: two nights at a bed-and-breakfast three hours north, in a town with a bookstore and a diner they'd liked once, four years ago. No itinerary beyond that. Dana had cleared her Friday; Marcus had traded a shift.

At nine-fifteen they did the walkthrough. Marcus checked the stove twice. Dana set the thermostat, watered the fern that never seemed to need it, and left a note for their neighbor about the mail. The cat, Bertram, watched from the stair landing with the serenity of an animal who had been fed extra and knew it.

The suitcase went in the trunk. So did a canvas bag of snacks Dana had assembled without announcing it, and Marcus's jacket, which he claimed he wouldn't need.

He backed out of the driveway slowly. Dana looked at the house, its porch light still on in the daylight.

"Did we leave that?"

"On purpose," he said. "So it looks lived in."

She settled back, found a station playing something with horns, and put her feet on the dash. Two blocks later, the town gave way to road.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Marcus tossed in three shirts, then took one out, then put it back.

"You're going to overpack again," Diane said from the doorway, holding two coffee mugs. She handed him the one with the chipped handle, the one he always claimed he didn't prefer but reached for anyway.

"It's called being prepared. What if it rains?"

"It's two days. In October. In Asheville." She set her mug on the dresser and began folding his shirts properly, the way her mother had taught her, sleeves tucked in like folded wings. "Did you cancel the mail?"

"Yesterday. Did you text Karen about the cat?"

"She's coming Saturday morning and Sunday night. I left the food measured out in those little containers." Diane paused. "I also left a note about how Pumpkin hides under the guest bed when she's nervous, so Karen doesn't panic and think she escaped."

Marcus laughed. "You wrote a manual."

"I wrote a paragraph."

They moved through the house in the choreography of eighteen years: he checked the back door twice, she unplugged the toaster and the coffee maker. He carried the bag down the stairs while she made a final circuit, turning off lamps, adjusting the thermostat to sixty-two, standing for a moment in the quiet living room the way she always did before leaving, as if listening for something.

"Ready?" he called from the driveway.

"Almost." She locked the front door, tested the knob, then tested it again.

In the car, he pulled up the directions while she connected her phone to the speakers. The playlist she'd made was called *Mountains, Maybe*.

"Two days," he said, backing out.

"Two whole days," she agreed, and put her feet on the dashboard, which he pretended to mind.

The house shrank behind them. Pumpkin watched from the window until the car turned the corner, then went to sleep in the sun.


Maya found the duffel bag in the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to putting away. She dropped it on the bed and started counting out socks.

"Two nights or one?" Daniel called from the bathroom.

"One night. Two days." She heard the medicine cabinet click shut. "Don't forget your allergy stuff. The cabin's got pine everywhere."

He came out with a toiletry bag half-zipped, a toothbrush handle sticking through the gap. "I got it. Did you print the directions?"

"There's no service up there, so yes." She held up a sheet of paper, folded in quarters, already a little soft at the creases. "I also wrote down the lockbox code, because I don't trust either of us to remember it."

They packed around each other in the small bedroom, an old choreography. Daniel rolled his jeans instead of folding them, which Maya had stopped commenting on years ago. She tucked a book into the side pocket and then, after a moment, took it back out and set it on the nightstand. She wasn't going to read it. She never did.

Downstairs, Daniel emptied the coffee pot and unplugged the toaster. Maya put a bowl of water on the porch for the neighbor's cat and texted her sister the address, the way she always did.

"Trash," Daniel said.

"I did it this morning."

"Okay." He stood in the kitchen doorway with his keys, looking around like he was forgetting something, which he was, though he wouldn't figure out what until they were an hour north and he realized he'd left his good jacket on the chair.

Maya locked the front door and pulled it twice to check.

The car smelled like the cinnamon air freshener she'd bought and he'd complained about. He backed down the driveway. She turned on the radio, found nothing, turned it off.

"Ready?" he said.

"I've been ready since Tuesday."


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Marcus counted socks—four pairs for two days, which Diane pointed out was excessive, and which he defended as insurance against the unpredictable.

"You said the same thing about Asheville," she said, folding a cardigan into thirds. "You wore the same shoes the entire weekend."

"And I had backup socks. That's the point of backup."

She let it go and moved to the bathroom, sweeping toothbrushes and her contact case into a zippered pouch. Behind her, Marcus was on the phone with the neighbor, going over the thermostat and the mail and the specific way the porch light needed to be left on. Diane heard him say "just till Sunday afternoon" three separate times.

By nine they were carrying bags down the front steps. The morning had that thin autumn brightness, the kind that made everything look scrubbed. Marcus wedged the cooler behind the driver's seat while Diane checked the front door twice, then a third time, then stood there a moment with her hand flat against the wood.

"Locked," Marcus called.

"I know it's locked. I'm just having a moment about it."

He waited. That was one of the things she still liked about him, twenty-two years in—he knew when to wait.

In the car she found the podcast they'd been saving, and he backed out of the driveway slowly, the way he always did, craning to check for the Hendersons' dog. They stopped once for gas and once because Diane wanted a coffee, and Marcus got one too even though he'd said he didn't want anything.

Forty minutes out, the highway opened up and the houses thinned into fields. Diane put her feet on the dash, which he pretended not to notice.

"Two days," she said.

"Two whole days."

Neither of them said anything for a while after that, and it was fine.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Dana stood over it, holding two sweaters, weighing them against a forecast she had checked four times that morning.

"It's Vermont in October," Marcus said from the doorway. "Take both."

"Then I'll have to take the bigger bag."

"So take the bigger bag."

She took the bigger bag. He carried it down while she went through the house doing what she called the sweep — thermostat to sixty-two, coffee maker unplugged, the good knives back in the block, the bathroom window latched. She had a route she followed, always the same, ending at the front closet where she checked for the umbrella she never remembered to pack.

Marcus was in the driveway with the hatch open, rearranging things that did not need rearranging. He had already put the cooler behind the passenger seat, the one with the sandwiches he'd made at six that morning while the house was still dark — turkey for her, ham for him, both cut on the diagonal because that was how his mother had done it and he'd never questioned it.

"Did you text Renee about the mail?"

"Yesterday," Dana said. "She's coming Saturday and Sunday."

They stood a moment in the cool air. Across the street, Mr. Abernathy was dragging his recycling bin to the curb, and Marcus raised a hand, and Mr. Abernathy raised one back.

Inside the car, Dana buckled in and immediately began fiddling with the vents. Marcus backed out slowly, both hands on the wheel, the way he always did, then paused at the end of the driveway.

"Anything?" he said.

She looked at the house. The porch light was on, which was intentional. The gutters needed cleaning, which was not.

"No," she said. "Go."

He went.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Dana packed it in layers—sweaters on the bottom, because the forecast said the coast would be colder than they expected, then jeans, then the folded blue dress she probably wouldn't wear but wanted the option of wearing.

"Did you check the back door?" she called.

Marcus was in the kitchen, unplugging the toaster and the coffee maker, the small rituals he'd inherited from his mother, who had believed fervently that appliances left plugged in were house fires waiting to happen. "Checking it now," he said, and did, jiggling the handle twice.

They'd been planning this for six weeks, ever since Dana's sister offered to take the dog. Two nights in a rented cottage two hundred miles north. No agenda beyond walking on the beach and eating at the seafood place with the paper menus.

Marcus carried the cooler out first, then came back for the bag. Dana was standing in the hallway with her hand on the thermostat.

"Sixty-two?"

"Sixty," he said. "The pipes'll be fine."

She set it to sixty-two anyway, and he didn't argue, because she got cold in ways he didn't and it seemed like a small thing to concede even to an empty house.

The car smelled like the pine air freshener he kept forgetting to replace. Dana climbed in, pulled the visor down, checked her reflection out of habit rather than vanity. Marcus adjusted the mirror, though no one had moved it.

"Phone charger?"

"In my bag."

"The good one or the one that only works if you hold it?"

"The good one."

He backed down the driveway slowly, the way he always did, watching for the neighbor's kid on his scooter. At the stop sign, Dana put her hand on his knee, and they turned left toward the highway.


Marguerite found the suitcase in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of Christmas lights they'd meant to sort through in January. It smelled faintly of the last trip, two summers ago, when they'd driven to Asheville and argued about the radio the whole way.

"Two days," Desmond called from the bedroom. "You don't need the big one."

"I know how long two days is." She hauled it out anyway.

He was already folding shirts on the bed, doing the thing where he pressed each one flat with his palm like he was smoothing a tablecloth. She watched from the doorway for a second before going for her side of the dresser. Between them they filled the suitcase in about twenty minutes, which was a record.

The rest took longer. Desmond went through the house unplugging things—coffee maker, toaster, the space heater in the office—while Marguerite wrote the neighbor's kid a note about the cat, then rewrote it because the first version sounded passive-aggressive about the litter box. She left forty dollars under the sugar jar.

"Did you check the back door?"

"You checked the back door."

"I checked it, but did you?"

He checked it. It was locked.

The car was cold. Marguerite got in with the thermos and a paper bag of pastries from the place on Ninth, and Desmond backed down the driveway slowly, the way he always did, one arm over the passenger seat, looking behind him instead of using the camera.

At the stop sign he paused longer than necessary.

"Stove," he said.

"Off. I watched you turn it off."

"Okay." He pulled out onto the road.

Marguerite handed him a pastry, and he ate it one-handed, and she put her feet up on the dash, which he hated, and he didn't say anything about it for almost three miles.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Dana dropped in two folded sweaters, then took one back out.

"It's supposed to be fifty-eight tomorrow," Marcus said from the doorway, holding his phone up as evidence. He had a coffee mug in his other hand, half-finished and probably cold.

"Fifty-eight in the afternoon. It'll be forty at night when we're walking back from dinner." She put the sweater in again.

He didn't argue. He'd learned over eleven years that she was usually right about weather, and that being right about weather mattered more to her than it did to him. Instead he went down the hall to check the back door, then the front, then the stove, in the order he always checked them. Dana called it his lap around the track. He called it not coming home to a fire.

The dog was going to Marcus's sister's. That had taken three texts and a promise to bring back fudge from the little shop on the water. Dana clipped the leash on while Marcus carried the bag of kibble out to the car, and Rosie pulled him halfway down the driveway before he got the hatch open.

They dropped her off at 9:40, twenty minutes behind schedule, which was better than usual. Marcus's sister waved from the porch in a bathrobe.

On the highway, Dana put her feet on the dash and Marcus said what he always said about airbags, and she moved them, and then put them back up ten minutes later. She read him a review of the inn out loud, skipping the bad parts, then admitting there were bad parts.

"Two nights," he said. "How bad can it be."

She turned the radio to the station that would fade out around Hartford. Neither of them mentioned work. That had been the whole point.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a small unmade decision. Marisol stood over it, holding two sweaters, weighing which one Vermont in October would demand. Behind her, Dev was hunting for the phone charger he swore he'd left on the dresser, which meant it was, as always, tangled behind the nightstand.

"Found it," he announced, holding the cord aloft like a trophy.

"Take both sweaters," he added, passing behind her. "You'll complain about the cold and then wear mine."

She threw the gray one at his head. He caught it, folded it neatly, and set it in the suitcase beside his own things, which he had packed the night before in fifteen efficient minutes.

They moved through the house in a rhythm worn smooth by eleven years. Marisol emptied the coffee grounds and checked the back door twice. Dev watered the fern that had somehow survived three moves, then wrote a note for their neighbor Cheryl about the mail, the same note he wrote every time, in the same blocky handwriting.

"Did you turn off the space heater in the office?"

"I did. Did you take your pills?"

"I did."

"Both of them?"

"Marisol."

She smiled and turned off the hallway light.

Loading the car took longer than it should have, mostly because Dev insisted the cooler go in first and Marisol insisted it go on the back seat where they could reach the sandwiches. She won by simply putting it there while he was locking the front door.

He backed out of the driveway slowly, the way he always did, and she scrolled through her phone for the playlist she'd made and then forgotten to name. The neighborhood slid past, familiar mailboxes, the crooked stop sign.

At the light before the highway, he reached over and put his hand on her knee. She put hers on top of it, and the light turned green.


Maggie found the suitcase in the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a box of Christmas lights they'd meant to throw out. She set it open on the bed and started with the practical things: socks, the blue sweater, her good hiking boots because the forecast said cool and clear.

"Did you cancel the paper?" Danny called from the kitchen.

"I put it on hold Tuesday." She heard him rattling around in a drawer, then the sound of the coffee maker being unplugged. He was thorough about the coffee maker. Twelve years of marriage and he still checked it twice.

He came in carrying the phone charger she'd left on the counter and a bag of trail mix. "For the car," he said. "You get grumpy around Winchester."

"I don't get grumpy."

"Around Winchester you do."

She let it go and zipped the suitcase. Danny set the alarm on his phone for the plant sitter, then went out to the driveway and started the car so it would be warm. Through the window Maggie could see him scraping a light frost off the windshield with the edge of a credit card, having lost the ice scraper sometime last February.

She did a final walk through the house — burners off, back door locked, thermostat down to sixty. The cat looked at her from the arm of the couch with an expression of profound betrayal. She scratched behind his ears and told him the neighbor girl would be by twice a day.

Outside, Danny had already loaded the bags. He held the passenger door open, which he'd been doing since 2003, and she got in and buckled up while he came around.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready."

He backed out slowly, checking both ways, and they turned onto the road with the sun still low and the radio playing something neither of them changed.


Maya found the suitcase where it always lived, on the top shelf of the hall closet behind a stack of beach towels they hadn't used since August. She set it open on the bed and started making piles: two shirts, the good jeans, the sweater Daniel said made her look like a librarian, which she'd decided to take as a compliment.

"Do we need the sound machine?" Daniel called from the bathroom. He was scraping travel-size bottles out of the medicine cabinet, half of them expired, the way they always were.

"The hotel's on a side street. I read the reviews."

"You read reviews now."

"I read one review."

He came out with a Ziploc bag of toiletries and a look on his face she recognized. "The charger. The white one, not the braided one."

"Kitchen counter. Under the mail."

He went to check. It was under the mail.

By nine they had the car loaded — one suitcase, one canvas tote with snacks Maya had assembled the night before, Daniel's camera bag he probably wouldn't open. He walked the perimeter of the house, checking the back door twice, the stove knobs, the bathroom faucet that dripped if you didn't turn it hard.

Maya stood in the driveway with the keys, watching him through the front window doing his rounds. Nineteen years, and he still counted the burners out loud.

Their neighbor Ruth was already out with her watering can. "Two days," Maya told her. "Just the coast."

"About time," Ruth said.

Daniel came out, locked the door, tried the handle, tried it again. He got in the passenger seat and put the tote at his feet.

"Music or podcast?" Maya asked, backing out.

"Music. Then podcast. Then arguing about the podcast."

She laughed and turned onto the road, and the house got smaller behind them.


The alarm went off at five, though Nadia had been awake since four-thirty, running lists in her head. She nudged Peter, who groaned into his pillow and said he'd get up in ten minutes, which meant twenty.

By six she had the coffee going and was standing in the hallway with a duffel bag, trying to remember whether she'd packed the good hiking socks or just the thin ones. Peter came down in a flannel shirt he'd owned since before they met, carrying his boots by the laces.

"Did you cancel the mail?" he asked.

"It's two days. The mail can sit."

He conceded this and went to check the back door, then the stove, then the back door again. Nadia let him. She'd learned in eleven years that it cost her nothing and saved him an hour of worrying on the highway.

They loaded the car in the gray light — her duffel, his backpack, a cooler with sandwiches, two travel mugs, the tire pressure gauge he'd bought and never used. Peter topped off the washer fluid. Nadia texted their neighbor Diane about the cat, then texted again with the location of the food.

"Anything else?" he said.

"Phone charger."

He jogged back inside for it. She adjusted the passenger seat, found the folded printout of the cabin directions in the glove box where she'd left it, and smoothed it on her knee.

Peter got in, handed her the charger, and started the engine. The dashboard clock read 6:47. Thirteen minutes ahead of the schedule she hadn't told him about.

"Gas first," he said.

"Gas first."

They backed out of the driveway. At the corner, Nadia looked back at the house — porch light still on, which was fine, deliberate even — and then turned forward, and Peter took the on-ramp, and the sun came up somewhere behind them on the left.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed, and Tom kept putting things into it that Maureen kept taking out.

"You don't need three books for two days," she said.

"I need options."

"You'll read half a chapter and fall asleep on the porch."

He didn't argue, because she was right, and because she had already tucked one of the books back in when she thought he wasn't looking.

Downstairs, the coffee maker hissed through its last gasp. Maureen went through the checklist she'd written on the back of an envelope: thermostat down, dishwasher run, trash out, mail held. Tom carried the bag to the car and came back in for the cooler, which he had packed with two turkey sandwiches, a bag of pretzels, four seltzers, and, inexplicably, a jar of mustard.

"Why the whole jar?"

"In case."

The cat watched them from the top of the stairs with the flat indifference of an animal who had already been fed and had received assurances from the neighbor's teenage son. Maureen scratched behind her ears and told her to behave. The cat did not commit.

They locked the front door, then Maureen unlocked it again to check the stove, which was off, as it always was. Tom waited in the driveway with the keys, not saying anything about it, which she appreciated more than she said.

The car smelled faintly of last summer's beach trip. Tom backed out slowly; the Hendersons' recycling bin had migrated into the street again. Maureen plugged in her phone and pulled up the directions—two hours and forty minutes, no traffic yet.

"Bathroom stop at the halfway point," she said.

"Obviously."

At the corner, he paused longer than the stop sign required, looking back at the house with the lights off and the porch swing still.

"Forget something?"

"No," he said, and turned onto the main road.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a question neither of them wanted to answer first.

"Two nights," Dana said, holding up a third sweater. "How cold does it get in Asheville in October?"

Marcus was on his knees in the closet, digging for the good hiking boots. "Cold enough that you'll wear all three and still steal my jacket."

She threw the sweater at him. He caught it without looking, which annoyed her slightly, the way it had annoyed her for eleven years.

By seven-thirty they'd developed a rhythm. He carried bags down while she went through the house doing what he called her *lockdown sweep*: coffee maker unplugged, thermostat down to sixty-two, the leaky faucet in the guest bath given a hard twist. She'd left a note for their neighbor Renata about the mail, plus a spare key in an envelope. Marcus filled the cat's automatic feeder twice, because he never trusted it, and Dana pretended not to notice him overfilling it.

"Did you cancel the grocery delivery?" he called from the driveway.

"Wednesday. It's fine. Did you pack the charger?"

A pause. "I'm packing the charger."

They pulled out at 8:14, fourteen minutes behind Marcus's projection, which he announced without judgment. Dana had the coffee thermos between her knees and a printed map she didn't need but liked having. He merged onto the highway and set the cruise control at four over.

"I keep feeling like I forgot something," she said.

"You always feel that."

"And I'm usually right."

The sun came through the windshield at a low, gold angle. She put her bare feet on the dash, which he hated, and he said nothing about it, which she noticed. Somewhere past the county line she found a station playing music they'd both liked in 2009, and neither of them changed it.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed.

Marisol counted socks aloud while Danny stood in the closet doorway holding two shirts on hangers, one blue, one a green he'd bought in 2019 and worn maybe twice.

"The green," she said without looking up.

"You didn't even see them."

"I heard the hangers. The green one squeaks."

He folded it badly and she refolded it, and neither of them said anything about that because they'd been married eleven years and had already had that conversation roughly four hundred times.

Downstairs, the coffee maker gurgled through its last cycle. Danny went and unplugged it, then checked the back door, then checked it again, then stood a moment in the kitchen doing the mental inventory he always did—stove off, windows shut, thermostat down to sixty-two. He texted their neighbor Priya about the mail. She sent back a thumbs up and a photo of her cat.

"Did you pack the charger?" Marisol called.

"Which one."

"The one that matters."

He found it tangled behind the nightstand, still warm.

By nine forty they were carrying bags to the driveway. It was late October and the air had that clean cold edge to it, leaves stuck flat to the concrete from last night's rain. Danny loaded the trunk while Marisol stood on the porch, keys in hand, doing her own final scan through the front window. Then she locked the deadbolt and jiggled the handle.

In the car she put her feet on the dash, which he hated, and he said nothing, which she noticed.

"Two days," she said. "No email."

"No email," he agreed, and backed down the driveway slowly, watching the house get smaller in the mirror until the maple at the corner swallowed it whole.


Marcy found the duffel bag in the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to putting away. It smelled faintly of the lake house they'd rented three summers ago.

"Do we need the good pillows?" Dev called from the bedroom.

"It's a hotel. They have pillows."

"They have flat pillows."

She heard him rummaging anyway. By the time she came in, he'd rolled two pillows into the bottom of the suitcase like contraband, and she decided not to fight it. Instead she counted out socks, two pairs each, plus one extra because Dev always managed to step in something.

The house needed settling before they could leave. Marcy watered the fern by the kitchen window, the one that had survived four years of neglect through sheer spite. Dev unplugged the toaster, the coffee maker, the lamp with the frayed cord he kept promising to replace. He left one light on in the living room, on a timer, the way his father had taught him.

"Did you text Priya about the mail?"

"Twice," Marcy said. "She's picking it up Saturday."

At eight-fifteen they carried everything to the driveway. The morning was gray and cool, dew sitting on the windshield. Dev loaded the trunk while Marcy checked the front door twice, then a third time, jiggling the handle until she believed it.

In the car, she programmed the address into her phone. Two hours and forty minutes northeast, a small inn near the coast, booked back in February when the winter had felt endless.

Dev backed out slowly, one arm across her headrest, and paused at the end of the driveway to look back at the house.

"Stove?" he asked.

"Off. I checked."

"Okay." He pulled onto the road.

Marcy rolled her window down two inches and let the cold air in, and neither of them said anything for the first few miles, which was fine.


Marissa found the suitcase in the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to hanging. She hauled it into the bedroom and dropped it on the bed with a thud that made Dev look up from his phone.

"Two nights," he said. "You don't need the big one."

"I need the big one." She unzipped it anyway, then paused. "Fine. Get the carry-on."

He got the carry-on. They packed around each other in the narrow space between the bed and the dresser, trading places without discussion — she pulled socks from the top drawer while he reached past her for a sweatshirt, then he stepped back so she could get to the closet. Twelve years of this had made them efficient in a way that would have looked, to a stranger, almost choreographed.

"Did you cancel the mail?" she asked.

"I put a hold on it Tuesday. Did you text your sister about the plants?"

"She has a key."

Downstairs, Dev emptied the coffee pot and unplugged the toaster while Marissa did a walk-through: lights off, thermostat down to sixty-two, back door locked, front door locked, stove knobs checked twice because she always checked twice. He waited by the front door with the bag and her jacket over his arm.

The car needed gas. They stopped at the Shell on Bridgeport Road, and while Dev pumped, Marissa went inside and came back with two coffees and a bag of pretzels she set on the console between them.

"Peanut butter filled," he said.

"I know."

The interstate was thin on traffic. She put her feet on the dash, then took them down when he glanced over. Forty minutes in, the hills started, brown and gray with a few stubborn patches of green, and neither of them said anything for a while, which was fine.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Dana stood over it with a stack of folded shirts, counting under her breath. Two nights, three shirts—one extra, because she always spilled something.

"Did you charge the camera?" she called toward the bathroom.

Ben appeared in the doorway, toothbrush in his mouth, holding up the camera with its little green light blinking. He set it on the dresser and went back to the sink. She heard the tap run, then stop, then run again.

They had been planning this for six weeks, ever since Ben's sister offered to take the dog. A cabin two hours north, near a lake that would still be too cold for swimming in early May. Dana had printed the directions anyway, because the last time they trusted the phone they'd ended up on a gravel road behind someone's barn.

By nine-thirty the coffee was in travel mugs and the thermostat was set to sixty-two. Ben carried the suitcase down while Dana walked through the house doing what she called the last look: stove knobs off, back door locked, the sink empty. She turned off the lamp in the living room and stood a moment in the gray light, listening to the house settle.

Outside, Ben was rearranging the trunk. He'd brought the cooler, the folding chairs, and a bag of firewood he insisted they'd need even though the cabin listing said firewood was provided.

"We're not building a fort," Dana said.

"You'll thank me Saturday night."

She got in the passenger seat and put her feet on the dash, then took them down again because he hated that. He climbed in, adjusted the mirror, and looked over at her.

"Ready?"

"I've been ready since March."

He backed out of the driveway slowly, checking twice for the neighbor's cat, and they turned north.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a small, patient mouth. Dana packed with the efficiency of someone who had done this a hundred times: two shirts, one sweater, the good jeans, the toothbrush she'd bought specifically to live in the travel bag and never migrate back to the bathroom.

"Do we need the umbrella?" Marcus called from the hallway.

"It's supposed to be clear."

"That's what they said in April."

She heard him rummaging in the closet anyway, the clatter of the coat hangers, and smiled at the ceiling. He came in a minute later with the umbrella and set it beside the bag, not saying anything, and she didn't say anything either, which was the whole architecture of nineteen years.

Downstairs he emptied the coffee pot and unplugged the toaster. She went room to room turning off lights they'd only have to turn on again in forty-eight hours. The cat, Winston, watched from the stair landing with the expression of an animal who understood betrayal and had already forgiven it. The neighbor's daughter had the key; there was a note on the counter with the food measurements underlined twice.

"Did you bring the phone charger?"

"Both of them."

"Both of them," Marcus repeated, approvingly, as if she had produced a rabbit from a hat.

He carried the bag out to the car. She locked the front door, tried the handle, tried it again. In the driveway the October air had a bite to it and the sky was that hard bright blue that comes after rain.

He backed out slowly. At the stop sign at the end of the street he said, "Did you—"

"I turned it off."

"Okay."

She found a station playing something from a decade neither of them would admit to loving, and rested her hand on his knee, and they drove.


Maya found the suitcase in the hall closet, still faintly smelling of the beach trip they'd taken two summers ago. She hauled it onto the bed while Daniel stood at the dresser, holding up two flannel shirts.

"The green one," she said without looking.

"You didn't even see them."

"I know which ones you own."

He laughed and folded the green one into the case. They packed the way they always did—Maya rolling her clothes into tight cylinders, Daniel layering his flat and getting annoyed when she pressed hers on top and flattened everything anyway. Two nights, one inn near the lake, a reservation for dinner Saturday at a place with a name neither of them could pronounce confidently.

Downstairs, Daniel emptied the coffee pot and unplugged the toaster. Maya wrote a note for their neighbor Trish, who was coming to feed the cat: *Mo eats at 7 and 6, don't believe him when he says otherwise.* She stuck it to the fridge under a magnet from Nashville.

"Do we have the thing?" Daniel called. "The confirmation?"

"On my phone. And printed, because I know you."

They did the last walk-through together, room by room, a ritual that had started after Maya's grandmother left an iron on for a week. Stove off. Windows locked. Thermostat down to sixty-two. The cat watched from the stair landing, unimpressed.

Daniel carried the suitcase out and set it in the trunk beside the cooler with sandwiches and two seltzers. Maya locked the front door, jiggled the handle twice, then jiggled it a third time.

"It's locked," he said.

"I know."

She got in the passenger seat and pulled up the directions. Three hours and eleven minutes, no traffic yet. Daniel backed out of the driveway slowly, the way he did, checking both mirrors.

"Ready?" he asked.

Maya reached over and turned the radio on. "Been ready since Tuesday."


Maya found the suitcase in the hall closet, wedged behind a box of holiday lights they'd never gotten around to putting away. She hauled it to the bedroom and unzipped it on the bed while Daniel stood at the dresser, holding up two shirts.

"The blue one," she said without looking.

"You didn't even see them."

"I know which two shirts you own that you'd consider for a nice dinner."

He conceded and folded the blue one, then went to the bathroom to gather the small things—toothbrush, contact solution, the ibuprofen because his knee had been acting up since spring. Maya packed her side of the suitcase in a system he'd never understood: shoes in the corners, rolled clothes in the middle, a plastic bag for anything worn.

"Did you email Kathy about the mail?" he called.

"Two days. We don't need the mail held for two days."

"The package."

She paused. "Right. I'll text her."

By nine-fifteen the suitcase was zipped and standing by the front door. Daniel went through the house with the checklist he kept in his head: coffee maker unplugged, stove knobs at zero, back door bolted. Maya filled the cat's water fountain to the brim and set out two extra bowls of food, then knelt and apologized to the cat, who was unmoved.

He carried the suitcase out to the driveway and set it in the trunk beside the cooler. She came out with a paper bag of snacks and her travel mug and locked the door behind her, testing the knob twice.

In the car she plugged in her phone and pulled up the directions—three hours and change, with one stop for gas.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Wait." She got out, went back, and checked the door once more. Then she returned, buckled in, and nodded. He backed down the driveway and turned toward the highway.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed, and Denise kept walking past it, adding things. A second sweater. The good hairbrush. A paperback she'd been meaning to start since March.

"You're bringing three pairs of shoes for two days," Marcus said from the doorway. He had a coffee mug in one hand and the printed reservation confirmation in the other, because he didn't trust his phone to have service in the mountains.

"Two pairs. The boots are for driving."

"That's three."

She zipped the bag without answering, which he'd learned after eleven years meant he'd won the point and lost the argument. He carried it down to the car anyway, setting it in the trunk beside the cooler he'd packed with sandwiches and the seltzer she liked, the lime kind that nobody else in the house would drink.

Upstairs, Denise did the walkthrough. Coffee maker unplugged. Thermostat down to sixty-two. She left the porch light on a timer and the lamp in the front room, then texted their neighbor Ruth about the mail. In the kitchen she found Marcus's reading glasses on the counter and put them in her purse without mentioning it.

He was checking tire pressure when she came out, crouched by the rear passenger side in his jacket, breath fogging. October had arrived overnight.

"We good?" she asked.

"We're good."

She locked the front door, tried the handle twice, then walked down the driveway and got in. The seat was cold. Marcus started the engine and the radio came on mid-sentence, some man discussing a bridge closure downtown.

"Left at the end," she said, "then take 9 instead of the highway. It's longer but it's prettier."

"It's twenty minutes longer."

"We have two days."

He considered this, put the car in reverse, and backed out onto the quiet street. At the stop sign he turned left.


Marisol found the duffel bag in the hall closet, behind the winter coats, and set it on the bed with the zipper already half open. Outside, the maple in the front yard was going the color of an old penny.

"Two nights or one?" Dev called from the bathroom.

"One night. Two days." She counted socks. "Bring the gray sweater. It gets cold by the lake after dark."

He came out with a toiletry bag and a bottle of Advil he shook like a maraca. "For your knee," he said, and she didn't argue, which was its own small kindness.

They moved around each other the way people do after fourteen years — she folded, he stacked, neither narrating. Dev filled the dog's bowl twice over even though the neighbor's teenager was coming to feed her. Marisol checked the stove knobs, then checked them again, then let Dev check them a third time because he liked being asked.

The cooler took longer than the clothes. Hard-boiled eggs, a wedge of cheddar, the good mustard, two apples that were more decorative than edible. He wanted gas station coffee on principle. She wanted to leave before the highway thickened.

At 8:40 they carried everything out. The trunk lid needed a hip check to close. Dev walked back to the porch, tried the knob, came back down the steps.

"Locked?"

"Locked."

Marisol got in and adjusted the mirror he'd moved on Tuesday. Dev buckled in and handed her the aux cord like a peace offering.

"Two hours and change," he said.

"If you don't stop at every farm stand."

"One farm stand."

The dog watched from the window as the car backed out. Marisol lifted two fingers off the wheel — a wave to nobody in particular — and they turned north, into the low morning glare, the cooler shifting once behind them and then settling.


Marisol found the duffel bag in the back of the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a broken humidifier they kept meaning to throw out. She set it on the bed and started making piles: two shirts, jeans, the good sweater, the sandals she'd bought last spring and worn twice.

"Do we need the cooler?" Dev called from the kitchen.

"It's two days."

"That's not a no."

He brought it anyway, along with a grocery bag of pretzels, two apples, and a sleeve of those cookies he liked and pretended he didn't. Marisol watched him wedge it all into the trunk beside the bag and laughed at him, and he shrugged without apology.

They went through the list she'd written on the back of an envelope. Thermostat down. Coffee maker unplugged. The neighbor, Rosalie, had the spare key and instructions for the cat, who was currently sitting in the empty duffel bag's former spot, radiating disapproval.

"Did you email yourself the reservation?" Marisol asked.

"I have it. It's on my phone."

"Screenshot it. There's no service past the ridge."

He took the screenshot. She checked the back door twice, then a third time, and he waited by the car without comment because after eleven years he knew that the third check was part of it.

The morning was gray and cool, the kind that would burn off by ten. Dev backed down the driveway while Marisol scrolled for a playlist and gave up, settling on the radio. At the stop sign at the end of the street, she reached over and put her hand on his knee, and he covered it with his own for a second before shifting gears.

"Two days," she said.

"Two whole days."

They turned onto the highway, and the house behind them settled into its quiet, the cat already asleep in the sun on the kitchen floor.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a shallow boat, and Renata kept adding things to it—a second cardigan, the paperback she'd been failing to finish since March.

"It's two days," Owen said from the doorway. He had his own bag already zipped, a canvas duffel that had been to a dozen weddings and one funeral.

"Two days and a night, and the forecast says fifty-one at the coast."

"Fifty-one is a cardigan, not two cardigans."

She put the second cardigan in anyway. He didn't argue, because arguing about cardigans was how you turned a nice weekend into a long silence somewhere around Sacramento.

The house had to be handed over to its brief solitude. Owen went through the ritual: thermostat down to sixty, coffee maker unplugged, the back door checked twice because he never trusted it the first time. Renata watered the fern that would die anyway and left a note for the neighbor about the mail, though the neighbor had done this four times before and needed no note.

"Did you take out the trash?"

"Doing it."

He carried the bag to the curb in his socks, which she saw through the kitchen window and decided not to mention.

At 9:40 they were in the driveway. Renata drove first; that had been settled years ago, without discussion, the way most things had. Owen fed the address into the phone and it told them three hours and eleven minutes, which meant three and a half with the stop at the place that sold the good almonds.

She backed down the driveway and paused at the bottom, both of them looking at the house—porch light on, a small deliberate lie to anyone passing.

"Anything?" she said.

He patted his pockets. Wallet, keys, phone. "Nothing."

"Okay," Renata said, and turned onto the street, and the house slid out of the mirror.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Marguerite stood over it, folding a cardigan for the third time, while Dev carried in the cooler from the garage and set it by the door with a hollow thunk.

"Two days," he said. "You've packed for a week."

"It gets cold at night up there." She didn't look up. "You always steal my blanket in the car."

"I do not steal it. It migrates."

He went into the kitchen and started emptying the refrigerator of anything that would turn on them—half a carton of milk, some strawberries going soft at the edges. He ate the strawberries standing at the sink, which he knew she hated, and she came in and took one from his hand without a word and ate it too.

They had a system, refined over eleven years. Marguerite handled the itinerary and the confirmation numbers. Dev handled tires, oil, and the mysterious business of making sure the thermostat wasn't set to heat an empty house all weekend. She watered the fern by the window. He carried the bags out and arranged them in the trunk with a precision that annoyed her, since she would have simply thrown them in.

At ten past nine she stood in the doorway doing the ritual inventory aloud: stove off, back door locked, coffee maker unplugged, keys in hand. Dev waited in the driveway with the engine running, one arm out the window, watching her go back in twice—once for her sunglasses, once for a reason she declined to explain.

She got in and pulled her seatbelt across. He handed her the aux cord like a formal offering.

"Ready?"

"Almost." She reached over and smoothed a piece of his hair that had been standing up since he woke. "Now."

He backed out slowly, and the house watched them go, small and quiet and theirs, shrinking in the mirror until the corner took it.


Maya found the suitcase in the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to storing properly. She hauled it into the bedroom and unzipped it on the bed, releasing a faint smell of hotel soap from a trip two summers ago.

"Two nights," Daniel called from the bathroom. "How many shirts is that?"

"Three. In case you spill something."

"I spill things once."

"You spilled things twice in October."

He appeared in the doorway holding a toiletry bag, conceding nothing but taking a third shirt from the closet anyway. Maya folded her clothes in the tight rolls she'd learned from a video, and Daniel piled his in loose stacks, and neither of them said anything about it because they'd been married eleven years and that argument had run its course sometime around year four.

She went downstairs to deal with the kitchen. The milk had four days left, so it stayed. The half-cut cantaloupe went into the trash, and she took the bag out to the bin at the curb because two days was long enough for it to start announcing itself. Daniel followed her out with the cooler, then came back for the phone charger he'd left plugged in beside the bed, then came back a second time for his sunglasses.

"Did you text Rosalind about the mail?"

"Yesterday. She's got the key."

They stood in the front hall doing the last inventory — wallet, keys, the printed confirmation Daniel insisted on despite having it on his phone. Maya turned the thermostat down two degrees. Daniel checked the back door twice.

Outside, the morning was gray and cool and smelled like somebody's cut grass. He put the suitcase in the trunk; she took the driver's seat first because she liked the first hour best. At the stop sign she looked over, and he was already scrolling for something to play.


The suitcase sat open on the bed for three days before either of them put anything in it.

Friday morning, Dana finally surrendered to it. She folded two sweaters, a pair of jeans, the blue dress she'd bought in March and never worn. From the bathroom came the sound of Michael rummaging through the drawer where travel-sized things went to die.

"Do we still have that toothpaste?" he called.

"The little one? I think it expired."

"Toothpaste doesn't expire."

"Everything expires."

He appeared in the doorway holding a shampoo bottle that had crusted shut. She laughed at him, and he shrugged and tossed it toward the wastebasket. It missed.

They'd booked the cabin in October, back when two nights away had seemed like a reasonable thing to arrange. Then the furnace went, and Dana's sister came to stay, and Michael's project at work stretched into something with no visible end. Twice they'd almost canceled.

By nine they were carrying things to the car. Michael did the loading, wedging the cooler behind the driver's seat, checking the tire he'd been meaning to check since Thanksgiving. Dana went back inside twice — once for her charger, once because she couldn't remember whether she'd shut off the coffee maker. She had.

The neighbor's dog barked at them through the fence. Dana waved at it out of habit.

"Directions?" Michael asked, buckling in.

"Two and a half hours. There's construction near the county line."

"There's always construction near the county line."

He backed out slowly, the way he always did, and paused at the end of the driveway to look at the house. The gutters needed clearing. The porch light was still on.

"We can get it Sunday," Dana said.

He nodded and turned onto the road, and neither of them said anything for a while, and the quiet was a good one.


Marta found the duffel bag in the back of the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a box of Christmas lights they'd never sorted out. It smelled faintly of the last trip, two summers ago, when they'd driven to the coast and argued about directions the whole way.

"Do you want the blue sweater or the gray one?" Dev called from the bedroom.

"Blue. It's supposed to rain Saturday."

He appeared in the doorway holding both. "It's supposed to rain Saturday and be seventy on Sunday. I'm bringing both."

She didn't argue. He packed the way he did everything, thoroughly and slightly too slowly, folding each shirt as though it mattered. Marta preferred to roll things and shove them in. Twenty-two years in, they'd stopped trying to convert each other.

She went through the kitchen, emptying the coffee pot, checking the stove twice, moving the milk to the front of the fridge so it wouldn't get lost behind the leftovers. Dev came down with both bags and set them by the door, then went back up for the phone chargers he'd forgotten, as he always forgot them.

"Did you text Renée about the mail?" he asked.

"Yesterday. She's coming Saturday morning."

The house had that particular stillness of a place about to be left. Marta turned the thermostat down to sixty-two. Dev locked the back slider, then rattled it, then rattled it again.

In the driveway he put the bags in the trunk while she got in the passenger side and adjusted the seat, which he'd moved when he drove to the hardware store on Tuesday. He slid in beside her, checked his mirrors, and set his coffee in the cup holder.

"Two days," he said.

"Two days." She found the map on her phone, though they both knew the way.

He backed down the driveway. At the stop sign she reached over and put her hand on his knee, and he covered it with his, and then the light changed and they went.


Marcus found the duffel bags in the basement, still smelling faintly of the beach trip they'd taken three summers ago. He carried them upstairs to find Diane pulling clothes from the dresser and holding them up to the light, evaluating.

"It's just two days," he said.

"It's two days in October in Vermont. I need layers." She folded a fleece pullover into the bag with the efficiency of a woman who had packed for four children and now packed only for herself.

He counted out his own things—two shirts, jeans, the good sweater she'd given him for Christmas, socks. He forgot the toothbrush and remembered it fifteen minutes later, standing in the bathroom doorway watching her sweep her makeup into a zippered pouch.

"Did you call the Petersons about the mail?"

"Yesterday. And I stopped the paper."

Downstairs, Diane went through the kitchen, emptying the coffee pot, checking the burners twice the way her mother had. Marcus took the trash out to the curb because pickup was Tuesday. The morning was cool and blue, and their neighbor's maple had turned the color of a struck match.

They loaded the car together. He took the bags, she took the cooler with the sandwiches and the thermos and the little bag of pretzels she always brought, though neither of them ever ate them.

"Thermostat," she said.

"Sixty-two. Already done."

She locked the front door and tested the knob. In the driveway she paused, looking back at the house—the gutters he'd meant to clean, the pumpkin she'd bought on Saturday sitting crooked on the step.

"It'll be here when we get back," Marcus said.

"I know."

He backed out. She found the folder with the reservation confirmation, then set it in the glovebox and left it there. At the stop sign at the end of their street, she reached over and put her hand on his knee, and he covered it with his own, and they turned left toward the highway.


The suitcase had been open on the bed since Thursday, collecting things in layers. Dana kept adding to it—two sweaters because the forecast said fifty-eight but she never believed forecasts, the good shampoo, a paperback she'd been meaning to start since March. Marcus watched the pile grow and said nothing, then quietly removed one sweater when she went to check the mail.

"I saw that," she said from the hallway.

"It's a two-day trip."

"It's a two-day trip in October."

They compromised, which meant the sweater went back in.

Saturday morning came gray and cool. Marcus was up first, moving through the kitchen in his socks, running the coffee maker and rinsing out the two mugs from the night before. He set the thermostat down to sixty, then back up to sixty-two, thinking of the pipes and the fact that they'd only be gone until Monday morning. Dana came down with her hair still damp, holding her phone.

"The inn confirmed. Check-in's at three."

"That's four hours of driving and we're leaving at nine."

"So we'll stop somewhere."

He liked when she said that. They didn't stop enough.

The last twenty minutes were the usual scramble. Dana couldn't find her sunglasses and found them in the car. Marcus went back inside twice—once for the phone charger, once because he wasn't sure he'd locked the back door. He had. Their neighbor Ruth waved from her porch and promised to bring in any packages.

Dana took the first shift driving. Marcus adjusted the passenger seat back a notch and put his coffee in the cupholder, where it would sit untouched until it went cold.

"Okay," she said, backing out. "Two days."

"Two days."

She turned onto the main road, and the house slid out of the mirror behind them.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed, and Dana kept walking past it with single items—a phone charger, a paperback she wouldn't read, one sock whose partner had vanished into the household's mysterious sock economy.

"You're doing the thing," Marcus said from the doorway.

"What thing?"

"Where you pack one object every four minutes."

She threw the sock at him. He caught it, found its match in the dryer downstairs, and brought both back like a man presenting evidence.

They were going to Asheville, only three hours south, two nights at a bed and breakfast Dana's coworker had recommended with unsettling enthusiasm. It was their first trip alone since Marcus's mother had gotten sick two Octobers ago, and neither of them said that out loud, though it sat in the car with them later like a third passenger.

By nine they had the essentials: clothes, toothbrushes, the good coffee because neither trusted a stranger's carafe. Marcus took out the trash and turned down the thermostat. Dana texted their neighbor about the mail and stood in the kitchen doing the mental inventory—stove off, doors locked, plants watered—until Marcus put a hand on her back and said, "It's off. I checked twice."

The car smelled like the vanilla air freshener he'd bought as a joke in 2019 and never replaced. Dana claimed the aux cord. Marcus backed out of the driveway and paused at the end of it, the way he always did, looking at the house.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing. It looks nice from here."

It did. The porch light was on, the hydrangeas were finally doing something, and the whole thing looked like a place where people were happy, which, most days, was accurate.

She put on the playlist she'd made in secret two weeks ago. He recognized the first song and laughed, and they drove out of the neighborhood toward the highway with the windows down.


Marcy found the duffel bag in the hall closet, behind the winter coats and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to putting up last December. She hauled it out and set it on the bed, unzipped, mouth open like a hungry animal.

"Two nights or one?" she called down the hallway.

"One night, two days," Ray said from the bathroom, where he was digging through the drawer for the travel-size toothpaste. "Same as we said."

"Same as we said." She counted out socks anyway, an extra pair for each of them, because she'd learned that from a hike in Vermont eleven years ago and had never unlearned it.

Ray came in with a Ziploc bag of toiletries and a bottle of ibuprofen he shook once, like a maraca, before dropping it in. He looked at the bed. "You packed my green shirt."

"You like the green shirt."

"I like it. I didn't ask for it."

"So don't wear it."

He kissed the side of her head and went to check the back door, then the stove, then the back door again. Marcy watered the fern in the kitchen window, tipped a scoop of extra food into the cat's bowl, and left a note for the neighbor girl on the counter with a twenty underneath it.

At 8:40 they carried everything out. The morning was gray and still cool, the driveway damp. Ray put the duffel in the trunk and Marcy put a canvas tote of snacks and a thermos in the back seat, then thought better of it and moved the thermos up front.

"Phone charger," she said.

"Got it."

"Reservation number?"

"In my email. In my head, too."

She got in. He backed out slowly, watching for the neighbor's dog, and then they were down the street and turning east, and neither of them said anything for the first few miles, and it was fine.


Marguerite found the suitcase in the hall closet, behind the vacuum and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to hanging. It smelled faintly of the last trip, three years ago now, before her mother got sick.

"Do we need two, or can we share?" she called.

Theo appeared in the doorway holding a pair of hiking boots by their laces, considering. "Share. It's two nights. One night, really—we're driving back Sunday afternoon."

They packed on the bed, which was the only surface large enough. He rolled his shirts the way his father had taught him; she folded hers flat and slid them along the edges. Twice she took something out that he'd put in—a third pair of socks, a paperback he wouldn't read—and twice he put it back without comment.

The cabin was in the Poconos, a two-and-a-half-hour drive if the traffic on I-80 cooperated, which it wouldn't. Marguerite made coffee for the road while Theo carried the bag down and wedged it behind the driver's seat. He checked the oil, then the tires, then the oil again, because he had already forgotten looking.

At nine-fifteen she stood in the kitchen with her hand on the light switch, running the list. Coffee maker off. Thermostat at sixty-two. Back door locked, front door locked after them. The neighbor had a key and instructions about the mail.

"Did you unplug the space heater?"

"I unplugged the space heater."

She flipped the switch anyway and came out into the gray October light, pulling the door shut behind her and testing the knob twice.

Theo was already in the passenger seat, having decided, apparently, that she was driving. She got in, adjusted the mirror he'd left too high, and handed him the coffee to hold.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay," he agreed, and she backed out of the driveway.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a question neither of them wanted to answer first.

"Two nights," Marcus said, holding up a third shirt. "Not two weeks."

Dana didn't look up from the closet. "You always get cold at night. Bring the flannel."

He brought the flannel. She packed her own bag with the efficiency of someone who'd learned, over eleven years, that overthinking was a luxury reserved for people without a Friday checkout time.

Downstairs, the coffee maker was still on. Marcus unplugged it, then checked the back door twice, the way his mother used to. Dana wrote a note for the neighbor about the mail and taped it to the storm door, where Renee would see it when she came for the plants.

"Did you cancel the grocery delivery?"

"Yesterday." Dana zipped her bag. "Did you tell your brother we'd be out of range?"

"There's cell service in Asheville, Dana. It's not the moon."

They loaded the car in the gray light of six-forty in the morning, October air sharp enough to wake them both up. Marcus took the driver's seat out of habit; Dana took the aux cord out of self-defense. She'd made a playlist. He'd made a spreadsheet of restaurants, which she'd mocked and then, privately, appreciated.

At the end of the driveway he stopped.

"Did you—"

"The iron's unplugged. The iron was never plugged in. We haven't ironed anything since 2019."

He laughed and pulled onto the road. The house shrank in the mirror, dark-windowed and patient, holding their ordinary life for them until Sunday. Dana pressed play. Marcus reached over without looking and put his hand on her knee, and she covered it with hers, and for the first eleven miles neither of them said anything at all.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a small, patient animal. Dana kept adding things to it—an extra sweater, the paperback she'd been meaning to finish, a travel-size bottle of the good conditioner—and Marcus kept quietly removing the sweater when she left the room.

"It's two days," he said, when she caught him.

"It gets cold at night up there."

"It's June."

She put the sweater back. He let it go.

By nine they had the checklist working: Marcus took out the trash and dragged the bins to the curb, since pickup was Friday and they wouldn't be back until Sunday afternoon. Dana texted their neighbor, Priya, about the mail, then set the thermostat to seventy-eight and unplugged the toaster, a habit inherited from her grandmother and defended fiercely on no evidence whatsoever.

They argued mildly about snacks. Marcus wanted to stop at the gas station on the way out; Dana had already packed almonds, two bananas, and a bag of pretzels into a canvas tote, plus a thermos of coffee that she filled while the machine gurgled its last.

"You can still get your jerky," she said.

"I appreciate the permission."

Loading the car took ten minutes and one small crisis when Marcus couldn't find the phone charger, which turned out to be in his back pocket. Dana walked through the house one last time—lights off, stove off, back door locked, the tap in the guest bathroom that sometimes dripped given a decisive twist.

She locked the front door and pulled the handle twice.

"It's locked," Marcus said from the driveway.

"I know." She pulled it a third time.

Then she was in the passenger seat with the thermos between her knees, and he was backing down the driveway, and the house shrank in the mirror. Dana rolled her window down. The morning smelled like cut grass and warm asphalt.

"Two days," she said.

"Two whole days," he agreed, and turned toward the highway.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Marcus dropped in three shirts, then took one back out.

"You're going to want that one," Diane said from the closet doorway. "The blue. It's supposed to be sixty-two on Saturday."

He put it back. She was already dressed for the drive—jeans, the cardigan with the loose button she kept meaning to fix—and she moved past him to the dresser, pulling out socks she rolled into tight pairs the way her mother had taught her.

Downstairs, the coffee maker gurgled its last. Marcus went through the house doing what he called the sweep: thermostat down to sixty, back door locked, the timer on the living room lamp checked twice. Diane emptied the vegetable drawer into a grocery bag for the neighbors and wrote a note about the mail.

"Did you cancel the Thursday delivery?" she called.

"Wednesday. And yes."

They loaded the car in two trips. The overnight bags went in the trunk, the cooler behind the driver's seat where Diane could reach it, and the paper map Marcus insisted on bringing though neither of them had unfolded one in years. He set it on the dash anyway.

She locked the front door. He waited in the driveway with the engine running, watching her try the knob twice, then a third time, the way she always did.

"It's locked," he said when she got in.

"I know it's locked."

He backed down the driveway. At the stop sign she found the radio station that came in clearly until the county line, and he put his hand on her knee without looking over, and the house shrank behind them in the mirror, small and dark and holding nothing they needed for the next two days.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a question neither of them had answered yet.

"Two days," Marisol said, holding up a third sweater. "Not two weeks."

Danny took it from her hands and set it back in the drawer. "You always get cold at night."

"Then I'll steal yours." She zipped the bag before she could reconsider, then went to check the thermostat, nudging it down to fifty-eight. Outside, the November sky over their block in Dayton had that flat pewter look that meant nothing would happen weather-wise all weekend.

Danny was in the kitchen, emptying the coffee pot and running water into it. He'd already taken the trash out and texted their neighbor Renee about the mail. Now he stood in front of the open refrigerator, holding a half-carton of milk with a doubtful expression.

"Bring it," Marisol called from the hallway. "We'll put it in the cooler."

"There's no cooler."

"There's a cooler in the garage."

There was, in fact, a cooler in the garage, buried under a folded tent they hadn't used in four years. Danny dug it out, wiped the inside with a paper towel, and set the milk in it along with the leftover chicken and a lime that had been in the crisper drawer since the beginning of time.

They did a last pass through the house together, out of habit more than necessity. Stove off. Curling iron unplugged. Bathroom window latched. Marisol paused at the back door to look at the yard, the picnic table with its skin of wet leaves.

"It'll still be there Sunday," Danny said.

"I know."

He carried the bags out. She locked the deadbolt and tested it twice, then climbed into the passenger seat and put the coffee cups in the holders while he backed down the driveway.

At the stop sign, she reached over and put her hand on his knee, and he covered it with his own before turning right.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Diane folded a sweater into it and paused, listening to Marcus rummaging in the hall closet, muttering about the good travel pillow.

"It's in the car," she called. "You put it there Tuesday so you wouldn't forget it."

A moment of silence. Then: "That was smart of me."

They had been married eleven years, long enough that packing had become a kind of choreography. Diane handled clothes and toiletries; Marcus handled everything he called logistics, which mostly meant checking tire pressure and downloading maps he would never look at. Two days in a rented cabin two hours north—not far, not exotic, but away.

At nine-forty they were still not gone. Marcus watered the fern by the window, which Diane had privately given up on. She wrote a note for their neighbor Ruth about the mail and taped it to the storm door, then peeled it off and rewrote it because her handwriting had gotten sloppy at the end.

"Coffee for the road?" Marcus asked, holding up the thermos.

"Obviously."

He filled it while she did the last loop: lights, stove knobs, the back door, the thermostat nudged down to sixty. The house took on that hollow, expectant quality it got when they were leaving it.

Outside, the October air was cold enough to see. Marcus loaded the bags into the trunk and shut it with a satisfying thunk. Diane got into the passenger seat and immediately started fiddling with the vents.

"Did you lock the front?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Did you actually—"

She held up the key and jingled it. He backed out of the driveway slowly, the way he always did, and at the stop sign at the end of their street he reached over and squeezed her knee. She put her hand over his, and they turned north.


The suitcase lay open on the bed like a mouth waiting to be fed. Marcus tossed in three shirts, then took one back out.

"Two days," Renata called from the bathroom. "You packed for a week last time."

"Last time it rained." He held up a sweater, considering. "Vermont in October is a coin flip."

She came out with her toiletry bag, hair still damp, and set it beside his pile. "The heater in the cabin works. I called."

"You called the cabin?"

"I called the owner. Her name is Dot. She sounded like someone's grandmother, which either means it's charming or there's a taxidermied deer in the living room."

Marcus laughed and zipped the bag. Downstairs, the coffee maker had finished its cycle twenty minutes ago and gone cold. Renata poured it out anyway, rinsed the carafe, checked the back door twice. Marcus carried the suitcase down and went back up for the phone chargers they'd both forgotten.

At the front door they ran through it: stove off, thermostat down, lights on timers, key under the flowerpot for Renata's sister, who was coming Saturday to feed the cat. The cat watched from the stair landing with obvious contempt.

"Litter box," Renata said.

"Did it this morning."

"You did?"

"I do things."

The car smelled like the pine air freshener he'd bought as a joke in August. Renata programmed the address while Marcus backed out of the driveway, then stopped halfway to look at the house — that automatic pause, the mental sweep for anything burning.

"We're fine," she said.

"We're fine," he agreed, and pulled into the street.

Three miles later she found the playlist she'd made two nights ago and didn't mention making. He recognized the first song and said nothing, just reached over and put his hand on her knee, and they drove north into the thin gold light of the afternoon.


Marguerite found the suitcase in the back of the closet, still holding a Michigan road map from a trip they'd taken four summers ago. She set it on the bed and unzipped it, and the smell of that old vacation came out — sunscreen, cedar, something faintly like lake water.

"You're not packing already," Desmond called from the bathroom. "We don't leave until nine."

"It's eight-forty."

He came out with his toothbrush still in his mouth, looked at the clock on the nightstand, and went back in without arguing. She could hear him spitting, then running the water, then the small clatter of him gathering razor and comb and the pills he took for his blood pressure.

They were going to a rented cabin two hours north, two nights, back Sunday evening. It had been Desmond's idea, floated in March and nearly abandoned twice. Marguerite folded two sweaters she probably wouldn't need. He appeared with his toiletry bag and dropped it in beside them.

"Did you call about the mail?"

"Held it Thursday," she said.

"And the thermostat."

"Sixty-two."

He nodded, satisfied, and went to check it anyway. She let him. Downstairs he filled two travel mugs, put a bag of pretzels and four clementines in a canvas tote, and stood a moment looking at the coffee maker as if it might follow them out.

Marguerite came down with the suitcase bumping each stair. Desmond took it from her at the bottom without being asked and carried it to the car. She locked the back door, tried the handle twice, then walked out into a morning that was colder than she'd expected.

He was already behind the wheel, adjusting the mirror. She got in, buckled, and handed him his mug.

"Ready?"

"Go," she said, and he backed down the driveway.


The alarm went off at five-fifteen, and Maren hit it before the second chirp. Beside her, Daniel groaned into the pillow and said, "It's still night."

"It's Friday," she said. "The cabin's four hours away and I want lunch on the deck."

He rolled up eventually. While she showered, he made coffee in the travel mugs and burned the first two pieces of toast, which he ate anyway, standing over the sink. The dog, who was going to the neighbor's, watched him with mournful interest and got a crust.

They'd packed the night before, mostly. Maren discovered her rain jacket was still in the hall closet at the old apartment—no, she remembered, they'd moved four years ago; it was in the garage, in the bin labeled WINTER. Daniel found it while she double-checked the coffee maker, the stove, the back door, the stove again.

"You checked the stove twice," he said.

"That's how checking works."

He carried the duffels out. She carried the cooler, which he took from her halfway down the walk because she was tilting sideways. Mrs. Alvarez next door was already awake with the porch light on, and they handed over the dog, the leash, the bag of food with instructions written on masking tape.

In the car, Maren plugged her phone in and Daniel adjusted the mirror she'd moved when she drove Tuesday. He backed out slowly. At the stop sign at the corner, he braked and said, "Passports."

"It's Vermont."

"I know. It's a joke I always make."

"It's not a joke, it's a phrase you say."

They stopped for gas at the station on Route 9, and Daniel bought two bad donuts and a bag of pretzels for later. The sun came up somewhere past the second exit, throwing orange across the windshield, and Maren put her bare feet on the dash and read the exit signs out loud for a while, until she didn't.


The Hendersons had been planning the trip to Asheville for six weeks, ever since Dana found the cabin listing and sent it to Marcus at work with the subject line "please."

Friday morning arrived gray and cool. Marcus was up first, as always, standing in the kitchen in his socks, waiting on the coffee maker and scrolling through the weather forecast. Sixty percent chance of rain Saturday. He decided not to mention it yet.

Dana came down at seven with her hair still wet, dragging the good duffel bag. "Did you take the trash out? It's pickup day."

"Doing it now." He set down his mug.

They divided the house the way they always did. Dana handled the thermostat and the timers on the lamps, texted her sister to confirm she'd stop by to feed the cat on Saturday afternoon. Marcus checked the back door twice, unplugged the toaster, and hauled the bins to the curb in the drizzle, coming back in with damp shoulders.

The packing took longer than it should have. Dana couldn't find the phone charger that lived in her nightstand, and Marcus found it in the car, where he'd left it Tuesday. She rolled her eyes at him. He apologized in the exaggerated way that made her laugh instead of stay annoyed.

By nine-fifteen they were loading the car. Two bags, a cooler with sandwiches and a bottle of wine, Dana's pillow because hotel pillows gave her a headache. Marcus backed out of the driveway and stopped halfway down the street.

"Did you lock the front door?"

"Yes." Dana paused. "I think."

He put it in park. She got out, jogged up the walk in the light rain, and came back grinning. "Locked."

"You're sure."

"I'm sure."

He pulled onto the main road. Dana propped her feet on the dash, found a station they both tolerated, and they headed west, the wipers going every few seconds, the whole weekend still ahead of them.


Marguerite found the recipe card in the shoebox where they kept old receipts and expired coupons, the ink gone brown at the edges. Twenty-five years ago she had copied it down from her mother's kitchen wall in Baton Rouge, and twenty-five years ago tonight she had cooked it badly for a man she barely knew.

"You're not making that again," Desmond said from the doorway. He had his reading glasses pushed up into his gray hair and a grocery bag hanging from one hand.

"I am. I've had a quarter century to practice."

"You burned the roux."

"You ate it."

"I was in love." He set the bag down and started unpacking it—andouille, a bunch of parsley, the good butter she never bought for herself. He'd been to three stores; she could tell by the receipts he always left crumpled on the counter like evidence.

They cooked together in the small kitchen of the house they'd bought in Dayton eleven years ago, the one with the radiator that clanked all winter. Desmond chopped onions badly, the way he always had, uneven chunks she'd have to fish out later. Marguerite stirred the roux and watched it darken past blond, past peanut, toward chocolate.

"Kayla called," she said. "Wanted to know if we were doing anything special."

"What'd you tell her?"

"I said we were staying in."

He laughed at that, low, and reached past her for the wooden spoon, and she let him take it. She dried her hands and went to the dining room to light the candles they'd bought for a dinner party that got canceled two years back.

When she came back he was tasting from the spoon, frowning, considering.

"Well?"

"It's better," Desmond said. "It's not right yet. But it's better."

Marguerite took the spoon from him and tried it herself.


Marta got home first, which almost never happened. She stood in the kitchen still wearing her coat, looking at the counter where she'd left the note that morning — *Don't eat, I'm cooking* — and realized she had no idea what she'd meant by that. Cooking what. She'd been thinking about the hospital budget meeting all day.

She was defrosting chicken thighs under the tap when Dev came in, stamping snow off his boots.

"You beat me," he said.

"The meeting ended early. Everyone gave up."

He set a paper bag on the table. Inside was a bottle of the Portuguese wine they'd had in Lisbon eleven years ago, the trip where he'd gotten food poisoning and she'd sat on the bathroom floor with him reading aloud from a guidebook to a city they never saw.

"You remembered," she said.

"I remembered *you* remembered. You mentioned it in October." He took the chicken from her and started patting it dry. "Sit. You've been standing since six."

"You've been standing since six."

"I sit at meetings. That's different."

She let him take over the stove and set the table instead, the good plates, the cloth napkins that lived in a drawer and came out maybe twice a year. Twenty years. It seemed like a number that should have arrived with more ceremony, but the truth was they'd talked about going out and both quietly hated the idea — the parking, the noise, the waiter's performed enthusiasm.

The chicken came out too dry. They ate it anyway, with the wine, and Dev told a long story about his brother that she'd heard before and didn't stop him telling.

Later, doing dishes side by side, he said, "Twenty more?"

"Let's see how the chicken goes next time," Marta said, and handed him a plate.


The Anniversary

Dana got home first, which almost never happened. She stood in the kitchen still wearing her coat, looking at the counter where she'd left the note that morning — *Nothing fancy. I mean it.* Marcus had underlined "fancy" twice and drawn an arrow to the word, which she took to mean he'd already ignored her.

She found the evidence in the refrigerator: two ribeyes on a plate, covered in plastic wrap, seasoned hours ago. He'd salted them before work. That was the kind of thing he did.

"You're early," he said from the doorway.

"Kessler canceled. Nobody wants a deposition the Friday before Memorial Day." She hung up her coat. "You said nothing fancy."

"Steak isn't fancy. Steak is Tuesday." He was already pulling the cast iron down from the hook, and she noticed he'd changed out of his work clothes into the gray henley with the hole in the elbow, which she'd threatened to throw away eleven separate times.

"Eleven years," she said.

"Twelve." He didn't look up.

"Eleven since the courthouse. Twelve since the thing at your sister's."

"The thing at my sister's counts."

Dana opened the wine, a Malbec they'd been saving since Christmas without ever agreeing on what they were saving it for. She poured two glasses and set one by the stove, out of splatter range, where he'd remember it and then forget it and then find it lukewarm an hour later.

She sliced tomatoes. He turned the steaks. Somewhere in the middle of it, the kitchen filled with smoke and they had to open the window over the sink, and Marcus fanned a dish towel at the smoke detector while Dana laughed at him from a safe distance, wine in hand, the evening turning out exactly as unremarkable as she'd asked for.


The Fifteenth

Dana got home first, which almost never happened. She stood in the kitchen with her coat still on, looking at the counter she'd wiped that morning, and decided against the fancy thing. Fifteen years didn't need a tasting menu. Fifteen years needed the chicken with the lemon and the too-much garlic, the one she'd made the first night in this house when the stove was the only appliance that worked.

Marcus came in at 6:40, stamping snow off his boots, holding a paper bag against his chest like a football. "I got the wine," he said. "The guy talked me into something Portuguese. Twelve dollars. He swore."

"I got the chicken going."

He stopped in the doorway. "You did the chicken."

"I did the chicken."

He set the bag down and kissed the side of her head, then went to change out of the shirt he'd worn to a day of meetings about a merger he'd been assured wouldn't affect him. She heard the closet door, the hangers. She turned the oven light on and looked at the skin browning.

They ate at the kitchen table because the dining room had become where the mail lived. Marcus poured the Portuguese wine, which was fine, better than fine, and they argued pleasantly about whether their first apartment had been on Ashland or Ashwood.

"Ashland," she said. "The one with the radiator that clanked."

"They all clanked."

Afterward he washed and she dried, and then they sat on the couch with the last of the bottle and didn't turn on the television. Outside, the plow scraped down the street and lit the ceiling orange for a second.

"Fifteen," Marcus said.

"Fifteen."

He took her hand, turned it over, pressed his thumb into her palm the way he had since they were twenty-four and broke.

"Next year," she said, "we do something."

"Sure," he said. Neither of them meant it.


Marcus found the good tablecloth in the hall closet, still folded around a faint crease from last Thanksgiving. He shook it out over the kitchen table while Diane stood at the stove, moving chicken thighs around a pan with a wooden spoon.

"Twenty years," she said. "That's a long time to put up with someone."

"You've held up okay."

She flicked a look over her shoulder. "I meant you putting up with me."

"I know what you meant."

They had agreed on no gifts, no restaurant. The Chens next door had offered to take the dog for the night, which was gift enough. Outside, February dark had come early and settled over the driveway, the neighbor's basketball hoop, the two cars parked nose to tail.

Diane had made the same dish she'd made the first time she cooked for him, in an apartment in Cleveland with a stove that only worked on two burners. She'd burned it then. This time she checked the thermometer twice.

Marcus opened the wine, poured it into the glasses they'd received as a wedding present from her aunt Rosemary, who had died four years ago. Six of the eight remained. He set them down carefully.

"Sit," Diane said, bringing the pan over. "Don't hover."

They ate slowly. She told him about the argument at the clinic over the new scheduling software. He told her their son had called during lunch, needing money, but only a little, and had asked about her hip.

Afterward they didn't put on music or a movie. They stacked the dishes in the sink and left them. Marcus turned off the overhead light and they sat in the yellow lamplight, finishing the wine, saying less and less as the evening went on.

"Same time next year?" she asked.

He reached over and put his hand on her knee.