The list was Priya's, written on the back of a Chase envelope while she waited for coffee to brew. Daniel had added two things in his cramped engineer's handwriting: *batteries (AA)* and *the good peanut butter, not the sugar one.*

They left the apartment at nine-thirty, later than they'd meant to. The car needed gas, so they stopped at the Shell on Whitmore, and Priya went inside to use the restroom while Daniel pumped. He watched the numbers climb past forty dollars and made a face at no one.

Kroger on a Saturday was a slow-moving war. Priya took the cart because Daniel steered it like a shopping cart was a personal insult, drifting into displays. He walked ahead of her, holding his phone, reading her list back to himself.

"Do we need eggs? I feel like we always need eggs."

"We have eight."

"That's not a lot of eggs."

"Daniel."

He put a carton in anyway. In the cereal aisle he found the batteries hanging on a side hook, which he announced like a discovery. Priya squeezed avocados one by one and rejected all of them, then took two of the ones she'd rejected because the alternative was going to the other store.

At checkout, the card reader failed twice before the cashier told them to try inserting slowly. Bagging took longer than it should have because Daniel insisted on packing the cold things together.

They stopped at the dry cleaner's for his gray suit, then at the hardware store for a furnace filter, where Daniel spent six minutes comparing MERV ratings while Priya sat on a stack of mulch bags and answered a text from her sister.

At home they carried everything up in two trips. Priya put away groceries; Daniel changed the filter and left the old one on the porch, meaning to throw it out later. He forgot. She noticed and said nothing, for now.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus held it, because Dana had discovered years ago that if she carried the list she would follow it in order and if Marcus carried it he would wander into the bakery aisle and come back with something neither of them needed.

"Milk," he read, in the parking lot. "Two percent or whole?"

"Whole. You're the one who complained last time."

"I complained once."

Inside, the store was in that Saturday-morning state where the aisles were crowded but everyone still had energy about it. Dana took the cart. Marcus drifted a step behind, reading, calling out items in a flat voice like a bailiff. Coffee. Onions. Chicken thighs, not breasts, because Dana had opinions.

At the deli counter she took a number and they stood together, watching the man behind the glass slice turkey with an expression of deep concentration.

"We should get the good cheese," Marcus said.

"We have cheese."

"We have the orange rectangle."

"That's cheese."

He got the good cheese. She let him.

They argued mildly about paper towels — the store brand had gone up forty cents, which offended Dana on principle — and then compromised by buying it anyway. At checkout, Marcus bagged while Dana paid, and they did it efficiently, the way people do after eleven years, without discussing who does what.

The rest of the morning was the rest of the morning. Dana returned two library books that were four days late and paid the fine without arguing. Marcus stood in line at the hardware store for a furnace filter and the correct size of washer for the kitchen faucet, which had been dripping since Tuesday, and which he intended to fix that afternoon and would probably actually fix by Sunday.

At home they carried the bags in together, two trips, and Dana put the milk away while Marcus flattened the boxes for recycling.

"That's everything," she said.

"We forgot eggs."

"You had the list."


By ten-thirty on Saturday, Nadia had already stripped the bed and started the first load of laundry, while Peter stood in the kitchen writing the grocery list on the back of an envelope because the pad had gone missing again.

"Do we need eggs?" he called.

She came in holding a pillowcase. "We have four. But you'll eat three tomorrow."

"So eggs." He wrote it down. "Coffee. Those tortillas you like."

They took her car because his had the recall notice sitting unopened on the dash. The dry cleaner was first — Peter's gray suit, which he'd worn to his cousin's wedding in April and hadn't touched since. The woman behind the counter remembered them and asked about the dog they didn't have. Nadia realized, too late to correct it, that they'd been confused with someone else, and she just nodded.

The grocery store was crowded near the entrance, where a folding table of Girl Scouts had set up. Peter bought two boxes of Thin Mints without asking. Nadia rolled the cart through produce, pressing avocados with her thumb, rejecting three.

"They're all rocks," she said.

"Get the rocks. They'll be fine Wednesday."

They split up in the middle aisles, which they'd learned was faster, and met near the dairy case. He had bread, coffee, a jar of pickles she hadn't asked for. She had chicken thighs and a rotisserie bird for that night.

The self-checkout scanner refused the tortillas twice. Peter waved the little light on until a teenager in a green vest came over and typed something.

At home they carried the bags in, four in one trip, and Nadia moved the laundry to the dryer while Peter put things away wrong — cans in the wrong cabinet, the way he always did. She fixed it later, without saying anything, and put the kettle on.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of April weather that couldn't commit. Dana was already up, standing at the kitchen counter in her college sweatshirt, writing a list on the back of an envelope.

"We need laundry detergent," Marcus said, coming in behind her. He'd slept in until nine, which for him counted as a luxury.

"Already on there. What about coffee? Are we low?"

He checked the canister, shook it. "Enough for maybe three days."

She added it. By ten they were in the car, the recycling bin rattling in the trunk because Marcus had forgotten to take it out on Thursday. They dropped it at the transfer station first, then hit the hardware store for a furnace filter and a package of picture hangers Dana had been meaning to buy for two months.

The grocery store was crowded. Marcus pushed the cart while Dana went ahead, holding up two brands of pasta sauce for his opinion.

"The one on the left," he said.

"You didn't even look."

"I looked. It's cheaper."

She put the left one in the cart. In the produce section they debated whether the strawberries were worth six dollars—Dana said no, Marcus said the kids at his sister's birthday party would eat them—and bought them. At checkout, Dana remembered she'd forgotten bread and jogged back while Marcus loaded the belt.

They unloaded the car together in the driveway, three trips each. Dana put things away while Marcus took the old furnace filter down to the basement and swapped it. He came back up with dust on his shoulder.

"You've got—" She brushed it off.

"Thanks." He looked at the clock. It was one-fifteen. "Lunch?"

"There's leftover chicken."

"That works."

Outside, it finally started raining in earnest.


The list was Denise's, written on the back of a receipt in her small, slanted handwriting, but Marcus was the one holding it in the cereal aisle, squinting.

"Does that say 'shredded' or 'sharp'?" he asked.

"Sharp. For the chili."

"You wrote it like a doctor."

They had left the house at nine-thirty, later than intended, because Denise couldn't find her keys and Marcus had insisted on running the dishwasher before they went. First the hardware store, for the furnace filter and a package of lightbulbs, then the dry cleaner's, where the woman behind the counter remembered Marcus's name and he could never remember hers. Now the grocery store, which on a Saturday morning was a slow river of carts and toddlers.

Denise pushed while Marcus fetched. She had a system — produce first, then the perimeter, then the middle aisles — and he had learned in eleven years not to fight it. He came back with two kinds of tortillas because he couldn't remember which she'd bought last time, and she put the flour ones back without comment.

At the deli counter they waited for number forty-two. Marcus leaned on the cart handle and told her about a coworker's ongoing feud with a neighbor over a fence line, and Denise laughed at the part about the surveyor.

"We need eggs," she said.

"Got them."

"You got one dozen. Your mother's coming Thursday."

He went back for another.

In the parking lot the wind had picked up. Marcus loaded the bags into the trunk while Denise wrangled the cart into the corral, and then they sat in the car for a minute with the heat running before pulling out.

"Bank?" he asked.

"Monday," she said. "I want to be home before the game starts."

He turned left onto Ridgeway, toward home.


The list was Maren's, written on the back of an envelope from the gas company, but David was the one who carried it into the store, folded into thirds like something official.

"Bananas," he said.

"Not the green ones. The ones that are almost too far gone."

"You want brown bananas."

"I want bananas that taste like something." She was already three feet ahead of him, testing a bunch with her thumb. They had been married eleven years and had learned to shop like two people running a small, inefficient business — overlapping duties, occasional disputes over jurisdiction.

The morning had gone the way Saturdays went. He'd taken the recycling out at eight, then spent forty minutes at the hardware store buying a replacement flapper for the upstairs toilet, which had been running intermittently since Christmas. She'd stripped the beds and gotten one load through the wash and had discovered, in the process, that the dryer sheet box was empty, which had gone onto the envelope in the margin.

At the deli counter she ordered a half pound of turkey and he wandered off toward the cereal without announcing it, which annoyed her, though not enough to say so. He came back with a box of the raisin bran she liked and a box of the sugary one he liked and set them both in the cart without comment, the way a man might lay down a card.

"We have cereal," she said.

"We have your cereal."

The total was $114.62, more than either of them expected, though they always said that. In the parking lot he loaded the trunk while she pushed the cart to the corral, and on the drive home they argued mildly about whether the flapper would actually fix the toilet, and whether they should call somebody, and he said give me one more Saturday, and she said fine.


The list was Marguerite's, but Dev held it, because she'd been holding it in the car and had gotten ketchup on the corner from the drive-through fries.

"Bananas," he read.

"Not the ones on top. They're all bruised."

He dug into the pile while she steered the cart out of the way of a man in a Bills jersey. The Wegmans on Saturday morning was a slow-moving river of carts, and they had already lost twenty minutes to the pharmacy line, where Dev's allergy refill hadn't been ready.

"Coffee," he said.

"We have coffee."

"We have the last third of a bag of coffee, which is the part I don't like."

She let him win that one. He wandered off toward the aisle with the whole beans while she stood by the deli counter and took a number, 47, and watched the woman behind the glass slice turkey in translucent sheets. When he came back he had two bags of coffee and a package of the seeded crackers his mother liked, because his mother was coming Thursday.

At the register Marguerite bagged and Dev paid and they both pretended not to look at the total, which was ninety-one dollars for what felt like nothing.

In the parking lot the wind came up off the flat asphalt and blew the receipt out of the bag. Dev chased it two rows and caught it against the tire of somebody's minivan, and Marguerite laughed at him from behind the open trunk.

They still had the dry cleaning to pick up, and Dev wanted to stop at the hardware store for a furnace filter. She said fine, but she was going to sit in the car.

At home, unloading, she found they'd forgotten eggs. It was on the list. Dev said he'd go back after lunch. He did not go back until Sunday.


The list was Marguerite's, but Dev had added three things to it in his cramped handwriting: batteries, dish soap, "the good bread, not the sad kind."

They left the house at nine-thirty, later than they'd meant to, because Dev had discovered the recycling bin was overflowing and insisted on breaking down boxes first. Marguerite waited in the car with the radio on, watching him stack cardboard in the driveway with more precision than the task required.

Their first stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter, which took eleven minutes and involved a mild disagreement about sizes. Dev was certain it was 16x25. Marguerite had photographed the old one in October specifically to avoid this conversation. She showed him the picture. He said nothing, which she took as victory.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturdays always were. Marguerite pushed the cart; Dev roamed ahead, returning with things like a jar of green olives nobody had requested. She let the olives stay. In produce, they debated whether the avocados were too hard, and settled on buying two of each stage of ripeness, which was what they always did and which never quite worked.

At the deli counter Dev took a number and then forgot to listen for it, so they lost their place and had to take another. Marguerite used the time to check whether they needed coffee. They did.

The total was $147, which Dev announced with the flat surprise of a man who announces it every week.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Marguerite realized they'd forgotten the dish soap. Dev offered to go back in. She said don't bother, they had half a bottle. He went anyway, and came back with dish soap and a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels, and she didn't say anything about that either.

They were home by noon.


On Saturday morning, Dana woke first and let the dog out while the coffee brewed. By the time Marcus came downstairs, she had already written a list on the back of an envelope: milk, eggs, coffee filters, something for dinner Tuesday, cat litter.

"We need trash bags," Marcus said, rubbing his eyes. "The big ones. I used the last one Thursday."

She added it. They ate toast standing at the counter, then split the morning up the way they usually did—he took the recycling out to the bins and swept the porch, she stripped the bed and started a load of sheets. Around ten they drove to the hardware store, where Marcus stood for a long time in front of the furnace filters trying to remember whether they needed sixteen-by-twenty-five or twenty-by-twenty-five. Dana called the measurement out from a photo on her phone, which she had taken in January for exactly this reason.

The grocery store was crowded. Dana pushed the cart while Marcus went off for the deli counter number, and they met again in produce, where they disagreed briefly about whether the strawberries were worth six dollars. They bought them. Marcus insisted on a rotisserie chicken, arguing it counted as dinner and also as lunch tomorrow. In the cereal aisle he put back a box she'd picked up and reminded her, gently, that she never actually finished it.

At the register Dana bagged while Marcus loaded the belt, and they got out for eighty-three dollars, which felt like a small victory. In the parking lot the sun had gotten warm. They ate a few strawberries in the car before pulling out, straight from the plastic clamshell, and Marcus admitted they were pretty good.

At home, the laundry buzzer was going. Dana carried the sheets up while Marcus put away the cold things.


The list was on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like a lobster from a trip to Maine six years ago. Dana pulled it down and studied Wes's handwriting, which sloped uphill.

"You wrote 'stuff for the thing,'" she said.

Wes looked up from tying his shoe. "The thing at Marcus's. Chips or something. Whatever people bring."

"So chips."

"Or that dip you make."

"That dip requires eight ingredients, none of which are on this list."

They took his car because hers still had the check-engine light on, a problem they had been not-solving for three weeks. At the hardware store, Wes spent eleven minutes in the plumbing aisle comparing two nearly identical faucet aerators while Dana wandered to the paint chips and brought back a fan of grays.

"For the hallway."

"That one's blue."

"It's called Morning Fog."

"It's blue, Dana."

She put it back but kept two others in her pocket.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturdays make it crowded, carts abandoned mid-aisle, a sample table of cheese cubes. They split up—she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles—and reconvened near the bread, comparing hauls like foragers.

"You got the wrong yogurt."

"It was on sale."

"It's the kind with the fruit at the bottom. I hate the fruit at the bottom."

"You've never mentioned that in nine years."

"I've mentioned it constantly."

He went back for the plain yogurt. She stood with the cart and read the ingredients on a box of crackers without absorbing any of it.

In the parking lot the sun had gotten warm enough that they both squinted. Wes loaded the trunk while Dana returned the cart to the corral, which she insisted on and he considered optional. Driving home, they passed the car wash and agreed, without much conviction, to come back later.

They didn't.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus held it, which was how they usually did things.

"We need eggs," she said, steering the cart around a display of discounted patio furniture that had appeared in the middle of the aisle, as it did every March.

"It says eggs. I can read." He crossed it off anyway, with the pen he kept clipped to his shirt pocket like a man twenty years older.

They'd already been to the hardware store for a furnace filter and a package of picture-hanging strips, and to the dry cleaner, where the woman behind the counter had asked about their dog. Marcus had told her Rufus was fine, which was mostly true; the vet wanted to see him again about the limp.

In the produce section Dana squeezed avocados with a seriousness Marcus found funny and had learned not to comment on. He wandered toward the bakery and came back with a loaf of sourdough she hadn't asked for.

"That's four dollars more than the regular bread."

"It's better bread."

She let it go into the cart. This was a longstanding arrangement between them, unspoken, where each was allowed a certain number of unnecessary purchases per trip without argument.

At checkout, the self-scan station rejected the wine until an employee came over and glanced at Dana's license without really looking at it. In the parking lot the wind had picked up. Marcus loaded bags into the trunk while Dana returned the cart to the corral, because she said it bothered her when people didn't, and he said he'd do it, and she said she was already going that way.

Driving home, she remembered they'd forgotten paper towels.

"We have some under the sink," Marcus said.

"Half a roll."

"That's some."

She didn't turn around, and neither did he suggest it. The furnace filter rattled in the back seat all the way home.


The list was on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like a lobster, and Dana pulled it down while Ray was still lacing his shoes in the hallway.

"We need coffee," she said. "You wrote coffee but you crossed it out."

"I crossed it out because I thought I'd found some in the back of the cabinet. It was decaf."

"Whose decaf?"

"My mother's, probably. From Christmas."

They took his car because hers was blocking the driveway and neither of them felt like the choreography of moving it. At the hardware store Ray bought a furnace filter and stood for a while in front of the light bulbs, comparing wattages, while Dana looked at the seed packets by the register even though it was February and the ground outside was still frozen hard as a countertop.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturdays are crowded. Dana pushed the cart. Ray went off after the coffee and came back with a bag of the good kind, the whole bean, and she made a face at the price and he put it in the cart anyway.

They disagreed briefly about bread. He wanted the sourdough; she pointed out that half a loaf of sourdough had gone green in the breadbox two weeks ago. They got the sourdough. In the produce section she squeezed avocados and handed him the two that seemed close to ripe, and he held them while she bagged apples.

At the checkout the woman ahead of them was arguing about a coupon. Ray started unloading the cart onto the belt, heavy things first, and Dana found the loyalty card in her wallet.

In the parking lot the wind came across the asphalt and got under her collar. They loaded the trunk. Ray returned the cart to the corral because he always did, and Dana waited in the passenger seat with the heat on, watching him walk back.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus had added three things in the margin in his blocky handwriting: batteries, dish soap, "whatever that cheese was."

They took his car because hers still had the recycling in the trunk from Thursday. First stop was the hardware store, where Marcus stood in the plumbing aisle holding up the old faucet aerator like evidence at a trial while Dana compared it to the packages on the pegboard. "That one," she said. "The one that isn't eleven dollars."

At the grocery store she took the cart and he took the list, which was how they'd always done it without ever discussing it. He read items off; she navigated. In produce she squeezed four avocados and put back three. He wandered toward the bakery and came back with a baguette he hadn't been sent for.

"We have bread."

"We have sandwich bread."

She let it go into the cart.

The cheese turned out to be a Havarti with dill, which Marcus identified by pointing at it silently and looking pleased with himself. In the cereal aisle they ran into a woman Dana knew from her old job, and Marcus stood politely for four minutes with his hand on the cart handle, nodding at a story about someone's transfer to Charlotte.

Self-checkout, because the lines were long. The machine complained about unexpected weight twice. Dana bagged; Marcus scanned and got mildly heated about the produce codes.

At home they unloaded in two trips. She started the laundry that had been sitting in the washer since morning, smelling it first to check. He carried the recycling out of her trunk to the bin, then stood in the kitchen with the faucet parts spread on a dish towel, trying to remember whether he'd turned the water off under the sink.

He hadn't.


Saturday morning came in gray and damp, the kind of weather that made staying in bed defensible. Dana got up anyway at seven-thirty, because the dog needed out and because she'd learned that if she lay there past eight, the whole day slid away from her.

Peter surfaced around nine, hair flattened on one side, and found her at the kitchen table with a legal pad. "You're making a list," he said.

"I'm making a list."

They divided it up over coffee. He took the oil change and the hardware store—the bathroom faucet had been dripping since Christmas and he'd finally bought the right cartridge. She took the dry cleaning and the library books, two of which were overdue, one badly.

They met at the grocery store at eleven-fifteen, which was a mistake; the parking lot was full and they circled twice before Peter gave up and took a spot near the cart return. Inside, Dana pushed and Peter read from the phone.

"Chicken thighs. Two packs."

"Bone-in or boneless?"

"It doesn't say."

"You wrote it."

"I wrote it fast."

They got bone-in. In the produce section they had a brief, low-grade disagreement about whether they already had garlic at home, which Peter won by remembering he'd used the last of it Wednesday. Dana added a bunch of cilantro that wasn't on the list. Peter added a bag of the salt-and-vinegar chips that also wasn't on the list, and neither of them said anything about it.

The checkout line moved slowly. A woman ahead of them had coupons.

At home they unloaded in two trips. Peter put the cold things away while Dana broke down the boxes for recycling, and then he went upstairs to fight with the faucet, and the house was quiet except for the intermittent sound of him swearing at it.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus was the one holding it, because Dana had already lost two lists that month and had made a point of admitting it.

"Coffee, the good kind," he read aloud in the car. "What's the bad kind?"

"Whatever was on sale in October. You bought it."

"It tasted fine."

"It tasted like a filing cabinet."

They stopped at the hardware store first, for a furnace filter and a pack of picture hangers. Dana wandered off toward the paint chips while Marcus compared filter sizes, and when he found her she was holding two nearly identical greens up to the fluorescent light.

"We're not painting the bathroom," he said.

"I'm not saying we are. I'm saying if we did."

At the grocery store the cart had a wobbling wheel, which Marcus refused to trade in on principle. Dana took the left side of the aisles and he took the right. She was faster. He got distracted in front of the yogurt, reading labels like they might contain something surprising.

"They're all the same," she said, dropping four into the cart.

"This one has more protein."

"It has more sugar too. Get it, I don't care."

They argued mildly about whether they already had chickpeas at home. Neither could remember. They bought a can, and Dana said if there were three cans in the pantry she was going to bring it up at every dinner for a week.

At the register Marcus bagged while Dana paid, an arrangement they'd fallen into years ago without discussing it. The bagger was a teenager who put the eggs under the potatoes, and Dana fixed it without saying anything.

Driving home, the sun came through the windshield at an angle that made them both squint. There were four cans of chickpeas in the pantry. Dana said nothing, which Marcus found more alarming than if she had.


The list was Dana's handwriting, but Marcus had added two items at the bottom in his cramped block letters: BATTERIES and THE GOOD COFFEE, NOT THE ONE YOU BOUGHT LAST TIME.

"It was on sale," Dana said, pulling out of the driveway.

"It tasted like a penny."

They stopped at the hardware store first, because it closed at four on Saturdays and the kitchen faucet had been dripping since Tuesday. Marcus stood in the plumbing aisle holding the old cartridge up to the display, turning it like a jeweler, while Dana wandered off and came back with a bag of tulip bulbs.

"It's October," he said.

"That's when you plant them."

At the grocery store the cart had a bad wheel, the one that shuddered on the tile, and neither of them wanted to go back for another. Dana took the left side of the store and Marcus took the right, which was how they'd done it for eleven years. He texted her a photo of two brands of tortillas. She wrote back: *the yellow bag.* He got the yellow bag.

They met near the dairy case. She had the coffee. He had put a bag of frozen dumplings in the cart that wasn't on the list, and she looked at it and said nothing, which he understood to be permission.

The checkout line moved slowly. A woman ahead of them was arguing gently with the cashier about a coupon. Marcus bagged while Dana paid, and in the parking lot the wind had picked up and pushed the cart sideways as they loaded the trunk.

At home they carried everything in two trips. Dana put the cold things away first. Marcus knelt under the sink with a flashlight in his teeth, and by four thirty the faucet had stopped dripping, and the house was very quiet, and she said, "Huh," and he said, "I know."


The list was Nora's handwriting, but Dev had added three items in pen at the bottom: batteries, dish soap, "the good bread, not the sad kind."

They took his car because hers was low on gas and neither of them wanted to deal with that first. The hardware store came before the grocery store, since the hardware store closed early on Saturdays. Nora waited in the aisle while Dev held two furnace filters up to the light, comparing dimensions against a photo he'd taken of the old one.

"Twenty by twenty-five," she said.

"I know. I'm making sure."

At the grocery store they split the list, which they always agreed was more efficient and which always took longer, because one of them would text a question and the other wouldn't see it. Nora got produce and dairy. Dev got the middle aisles and stood for a while in front of the pasta sauces before choosing the same jar he always chose.

They met near the deli counter. She had put a rotisserie chicken in the cart.

"We already have chicken thighs in the freezer," he said.

"I know. But this is tonight."

He didn't argue. In line, they unloaded the cart together without discussing who took what, a rhythm worn smooth over eleven years. The cashier asked if they'd found everything. Dev said they had, mostly.

Back home, the unloading took two trips. Nora put things away while Dev carried the filter to the basement and swapped it out, which took four minutes and made him feel disproportionately capable. When he came back up she was folding the paper bags flat and sliding them into the space beside the fridge.

"Laundry," she said.

"After lunch."

They ate the chicken standing at the counter, pulling pieces off with their fingers, and agreed it was better than the sad bread would have been.


Saturday started slow. Dana was already up, coffee in hand, working through a list she'd started Thursday night: hardware store, dry cleaning, groceries, and the leaking faucet in the guest bathroom that had been dripping since Christmas.

Marcus came down at nine, still creased from sleep. "You've been up how long?"

"Long enough to discover we're out of coffee filters," she said. "I used a paper towel."

"That's disgusting."

"It tasted fine."

They took his car because hers needed an oil change—another thing for the list. At the hardware store, Marcus stood in the plumbing aisle turning a cartridge over in his hands while Dana looked up their faucet model on her phone. They bought the wrong one, discovered this in the parking lot, and went back in. The clerk didn't seem surprised.

The grocery store was crowded, the way it always was on Saturdays. Dana pushed the cart and Marcus went ahead for produce, holding up two bunches of bananas so she could pick. They disagreed about yogurt—she wanted the plain, he wanted the vanilla—and settled it by buying both. He remembered they needed coffee filters. She remembered they didn't need eggs, though he'd already put a carton in the cart.

"We have seven," she said.

"Then we'll have nineteen."

She let it go.

At home they unloaded together, Marcus carrying four bags at once out of some private principle. Dana put the cold things away while he broke down the boxes for recycling. Then he went upstairs with the new cartridge and a wrench, and she heard water shut off, then a long silence, then swearing.

"Do you need help?"

"I need a smaller wrench."

She brought him one. He fitted the cartridge, turned the water back on, and they both stood there watching the faucet not drip.

"Huh," he said.

"Don't jinx it."


Saturday morning had that particular quality of light that made the dust on the windowsills obvious. Marcus noticed it while filling the coffee maker and decided not to mention it, since Dana was already halfway through wiping down the counters and would only add it to the list.

"We need to leave by ten," she said. "The Kroger on Belmont gets insane after eleven."

"We could go to the one on Third."

"They don't carry the bread you like."

He conceded this. They ate toast standing up, and then Marcus took the recycling out while Dana pulled a receipt from her coat pocket—the shirt she'd bought Tuesday, still in the bag by the door, too tight in the shoulders.

At the store, they split up the way they always did, though it never saved time. Dana handled produce and dairy. Marcus took the middle aisles and, predictably, came back with two boxes of crackers not on the list.

"They were buy one get one."

"We have crackers."

"Not these crackers."

She let it go. In the checkout line she remembered they were out of dish soap, and Marcus jogged back for it while the cashier scanned. He returned slightly winded, holding the wrong scent, and Dana said lemon was fine.

They loaded the bags into the trunk in the wind, which had picked up. The return at the department store took eleven minutes, most of it waiting behind a woman returning a comforter. Then the hardware store, for furnace filters and a specific washer Marcus had measured twice.

At home they carried everything in, and Dana put away the cold things first while Marcus went to the basement. The furnace filter slid out gray and furred. He held it up in the dim light, mildly impressed, and called upstairs that she should come see how bad it was. She said she'd take his word for it.


The list had been on the refrigerator since Wednesday, accumulating additions in two different hands. Dana's were in pen, neat and specific: *coffee filters, the good bread, cilantro.* Marcus had scrawled his in pencil, mostly categories. *Snacks. Something for Tuesday.*

They left the house at nine-forty, later than Dana had wanted. Marcus drove because he always drove, and Dana read the list aloud at the first red light, adding items as she remembered them.

"We need dish soap."

"We have dish soap."

"We have a bottle with about an inch left."

"That's dish soap," Marcus said, and Dana wrote it down anyway.

The hardware store came first, for furnace filters and a replacement bulb for the light over the stove. Marcus stood in the lighting aisle for a long time comparing wattages while Dana wandered off and came back with a package of felt pads for the dining chairs, which had been scraping the floor for six months.

At the grocery store they split up, an arrangement they'd arrived at years ago after too many arguments in the cereal aisle. Dana took produce and dairy; Marcus took the middle of the store and the meat counter. They met near the frozen section, and Marcus held up a bag of tater tots with an expression of hope.

"Fine," Dana said.

The line was long. A woman ahead of them was paying with a stack of coupons, and Marcus scrolled his phone while Dana read the tabloid headlines without pretending she wasn't.

In the parking lot the wind had picked up. Marcus loaded the trunk while Dana returned the cart to the corral, and on the way home they stopped for gas and argued mildly about whether they had time to eat lunch before her sister called.

They didn't. They ate anyway.


Saturday morning had the particular quality of light that made Dana want to open all the windows, so she did, and the house filled with the smell of somebody's cut grass.

Marcus was already at the kitchen table with the list, adding things in his cramped handwriting. "We're out of coffee filters," he said. "Again. I feel like we just bought some."

"You use two sometimes. I've seen you."

"Only when the first one folds over."

They took his car because hers was making a noise neither of them wanted to investigate before Monday. The first stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter and a can of touch-up paint for the spot in the hallway where the closet door had punched through the drywall in October. Marcus held two nearly identical white paint chips up to a photo on his phone while Dana wandered to the end of the aisle and came back with a rubber mallet she insisted they needed.

The grocery store was crowded. Dana pushed the cart and Marcus went ahead, doubling back with things. They disagreed briefly about which brand of pasta sauce, settled it by buying both, and stood a long time in front of the yogurt because a store employee was restocking and neither of them wanted to reach across her. In the checkout line Marcus remembered the coffee filters and jogged back for them while Dana loaded the belt, apologizing to the woman behind her.

At home they carried everything in from the driveway in two trips. Dana put the cold things away; Marcus flattened the paper bags for recycling and then went to change the furnace filter, which took longer than expected because the old one was stuck.

"You want a sandwich?" she called down the hall.

"In a minute," he said. "It's coming."


The Saturday list was written on the back of an envelope, in Priya's handwriting, with two items added in Dev's.

They started with the hardware store because it opened at seven and because Dev insisted the furnace filter was overdue. Priya waited in the car with the window down, scrolling through her sister's photos from Ohio, while he came back out holding a filter and, inexplicably, a bag of birdseed.

"We don't have a feeder," she said.

"We could have a feeder."

At the credit union drive-through, the pneumatic tube swallowed their deposit slip with a thunk that always made Priya flinch. Dev drummed the steering wheel through two verses of something on the radio he only half knew.

The grocery store was crowded by then, carts nose to tail near the produce. They split up the way they always did, Priya taking the perimeter, Dev taking the middle aisles with the paper half of the list. She picked out apples, weighed a bag of green beans, debated cilantro and bought it. He texted her a photo of two brands of black beans with the caption *which*. She wrote back *the cheaper one*. He bought the other one anyway, and she noticed at checkout and said nothing.

They argued mildly about whether they still had rice at home. They did not. He went back for rice while she loaded the belt.

Outside, the parking lot had warmed up. Dev pushed the cart while Priya walked ahead with the keys, popping the trunk. They fit everything in except the eggs, which she held in her lap on the drive home.

Unloading took two trips. Priya put away the cold things; Dev broke down the cardboard for recycling and changed the furnace filter, which took longer than he'd claimed it would. Around one they ate leftover dal standing at the counter, and then he went out to the garage to look at hooks for a bird feeder.


The list was Priya's, written on the back of an envelope in her small, cramped handwriting, but Dev was the one holding it in the parking lot, squinting at the word that might have been "cilantro" or "cinnamon."

"Cilantro," she said, pulling a cart from the corral. "For the beans tonight."

They had already been to the hardware store, where Dev spent eleven minutes comparing furnace filters and Priya read the backs of paint samples she had no intention of buying. Now it was almost noon and the grocery store was crowded with people who had also decided that Saturday morning was for errands.

Priya took the left side of the store, Dev the right. This was an old arrangement. She got produce and dairy; he got the aisles, where he was slower and more prone to distraction. They met near the deli counter, and she looked into his cart with visible suspicion.

"We have peanut butter."

"We have crunchy. This is smooth."

"Nobody eats smooth."

"I eat smooth."

She let it stay. In the checkout line, they bagged their own groceries because the store had gone self-service in half the lanes, and Dev did the thing he always did, putting the eggs on the bottom, and she moved them without saying anything.

At home the cat met them at the door and complained. Priya put away the cold things while Dev carried the filter down to the basement and swapped it out, holding the old one at arm's length, gray with dust. When he came back up, she had started the beans and was standing at the sink rinsing the cilantro.

"There's a leak under here," she said. "The trap's damp."

He crouched, looked, touched the pipe. "Tomorrow."

"Sure," she said, and handed him a bunch of wet herbs to shake dry over the sink.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the electric company, and Marcus had questions about it before they were out of the driveway.

"'Cheese'?" he said. "What kind of cheese? For what?"

"For the thing I make with the noodles."

"That narrows it down."

They stopped at the hardware store first, because the bathroom faucet had developed a drip that Marcus had promised to fix three weekends running. He stood in the plumbing aisle holding two washers up to the light while Dana wandered off and came back with a bag of tulip bulbs.

"It's May," he said.

"They're on clearance."

"Because it's May."

She put them in the cart anyway.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturday grocery stores always are, with people stopping dead in front of the yogurt. Dana took the left side of the aisle, Marcus the right. They had done this long enough that it was nearly silent — she pointed at the bread and he grabbed the sourdough, he held up two brands of coffee and she shook her head at the one on sale. In the dairy case he found the shredded mozzarella and held it up questioningly and she gave him a thumbs-up without really looking.

At checkout he bagged while she paid. The kid at the register was new and slow, and neither of them minded.

Back home they carried everything in through the garage in two trips. Dana started the laundry. Marcus lay on his back under the bathroom sink with a wrench, and after twenty minutes and one trip back out to the car for the second washer, the dripping stopped.

"Listen," he called.

Dana came and stood in the doorway and listened to nothing.

"Huh," she said. "Only took a month."

"Three weeks."

"A month."

He put the wrench away.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the gas company, but Marcus was the one who remembered they were out of coffee filters.

"Add it," Dana said, backing the Corolla out of the driveway. "And laundry detergent. The good kind, not the one that smells like a hotel lobby."

They hit the hardware store first, because it closed at four on Saturdays. Marcus needed a replacement furnace filter and, as it turned out, a length of chain to fix the porch swing that had been listing since March. Dana wandered off toward the paint chips and came back with three shades of green she liked for the bathroom.

"We're not painting the bathroom today," Marcus said.

"I know. I'm building a case."

At the grocery store, they split up the way they always did—Dana taking produce and dairy, Marcus taking the aisles. She texted him a picture of two brands of yogurt with the message *which one did your mother like?* He wrote back *the blue one* and was wrong, but she bought it anyway.

They reconvened in the cereal aisle. The cart already had too much in it.

"Did you get bread?"

"I thought you were getting bread."

Neither of them had gotten bread. Marcus went back for it while Dana waited in the checkout line, reading the covers of magazines about celebrities she couldn't identify.

At home, they unloaded the trunk in two trips. Dana put the cold things away; Marcus broke down the boxes for recycling and then went out to the porch with the chain and a pair of pliers. Through the screen door she could hear him swearing quietly at a rusted bolt.

"Do you need help?" she called.

"No." A pause. "Yes."

She came out, still holding a bag of frozen peas, and held the swing steady while he worked.


The list was Dana's handwriting, but Marcus had added three things at the bottom in blocky capitals: BATTERIES, TRASH BAGS, THE GOOD COFFEE.

"The good coffee is four dollars more," Dana said in the car.

"That's why I specified."

They stopped at the hardware store first because it closed at noon on Saturdays. Marcus needed a furnace filter, and it took eleven minutes to find one because he'd left the old dimensions on a sticky note attached to the furnace instead of his phone. Dana wandered to the paint chips and brought back three shades of gray, holding them up near the fluorescent lights.

"They're all the same," Marcus said.

"This one has blue in it."

"They're all the same."

She kept two anyway.

At the grocery store the parking lot was full, so Marcus dropped her at the door and circled twice before finding a spot near the cart return. By the time he came in Dana was already in produce, pressing avocados with her thumb.

They split up in the middle of the store, which they'd learned years ago was faster, and reconvened in dairy. He'd forgotten which yogurt she liked, so he'd bought both. She'd found the batteries but the wrong size.

"AAs," he said.

"You didn't say."

"I assumed."

At checkout, Dana bagged while Marcus loaded the belt, and the total came to $147, which was less than they expected, which put them both in a decent mood.

At home they carried everything in two trips. Marcus changed the furnace filter while Dana put away the cold things, then the pantry things, then stood looking at the paint chips taped to the hallway wall.

"Come look at these in the afternoon light," she called.

He came, wiping his hands on his jeans, and looked, and said they were all the same, and stood there with her looking at them anyway.


The list was Marcus's idea, written on the back of an envelope in his cramped handwriting: milk, eggs, coffee, whatever's on sale for dinner.

"That last one isn't a grocery item," Priya said, buckling her seatbelt. "That's a philosophy."

"It's flexible thinking." He backed out of the driveway, pausing for the neighbor's kid on a scooter. "Also we need dish soap. I forgot dish soap."

At the store, they split up the way they always did, which never actually saved time. Priya took produce and dairy; Marcus took the middle aisles and returned with two boxes of cereal, neither of which she recognized.

"Since when do you eat this?"

"It was buy one get one."

"That's not an answer."

They reconvened at the meat counter and stood there for a while, considering chicken thighs with the seriousness of people appraising real estate. Marcus won the argument for pork shoulder because he promised to actually cook it, and Priya, who had heard this promise before, wrote it into the record.

The self-checkout ate her coupon. A teenage employee named Devon fixed it in eleven seconds without making her feel stupid about it, and she said thank you twice.

In the parking lot the cart's wheel dragged left. Marcus wrestled it into submission while Priya loaded bags into the trunk, arranging them so nothing would tip. It was seventy-one degrees and overcast, the kind of Saturday that felt borrowed.

Then the hardware store for furnace filters, and the pharmacy, where Priya's prescription wasn't ready and they waited fifteen minutes in the plastic chairs by the blood pressure machine. Marcus took his blood pressure. It was fine.

Home by two. They carried everything in over four trips, and Marcus put the cold things away while Priya broke down the boxes for recycling, and neither of them mentioned the gutters, which still needed cleaning, which could wait until tomorrow.


The list was Maura's, written on the back of an envelope from the water company, and Dev had already lost track of half of it by the time they reached the second aisle.

"Yogurt," she said. "The plain kind, not the vanilla."

"I got vanilla once. In 2019."

"And I've never forgotten." She was reading the back of a box of crackers, frowning the way she did at anything with more than eight ingredients. She put it in the cart anyway.

They had started the morning slowly. Dev had run the dishwasher before coffee, and Maura had spent forty minutes on the phone with the insurance company, pacing the length of the hallway, saying *mm-hmm* in a voice that got flatter each time. Afterward she'd come into the kitchen and said, "They're sending someone Tuesday," and Dev had said, "Between eight and four?" and she'd laughed, which was mostly what he'd wanted.

Now the store was crowded with people who had also decided that eleven o'clock Saturday was a reasonable time to shop. A kid was crying near the bakery. Dev steered them wide around it.

They disagreed briefly about tomatoes — she wanted the vine ones, he thought they were a scam — and settled on a compromise neither of them was thrilled about. At checkout, Maura remembered the trash bags and jogged back for them while Dev unloaded the belt, apologizing to the cashier, who didn't care.

Outside, the parking lot was bright and windy. They loaded the trunk together, wedging the eggs in the corner where they wouldn't slide.

"Dry cleaner's still open till two," Maura said, buckling in.

"Then hardware store."

"Then nothing," she said. "Then absolutely nothing for the rest of the day."

He backed out carefully. Neither of them believed it, but it was nice to say.


The list was Marcus's idea, written on the back of an envelope in his cramped handwriting: milk, eggs, coffee, chicken thighs, something for Dana's mother's birthday.

They left the house at ten. Dana drove because Marcus had been complaining about a headache all morning, though he seemed fine now, fiddling with the radio until he found a station playing something from the nineties.

"We need to hit the hardware store too," he said. "The kitchen faucet's still dripping."

"You said you fixed that."

"I said I looked at it."

At the hardware store they spent twenty minutes in the plumbing aisle while Marcus held up two different cartridge assemblies and Dana looked at the paint chips, thinking about the bathroom. She brought back three grays. Marcus said they all looked the same. She said that was the point, and he laughed and put the second cartridge back on the shelf.

The grocery store was crowded. Dana took the cart because Marcus steered like a man pushing a wheelbarrow uphill. He read the list aloud, section by section, and disappeared twice—once for tortilla chips that weren't on the list, once because he ran into a coworker near the deli counter and talked about somebody named Terry for four minutes while Dana picked out apples.

"Your mother likes those chocolate-covered pretzels," he said in the checkout line.

"She says she does. She never eats them."

They bought them anyway.

At home they unloaded the car in two trips. Dana put away the cold things while Marcus lay on his back under the sink with a flashlight in his teeth. Around one o'clock the dripping stopped. He came into the living room with wet sleeves, looking pleased with himself, and Dana handed him half a sandwich without saying anything, and they ate standing up in the kitchen.


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

"We need to leave by ten," she called toward the bathroom, where Marcus was shaving. "The car place said they close at noon."

"I know what time it is." He appeared in the doorway with a towel over his shoulder, one cheek still lathered. "Did you call about the oil change or did you just show up last time?"

"I called."

"Okay. Just asking."

They dropped the car at the shop on Elm and walked the four blocks to the hardware store, which smelled like sawdust and rubber. Marcus wanted a specific kind of hinge for the cabinet door that had been hanging crooked since March. Dana held the broken one while he compared it against the display, turning it over twice, and she watched a man argue with an employee about paint samples.

"They're all off by a little," Marcus said finally, and bought two anyway.

At the grocery store, Dana pushed the cart and Marcus went ahead for produce. He came back with a bag of oranges she hadn't asked for.

"They were on sale."

"We still have three."

"They're going bad."

She let it go. In the cereal aisle they disagreed briefly about whether Emma was still eating the granola or had switched to something else, and settled on buying both. Marcus insisted on the self-checkout, then couldn't get the scanner to read the bag of onions and had to wave down an attendant while Dana stood with her arms crossed, not saying anything, which was worse.

In the parking lot the sun had come out. They loaded the trunk together, one bag at a time, and Marcus handed her the keys because she'd said her back hurt that morning and he'd remembered.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus held it, because he was the one who lost things less often.

They started with the recycling, which had been stacked by the back door for three weeks, long enough that Dana had begun to think of it as furniture. Marcus carried the bin out to the car while she flattened the last of the cardboard, pressing her knee into a box that had held a standing fan they'd bought in July and used exactly twice.

At the recycling center a man in a reflective vest waved them toward the far bay. Dana got out to help, and they emptied the bin in under a minute, the glass making its satisfying avalanche sound.

"Bank next?" Marcus said.

"Bank's closed. It's after noon."

"It's eleven-forty."

"Then bank next," Dana said, and they laughed a little at nothing, the way people do when they've been married eleven years and the joke is mostly the rhythm.

The grocery store was crowded. Marcus pushed the cart while Dana went ahead, doubling back with things: a bag of clementines, chicken thighs on sale, the oat milk she liked and he tolerated. He added a box of the cereal she'd told him twice not to buy, and she saw it, and said nothing, and he counted that as a win.

In the checkout line he read the tabloid headlines aloud in a newscaster voice until she told him to stop, quietly, smiling.

They loaded the trunk in the parking lot heat. On the drive home Dana held the cold gallon of milk against the back of her neck and said they should really deal with the garage next weekend. Marcus said sure. Neither of them believed it, and neither minded. At home, the cat met them at the door, unimpressed, and they carried the bags in together.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of a receipt in handwriting that Marcus claimed only she could read.

"Bananas, obviously," she said, holding it up in the car. "Then it just says 'that thing.'"

"The soap," Marcus said. "The dish soap. You said it at like eleven last night."

"Did I?"

"You said it in the voice you use when you're already asleep."

The hardware store came first, because it closed at four. Marcus wanted a furnace filter and stood in the aisle comparing two boxes that appeared identical while Dana wandered off and came back with a package of felt pads for the kitchen chairs.

"The scraping," she said. "The one chair."

"That's been happening for two years."

"And today I fixed it."

At the grocery store, they fell into their usual division. Dana took produce and dairy; Marcus took the middle aisles and the meat counter. They met near the end caps, comparing carts like generals.

"You got the wrong yogurt," she said.

"They didn't have the plain."

"They always have the plain."

He went back. They always had the plain. He was gone four minutes and returned with the correct tub and a bag of pretzels he set in the cart without comment. Dana looked at the pretzels, then at him, and said nothing, which was its own kind of agreement.

The checkout line was slow because a woman ahead of them had coupons and opinions about them. Marcus loaded the belt; Dana bagged, because the teenager doing it was putting cans on top of bread.

At home, they carried everything in two trips instead of the four it should have taken. Marcus changed the furnace filter. Dana knelt by the chair with the felt pads and pressed each one down with her thumb, and when she stood and pushed the chair across the tile, it made no sound at all.


Saturday morning arrived gray and mild, the kind of weather that made staying in bed feel justified. Marcus got up anyway at seven-thirty, because the dishwasher had finished its cycle sometime in the night and he liked emptying it before Priya woke up.

She came down at eight-fifteen in his old college sweatshirt, hair still flattened on one side.

"There's coffee," he said.

"I love you." She poured a cup and sat at the counter with a pen and the back of an envelope. "Okay. Groceries, obviously. We're out of everything. Do we need to go to the hardware store for that thing for the shower?"

"The washer. Yeah. And I should return those pants."

"Which pants?"

"The gray ones. They fit weird in the leg."

They left around ten. Marcus drove, Priya navigated the list, which she had reorganized by aisle in the way that annoyed him only because it was undeniably more efficient. The hardware store took eleven minutes. The return took twenty-five, most of it in line behind a man contesting a receipt from December.

The grocery store was crowded. Priya took the cart and pushed it through produce while Marcus went for the deli counter and came back with a number in his hand, seventeen behind. They split up: he got dairy and bread, she got everything in the middle aisles, and they reconvened near the frozen foods, where Priya was holding two brands of peas and frowning.

"Just get the cheaper one."

"The cheaper one is always mushy."

"Then get the other one."

"I wanted you to say that."

At checkout the total came to a hundred and forty-two dollars, which Marcus announced out loud in a tone of mild betrayal. Priya bagged. In the parking lot, loading the trunk, she said they should probably do the bathroom this afternoon, and he said probably, and neither of them meant it entirely.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the electric company, but Marcus was the one who remembered the coffee filters.

"They're not on here," he said in the car, holding the envelope up to the window light.

"They're in my head."

"That does me no good in aisle seven."

They stopped at the hardware store first because it opened at eight and the parking lot would be a nightmare by ten. Dana wanted a specific shade of caulk for the bathroom, the almond color, not white, and she spent four minutes comparing two tubes that looked identical while Marcus wandered off to look at extension cords they didn't need. He came back with a package of furnace filters, which they did need, and she said, "See, that's why I bring you."

The grocery store smelled like rotisserie chicken and floor wax. Marcus pushed the cart. Dana walked ahead, pulling things off shelves and handing them back without turning around — spinach, two cans of chickpeas, the store-brand oat milk because the good kind had gone up another dollar. At the meat counter they had a small negotiation about pork chops versus chicken thighs, and chicken won on price.

"Filters," Marcus said in aisle seven, triumphant.

"I told you they were in my head."

At the register a woman ahead of them was arguing about a coupon, and Dana checked her phone while Marcus loaded the belt, heavy things first, bread last. Ninety-four dollars, which was more than they'd meant to spend and less than last time.

In the driveway they carried everything in two trips. Marcus put the cold things away wrong — the eggs on the door — and Dana moved them without comment. Then she made a second coffee, and he went out back to look at the gutter he'd been meaning to look at since March.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus had added to it in his cramped print: batteries, the good coffee, dish soap. They took his car because hers still smelled faintly of the milk she'd spilled two weeks ago and never fully confessed to.

First was the hardware store, where they spent eleven minutes in the plumbing aisle because Marcus insisted the washer for the bathroom faucet was a different size than Dana remembered. She held up her phone with the photo she'd taken of the old one. He conceded, but bought two sizes anyway.

"You always do that," she said in the parking lot.

"And I'm always right eventually."

The grocery store on Saturday was a slow-moving disaster. Dana took the cart; Marcus took the list, dividing it as they always did, though he wandered. She found him in front of the yogurt, comparing sugar content on two containers that were nearly identical.

"Just get the plain one."

"Your mother says plain tastes like drywall."

"My mother isn't eating it."

They got the plain one. In produce, Dana squeezed avocados while Marcus counted out lemons, and they had a brief, low-grade argument about whether they still had rice at home. Marcus was certain. Dana bought rice.

At checkout, the woman ahead of them had a coupon problem, and they stood there for six minutes without speaking, which was fine. Marcus loaded the belt. Dana bagged. They had a system.

Home by one-thirty. Dana put away the cold things while Marcus carried the rest in from the trunk, then went to the bathroom with his two washers and a wrench. She heard the water shut off, then some muttering.

He came out ten minutes later. "Bigger one," he said.

"Congratulations."

There was, in fact, rice in the pantry. Neither of them mentioned it.


The list was Maren's, written on the back of an envelope, but Dev was the one holding it in the parking lot, squinting at her handwriting.

"Is that 'scallions' or 'shallots'?"

"Scallions," she said. "But get shallots too. They were on sale last week."

"Sales don't carry over, Mar."

"Sometimes they do."

Inside, the store was full of the particular Saturday crowd—people in gym clothes who hadn't been to the gym, parents negotiating with children in the cereal aisle. Maren pushed the cart. Dev walked ahead, reading labels with the seriousness he brought to everything, including the correct way to load a dishwasher.

They split up near the deli. She took produce; he took the middle aisles. When they met again by the yogurt, he had put four boxes of granola bars in the cart.

"We have granola bars."

"We have one box."

"We have one box because nobody eats them."

He looked at the boxes, then at her, and put two back on a shelf near the milk, which she pretended not to see.

At the register, the woman ahead of them had coupons, a lot of them, and the line stopped. Maren leaned against the cart handle. Dev read the covers of magazines about celebrities he couldn't identify. When it was finally their turn, he bagged while she paid, and they got the eggs into the top of a bag without discussing it, the way they'd done a thousand times.

The car was hot. They drove home with the windows down for the first block, then the AC.

At the house, they carried everything in in two trips, which took some arranging. Maren put things away. Dev broke down the boxes for recycling and took the bin to the curb early, because he always forgot on Sunday nights.

"Lunch?" she called from the kitchen.

"There's bread," he said, coming in.


By nine-thirty the coffee was gone and the list was still sitting on the counter, weighted down by the salt shaker so it wouldn't blow off when the back door opened.

"Do we need eggs?" Marisol asked, opening the refrigerator and leaning in far enough that her voice came back muffled.

"We have four," Dev said. He was on the floor of the hallway with a screwdriver, tightening the hinge on the closet door that had been dragging since March. "But that's four for the whole week, so, yes."

She wrote *eggs* below *dish soap* and *the good bread, not the wheat one you got last time.*

They took her car because his had a slow leak in the rear passenger tire, which was also on the list, further down, in Dev's handwriting. At the hardware store they bought a furnace filter and a package of felt pads for the dining chairs, and Dev spent four minutes deciding between two kinds of caulk before Marisol picked one and put it in the cart.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturdays always were, carts angled sideways in the produce section, a man on the phone blocking the bananas. Marisol handled the perimeter — chicken thighs, a bag of carrots, yogurt, the good bread — while Dev took the middle aisles and came back with tortilla chips that were not on the list.

"They were two for six," he said.

"They're always two for six."

He put them in the cart anyway. She didn't take them out.

At the register the total was eleven dollars more than she'd guessed, which she considered a win. They loaded the trunk in the parking lot, the cold air coming up off the asphalt, and Dev returned the cart to the corral because he'd once seen one roll into a car and had never gotten over it.

At home they put everything away, and then he went out to look at the tire.


The list was in Marcus's handwriting, which meant half of it was illegible.

"What's this say? 'Chicken thighs' or 'chicken things'?"

Dana squinted at the paper while backing out of the driveway. "Thighs. And I already know you're going to want to get the rotisserie one instead."

"I'm predictable."

"You're consistent. There's a difference." She turned onto Kensington, past the elementary school with its hand-painted spring carnival banner sagging in the middle.

They hit the hardware store first, because Marcus had been complaining about the bathroom faucet for three weeks and had finally admitted he wasn't going to fix it by staring at it. He wandered off toward the washer aisle while Dana looked at paint chips she had no intention of buying. When he came back he was holding two small cardboard boxes and frowning.

"I don't know which size."

"Did you measure it?"

"I looked at it very carefully."

They bought both.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturday mornings always are, carts angled into each other near the produce, a woman on speakerphone in the cereal aisle. Dana pushed while Marcus went ahead, doubling back with things she hadn't asked for—a bag of those chili-lime chips, a bunch of daffodils wrapped in cellophane.

"We don't need those."

"They were four dollars."

She put them in the cart.

At checkout, Marcus bagged while Dana paid, and he did it wrong, the way he always did, bread underneath the cans. She didn't say anything. In the parking lot the wind picked up and blew the receipt out of her hand and he chased it two rows down and came back holding it up like a trophy.

At home, they put everything away. The faucet washer was the wrong size. Marcus went back out around two, alone this time, and Dana put the daffodils in a jar on the windowsill and started the laundry.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the gas company, but Marcus was the one holding it in the store, because Dana had a habit of putting lists in her pocket and forgetting them there.

They'd started the morning with the dishwasher, which had been making a noise like a dying animal since Thursday. Marcus pulled it out from under the counter while Dana held a flashlight and read aloud from a repair forum on her phone. It turned out to be a plastic bottle cap wedged in the drain. Dana said she had no idea how that got there. Marcus said nothing, which was its own kind of comment, and she swatted him with the dish towel.

At the Kroger on Ellsworth, they split up. Dana took produce and dairy; Marcus took the middle aisles, where he was slower because he read labels. He came back with the wrong pasta, and she sent him for the right one, and when he returned she had added a bag of frozen dumplings that were not on the list.

"For Sunday," she said.

"You're planning ahead now."

"I have layers."

The line at checkout was six deep because two registers were closed. Marcus bagged while Dana loaded the belt. The total was more than they'd expected, as it always was lately, and they exchanged the look about it without saying anything.

Afterward they stopped for gas and dropped a box of Marcus's mother's old sweaters at the donation bin behind the church, where a man was already unloading a car trunk of paperbacks. Dana held the bin door while Marcus pushed the box through.

At home they put the groceries away together, which took nine minutes. Dana kept the receipt because she always did. Marcus went out back to look at the gutters and came in fifteen minutes later saying they'd be fine until fall.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the gas company, and Marcus kept losing it. He'd set it on the shelf by the eggs, then wander off toward the bakery, and Dana would find it abandoned there like something he'd forgotten he was carrying.

"You had one job," she said, holding it up.

"I had several jobs. I got the trash out this morning."

"You got it to the curb after the truck came."

"Which is still technically out."

They moved through the store in their usual pattern, Dana pushing, Marcus drifting ahead and doubling back with things she hadn't asked for. A jar of pickled onions. A four-pack of some seltzer flavored like a childhood candy. She let the onions stay and made him put the seltzer back, and he did it without arguing, which meant he'd known.

In the produce section they had a small disagreement about tomatoes—whether the ones on the vine were worth the extra dollar—and settled it by buying both kinds. At the register, Dana bagged while Marcus paid, and the cashier asked if they'd found everything all right, and Marcus said mostly, which made the cashier laugh in a tired way.

It was warm in the parking lot. Marcus loaded the trunk while Dana returned the cart, and they drove home with the windows down because the air conditioning had been making a noise since March that neither of them wanted to pay to investigate.

At the house, they carried everything in two trips. Dana put the cold things away first, the way she always did; Marcus lined the cans up on the shelf with the labels facing out, which she had never asked for and had come to expect.

"Hardware store," she said, "or is that a tomorrow thing?"

He looked at the clock on the stove. "Tomorrow thing."

She didn't argue. There was still the whole afternoon.


Saturday morning started with the coffee maker gurgling and Dennis discovering they were out of filters again. He improvised with a paper towel, which Renata pronounced "an atrocity" after one sip, though she drank the whole cup anyway.

They made a list at the kitchen table. Renata wrote it on the back of an envelope from the dentist, arguing that the dry cleaning should come first because the shop closed at noon on Saturdays. Dennis argued that the hardware store was on the way, and they needed the furnace filter before the weather turned. Renata conceded, mostly because she wanted to look at the paint chips.

The hardware store smelled like sawdust and fertilizer. Dennis found the right filter on the third try, holding the old dusty one up to compare dimensions while Renata drifted toward the paint aisle and came back with four cards of nearly identical greens.

"They're not identical," she said.

"They're identical."

"This one's got yellow in it."

They got the dry cleaning with eight minutes to spare, then hit the grocery store, which was crowded because it was almost eleven. Dennis pushed the cart. Renata read off the envelope: milk, eggs, coffee filters, chicken thighs, the bread with the seeds on it, something for dinner Tuesday. They disagreed about tomatoes—she wanted the ones on the vine, he pointed out that they cost twice as much and went into a sauce anyway. She put them in the cart. He didn't say anything else about it.

In the checkout line, Renata remembered they needed batteries. Dennis went back for them and returned with batteries and a bag of pretzels he set on the belt without comment.

They unloaded the car together in the driveway, four bags at a time, and Dennis changed the furnace filter before lunch.


The list was Dana's handwriting, but Marcus had added three things at the bottom in his blocky capitals: COFFEE FILTERS, LIGHTBULBS, THE GOOD BREAD.

"The good bread is not a real item," Dana said in the car. "That's not a thing I can find."

"You know the one. The seeded loaf from the bakery counter."

"So write that."

They stopped at the hardware store first because it was on the way and because the bathroom faucet had been dripping for two weeks in a rhythm Dana had started hearing in her sleep. Marcus took the old cartridge out of his pocket, wrapped in a paper towel, and showed it to a teenager in an orange vest who led them to aisle nine with real confidence and then, at the shelf, said, "Actually, let me get somebody."

Dana wandered to the paint chips while they waited. She brought back three greens and held them against the fluorescent light. "For the hallway."

"They all look the same."

"They are aggressively different."

At the grocery store Marcus took the cart and Dana took the list, which was their usual arrangement, and they split the store the way they always did — she went for produce and dairy, he went for the middle aisles and the bakery counter. She found him near the cereal comparing two boxes of the same thing. He had gotten the seeded loaf. He had also gotten a bag of gummy worms that had not been on any list.

"For the drive," he said.

"It's eleven minutes."

He put them in the cart anyway. At the register she bagged while he loaded, and in the parking lot the wind came up and Marcus chased the receipt about six feet before he caught it.

At home the faucet stopped dripping. Dana taped the paint chips to the hallway wall and stood back to look at them, and Marcus stood next to her, eating a gummy worm, and said the middle one, definitely the middle one, and she said that was the one she liked too.


Saturday morning, and the list was still on the refrigerator where Naomi had left it Thursday night. Priya pulled it down, read it aloud in the car—milk, coffee, dish soap, whatever we need for Tuesday—and Naomi said Tuesday was her mother's birthday dinner, remember, so add cream and something to make the tart with.

The Kroger on Belmont was crowded, the way it always was before noon. They split up out of habit, Naomi taking the produce and dairy side, Priya heading for the aisles with the coffee and the paper goods. They found each other again near the freezer section, both carrying more than they'd planned. Priya had a bag of frozen mango she couldn't justify. Naomi had two kinds of blackberries because the first ones looked bruised and she'd forgotten to put the good ones back.

At the register, the card reader stalled and the cashier apologized twice while it rebooted. Priya said it was fine. Naomi bagged the groceries herself, arranging them the way she liked, cold things together.

The dry cleaner was next, one block over. Naomi ran in with the ticket while Priya waited in the car with the engine running and the radio low. Two shirts and the gray coat, wrapped in plastic, laid across the back seat.

The last stop was the hardware store for furnace filters. Neither of them could remember the size, so Priya took a picture of the old one before they left the house—she was pleased about that, and said so. Naomi said it was the only reason they'd survived twelve years.

They got home a little after one. Priya carried the heavy bags. Naomi put things away and started coffee, and they ate leftover rice standing at the counter, the plastic-wrapped coat still hanging over a chair where somebody would eventually move it.


The Saturday list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster, a souvenir from a trip to Maine that neither of them could quite remember taking. Marcus pulled it down and read it aloud while Elena laced her boots by the door.

"Milk, eggs, that bread you like. Return the library books. Post office."

"And the dry cleaning," she said. "You keep forgetting the dry cleaning."

"I forgot it once."

"Twice."

Outside, the November air had a bite to it. Marcus warmed up the car while Elena went back inside for the tote bags they'd bought specifically so they'd stop forgetting tote bags. She came out holding three of them, triumphant.

At the post office, Elena mailed a birthday card to her nephew in Tucson while Marcus stood in line behind a man buying stamps one sheet at a time. He caught Elena's eye across the lobby and made a face. She pretended not to see him, which was worse.

The grocery store was crowded. They split up at the produce section—Marcus took the left side of the list, Elena the right—and found each other again near the dairy case, where Elena was frowning at two nearly identical containers of yogurt.

"Does it matter?" Marcus asked.

"One has more protein."

"Get that one."

"It also has more sugar."

They stood there for a moment, two adults contemplating yogurt. Elena put the first one in the cart and moved on.

At checkout, Marcus bagged while Elena paid, an arrangement they'd fallen into years ago without ever discussing it. The dry cleaner was two doors down in the same strip mall, so they stopped there last, and Elena held the hangers up in the back seat so the shirts wouldn't wrinkle on the drive home.

"Told you," she said. "Dry cleaning."

"I remembered it this time."

"I remembered it. You drove."

He didn't argue. It was a fair division of labor.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement steaming faintly in the late morning sun. Priya sat in the passenger seat with a receipt from Tuesday flipped over, the grocery list written on its back in her small, cramped handwriting.

"Bank first," she said. "The deposit's been sitting in my purse since Thursday."

Marcus turned left instead of right. The credit union had a drive-through, which meant Priya leaned across him to hand the envelope through the window, her elbow pressing his shoulder. The teller's voice crackled through the speaker, cheerful and slightly delayed. Marcus drummed the steering wheel while they waited for the receipt.

At the hardware store, they split up. Priya took the furnace filter, since she knew the size by heart, and Marcus went to find a replacement for the closet doorknob that had been sticking since March. They met at the register three minutes apart, and Priya paid because Marcus had gotten dinner Friday and they kept a loose, unspoken ledger.

The grocery store was crowded. Marcus pushed the cart and Priya walked ahead, pulling things off shelves and handing them back without looking. They disagreed briefly about yogurt, a disagreement so old it was practically ceremonial, and settled it the way they always did, buying both. In the cereal aisle they ran into a woman Priya knew from her office, and Marcus stood politely by the cart for four minutes while they talked about someone named Dennis.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, where Marcus's gray suit had been waiting since the wedding in October. Priya held the hanger up in the back seat so it wouldn't wrinkle.

At home, they carried the bags in together, two trips, and Marcus started putting away the cold things while Priya broke down the boxes for recycling.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and steaming faintly in the October sun. Diane sat in the passenger seat with a receipt on her knee, using it as scratch paper.

"Bank first," she said. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger. If we do the store last the milk won't sit in the trunk."

"You say that like I've ever let the milk sit in the trunk."

"July," she said.

He conceded the point with a grunt.

The bank took eleven minutes, most of it spent behind a man depositing what appeared to be a shoebox of quarters. Diane waited in the car and answered an email from her sister. At the pharmacy Marcus picked up his blood pressure prescription and, without being asked, the cheap reading glasses Diane had mentioned wanting three weeks earlier. She noticed them in the bag in the parking lot and didn't say anything, just put a hand on his forearm for a second.

Kroger was crowded for a Saturday. They split the list the way they always did — she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles and the deli counter — and reconvened near the bakery, where Marcus was holding a package of cinnamon rolls with the expression of a man presenting evidence.

"They were on sale."

"They're always on sale."

"So it's always a good decision."

She put them in the cart.

At the register the total came out higher than either of them expected, which was normal now, and they made the same joke about it they'd made for a year. In the parking lot Marcus loaded the trunk while Diane returned the cart to the corral, and on the way home they argued mildly about whether the gutters could wait another weekend.

They could not, they decided. But they would anyway.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and shining. Priya sat in the passenger seat with a receipt from March in her lap, using the blank back of it as a list.

"Bank first," she said. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger. Otherwise the frozen stuff sweats."

"The frozen stuff has never once sweated."

"The ice cream did. In August."

He didn't argue, because she was right, and because arguing about the ice cream had already cost them twenty minutes of a perfectly good Saturday two summers ago.

The credit union took eleven minutes. Priya deposited a check from her sister — repayment for a plane ticket, finally — while Marcus waited by the little table with the free coffee and didn't take any, because the free coffee was terrible and he took it anyway. At the pharmacy he picked up his blood pressure refill and a birthday card for his mother, holding up two options for Priya to judge from the end of the aisle. She pointed at the one with the hummingbird.

Kroger was crowded. They split up near the produce, the way they always did — she took the left half of the list, he took the right — and reconvened by the yogurt with two half-full carts, comparing.

"You got the crunchy," she said.

"You wrote peanut butter."

"I meant creamy. Peanut butter means creamy."

"To you."

They bought both jars. In the checkout line, Priya remembered they were out of trash bags and sent Marcus jogging back, and he returned just as the cashier reached the last of the bread.

At home they carried everything in over three trips, and Marcus put the ice cream away first, without being asked, and without mentioning that he'd done it.


The Saturday list had been on the refrigerator since Wednesday, magnetized under a coupon that had already expired. Dana pulled it down and read it aloud while Marcus warmed up the car.

"Bank, pharmacy, that thing you keep saying you'll return, groceries," she said, climbing into the passenger seat.

"The lamp," Marcus said. "I'm returning the lamp."

"You've said that three weekends in a row."

"It's in the trunk. Physically in the trunk. That's commitment."

They hit the bank first, because the drive-through line was mercifully short and Marcus had a check from his brother that had been aging in the visor for two weeks. Then the pharmacy, where Dana went in for her refill and came out with the refill plus a bag of cough drops, a birthday card, and a pack of AA batteries.

"For the smoke detector," she said preemptively.

"I didn't say anything."

"You made a face."

"That's my normal face."

The lamp got returned. It took eleven minutes and a receipt that Marcus found, improbably, in the glove compartment. He came back to the car holding the store credit slip over his head like a trophy, and Dana clapped twice, slowly.

The grocery store was the long stop. They split the list the way they always did—Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the middle aisles and the bread. They met near the frozen section and compared carts.

"You got the wrong yogurt," she said.

"There were four kinds."

"There were four kinds and one of them was ours."

At checkout, Marcus bagged while Dana paid, and they argued briefly about whether the eggs should go on top or beside. In the parking lot the wind had picked up and they loaded quickly, the trunk sticking the way it had since October.

"Anything else?" Marcus asked.

Dana checked the list, folded it, and put it in her pocket. "Home," she said.


The Saturday list was written on the back of an envelope, in Miriam's small, cramped handwriting. Dev held it while she backed the Corolla out of the driveway, past the recycling bin they'd both forgotten to bring in.

"Bank first," he said. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger."

"Pharmacy's next to Kroger."

"I know. But the bank closes at noon."

She grunted, which he took as agreement. It was October and the maples on Willoughby had gone the color of rust. At the credit union she deposited a check from her mother, who still refused to use direct deposit, while Dev waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a podcast about a shipwreck.

The pharmacy took longer than it should have. Miriam's blood pressure prescription had been sent to the wrong location, and the technician had to call the other store, and Dev wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of candy corn.

"You hate candy corn," she said.

"I hate that I like it."

At Kroger they split the list without discussing it, the way they had for eleven years. He took produce and the bakery; she took dairy, cleaning supplies, the cat's food. They met near the frozen aisle, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops.

"Did you get the good bread or the cheap bread?"

"The good bread."

"Then we don't need the crackers."

"We always need the crackers."

She put the crackers back anyway. In the checkout line, Dev bagged while Miriam paid, and the cashier, a teenager with a lip ring, told them they made a good team, and neither of them knew what to say to that.

On the way home they stopped for gas, and Miriam pumped while Dev cleaned the windshield with the squeegee, badly, leaving streaks. The recycling bin was still at the curb when they pulled in. Dev got it.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and steaming under a bright October sun. Dana sat in the passenger seat with the list on her knee, a receipt from last week's dentist visit turned over and covered in her small, cramped handwriting.

"Bank first," she said. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger. If we do Kroger first the milk sits in the car for forty minutes."

"You say that every time."

"Because you try to do Kroger first every time."

At the credit union, Marcus deposited a check from his brother, who had finally paid back the money for the transmission. Dana waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a woman in the next space arguing pleasantly with someone on speakerphone about a wedding venue.

The pharmacy took longer than it should have. Dana's insurance had switched over on the first of the month, and the young man behind the counter had to call someone, then call someone else. Marcus wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of miniature Snickers.

"For the trick-or-treaters," he said.

"We got four last year."

"Then we'll have a lot left over."

The grocery store was crowded with Sunday people. They split up the way they always did—Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the middle aisles and the meat counter—and met near the frozen section, where they conferred over two brands of waffles and settled on the cheaper one. At checkout Dana remembered the coffee filters and jogged back for them while Marcus loaded the belt.

Loading the trunk, he handed her the Snickers to hold. She opened them in the car and ate two before they were out of the parking lot, and he laughed, and she said nothing at all.


The alarm clock had already been snoozed twice by the time Renée finally pulled the blinds open. Sunlight fell across the bed in a bright stripe, and Marcus groaned into his pillow.

"We need to leave by nine if we're hitting the bank," she said, tugging a sweater over her head.

They made it out by nine-fifteen, which Marcus considered a personal victory. In the driveway, he backed the Corolla out while Renée reviewed the list on her phone: dry cleaning, bank, hardware store for a furnace filter, then Kroger.

The dry cleaner had lost his gray suit pants. The woman behind the counter searched the racks twice, apologized, and promised to call. Renée squeezed his arm on the way out. "They'll turn up. They always do."

At the bank, they deposited a check from his mother, a birthday gift that had arrived three weeks late in a card with a cardinal on it. Marcus filled out the slip while Renée sat in one of the leather chairs by the window, texting his mother a thank-you.

The hardware store took eleven minutes. Marcus knew the aisle by heart.

Kroger was the long one. They split up—Renée took produce and dairy, Marcus took the middle aisles and the meat counter—and reconvened near the bakery, comparing carts. She had grabbed the wrong yogurt, the vanilla instead of the plain, and he walked back to swap it while she found a checkout lane. They debated a bouquet of tulips at the register and bought them.

At home, they carried the bags in together, three trips, and Renée put things away while Marcus went down to the basement and changed the furnace filter, which was gray with dust and had probably been in there since spring.

Upstairs, she was setting the tulips in a jar of water on the windowsill. It was not quite noon.


The rain had stopped by the time Denise and Marcus backed out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and slick under a sky the color of dishwater. Marcus drove. Denise held the list on her phone, scrolling through it with her thumb.

"Bank first," she said. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger. If we do Kroger last, the milk won't sit in the car."

"You say that like I've ever let milk sit in the car."

"Easter. Two thousand nineteen."

He laughed and turned onto Whitmore. The bank took four minutes at the drive-through, the teller's voice crackling through the speaker while Denise dug the deposit slip out of her purse and passed it across Marcus's lap. At the pharmacy she went in alone for her mother's blood pressure prescription, and he waited with the engine running, listening to a caller on the radio argue about the Bengals' offensive line.

Kroger was crowded for a Tuesday. They split the list without discussing it, the way they had for eleven years — Marcus took produce and the meat counter, Denise took the middle aisles and dairy. They met near the bread, comparing carts.

"You got the good bananas," she said.

"I got the only bananas."

She put back a box of cereal he'd added without asking, and he pretended not to notice, and then she put it back in the cart when he'd turned away.

In the checkout line, Denise remembered they were out of trash bags. Marcus jogged back for them and returned just as the cashier finished, sliding the box onto the belt at the last second, breathing hard, pleased with himself.

They loaded the trunk together in the parking lot, the air smelling like wet asphalt and someone's cigarette. Halfway home, Marcus said, "We forgot coffee filters."

Denise closed her eyes. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he agreed, and kept driving.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, and Diane rolled down her window an inch to let in the wet-asphalt smell she'd loved since childhood.

"Bank first," she said, checking the list on her phone. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger."

"Pharmacy's on the way back."

"It's on the way there if you take Ridgeline."

Marcus considered this, signaled, and took Ridgeline. Fourteen years of marriage had taught him which hills were worth dying on.

At the bank, Diane deposited the check from her mother — a birthday gift, arriving two months late as always — while Marcus waited in the car and listened to a podcast about shipwrecks. She came back with two lollipops from the teller's bowl and handed him the green one without asking, because he always took green.

The pharmacy took longer than it should have. Marcus's blood pressure prescription had been sent to the wrong location, and the technician typed with the grim patience of someone who had explained this eleven times already that morning. Diane wandered to the seasonal aisle and returned with a bag of discounted Halloween candy in November.

"We don't need that."

"It's seventy percent off."

"So it's seventy percent off something we don't need."

She put it in the cart at Kroger anyway.

They split the store the way they always did — Marcus taking produce and meat, Diane taking dairy and the middle aisles — and met near the frozen section, comparing hauls like scouts returning from opposite ridges. He'd forgotten onions. She'd forgotten the coffee filters. They went back for both.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Marcus noticed her sweater was inside out.

"Since when?"

"Since eight this morning, apparently." She laughed, genuinely, and didn't fix it.

They drove home the long way, past the reservoir, because neither of them suggested otherwise.


The Saturday list was on the yellow legal pad Diane kept magnetized to the refrigerator, and Marcus read it aloud in the driveway while she backed the car out.

"Groceries, bank, dry cleaning, and that thing at the hardware store for the sink."

"Washer," Diane said. "It's called a washer. Don't let them sell you a whole faucet."

They did the bank first because the drive-through line was short, then the dry cleaner, where the woman behind the counter remembered Marcus and asked about the dog. He said Pepper was fine, mostly deaf now, still ruled the house.

The grocery store was crowded in the way it always was after ten. Diane took the cart and Marcus took half the list, splitting off toward produce while she went for the paper goods. They met again by the deli counter, comparing what they'd found. He'd gotten the wrong kind of yogurt, the sweet kind, and she put it back without saying anything much, just a small sound in her throat he'd been married to for thirty-one years.

In the cereal aisle she stopped in front of a box of raisin bran and thought about her mother, who had eaten it every morning for as long as Diane could remember, and who had been dead eight years. She put the box in the cart. Marcus didn't ask.

At the hardware store they stood together at a wall of small drawers while a teenage employee counted out rubber washers into a paper envelope. Marcus held one up to the light like a jeweler.

"That's the one," he said.

Loading the trunk, Diane noticed the left rear tire looked soft and told him so. He crouched, pressed his thumb against it, said he'd check the pressure at the gas station on the way home.

They did. It was fine. They went home.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the car out of the driveway, though the gutters were still running and the maple in the front yard kept dropping water onto the windshield. Priya sat in the passenger seat with a receipt on her knee, writing on the back of it.

"You're making a list on a receipt again," Marcus said.

"It's paper."

"We have a notepad. On the refrigerator. I bought it specifically."

"And it's on the refrigerator," Priya said, "which is in the house, which is behind us."

They went to the bank first because the drive-through line was short, then to the hardware store, where Marcus spent eleven minutes comparing two nearly identical furnace filters while Priya wandered off and came back with a small bag of birdseed nobody had asked for.

"We don't have a feeder," Marcus said.

"We have a windowsill."

At the grocery store she pushed the cart and he read the list aloud, and they split up briefly at the produce section, which was always a mistake. He came back with three avocados that were rock hard. She sent him back for softer ones. They argued cheerfully about whether the store brand tortillas were as good as the ones they used to buy, and settled it by getting both.

In the checkout line, Priya remembered the dry cleaning.

"It's ticket's in my wallet," Marcus said. "I've been carrying it around since Tuesday."

The dry cleaner closed at six. It was 5:52. They made it with four minutes to spare, and the woman behind the counter handed over Marcus's gray suit in its plastic sheath and told them to drive safe.

At home they carried everything in together, two trips each, and Priya put the birdseed on the windowsill in a saucer while Marcus started dinner. By full dark, two sparrows had found it.


The list was magnetized to the fridge, half of it in Denise's cramped print, the rest in Marcus's looping scrawl. He pulled it down and read it aloud in the car while she backed out of the driveway.

"Coffee. Chicken thighs. Whatever that thing is you wrote that starts with a P."

"Parchment paper."

"That's not what this says. This says 'parchmerd.'"

"Then it says parchment paper."

The bank came first, because the drive-through line was short and Denise had a check from her mother that had been sitting in the visor for eleven days. Marcus filled out the deposit slip against his knee while she inched forward, and they both watched the pneumatic tube swallow the little canister with the same quiet satisfaction they'd had about it for twenty-two years.

At the pharmacy, Marcus went in alone for his blood pressure refill and came out with a bag of gummy bears he hadn't mentioned. Denise looked at them, then at him, then said nothing, which was its own kind of comment.

The grocery store was crowded for a Tuesday. They split up in produce — she took the vegetables, he took fruit — and reconvened near the deli, where he had found strawberries that were, he insisted, on sale. She turned the container over, checked the bottom for mold, and put them in the cart.

They disagreed about the chicken. He wanted the family pack; she pointed out the freezer was already full of things he'd bought in family packs. He put the family pack back.

At the checkout, Denise realized she'd forgotten the parchment paper. Marcus jogged back for it while she loaded the belt, and returned with the wrong brand, which was fine.

In the parking lot he took the cart to the corral, and she started the car, and the radio came on too loud, the way it always did.