The list had been on the fridge since Wednesday, and by Saturday morning it had grown crowded with Dana's cramped handwriting and Marcus's blocky additions at the bottom: BATTERIES (AA, the good kind), SOMETHING FOR SUNDAY.

They started with the laundromat, because the machine in their building had eaten four quarters and given nothing back. Marcus carried the bag down two flights while Dana held the door. They sat on plastic chairs for forty minutes, splitting a bag of vending machine pretzels, and Dana read aloud from an article about a man who had walked across Kansas. Marcus said he didn't understand why anyone would do that. Dana said that was the point.

At the grocery store, they took separate halves of the list, which was their system and had been for three years. Dana handled produce and dairy; Marcus took the aisles. They met at the end of the cereal aisle like people arriving at a rendezvous, and Marcus held up two boxes of pasta.

"They didn't have the shape you like."

"That one's fine."

"It's not fine, you always say it holds too much sauce."

"Then get the other one."

He got both. At the register, Dana remembered the batteries, and Marcus went back for them while the cashier scanned everything else, and Dana stood there with her card out, apologizing, and the cashier said it happened all the time.

In the parking lot the sun had gotten hot on the car's roof. They loaded the trunk, argued mildly about whether the eggs should ride in the back seat, put the eggs in the back seat. On the way home they stopped for gas and Dana went in for coffee neither of them needed.

Upstairs, they put things away together — Marcus on the high shelves, Dana on the low ones — and afterward the afternoon was still there, unspent, waiting.


The list on the fridge had grown all week, written in two different hands. Dana's additions were practical—dish soap, paper towels, coffee filters—while Marcus had scrawled "GOOD bread, not the sad kind" somewhere near the bottom.

They left the apartment a little after ten, later than they'd meant to. Marcus drove because Dana wanted to answer a text from her sister, and by the time she looked up they were already pulling into the lot behind the hardware store.

"Furnace filter," she said. "And those hooks for the bathroom."

"I still think we should just use the ones we have."

"They fall off the wall, Marcus."

He conceded the point. Inside, they spent eleven minutes in the aisle debating the merits of adhesive versus screws, and left with screws, a filter, and a single packet of drywall anchors that Marcus insisted they'd need eventually.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturdays always were. Dana pushed the cart while Marcus went ahead, doubling back with things he'd found. He held up two boxes of cereal, one in each hand, and she pointed at the left without slowing down. In produce, she squeezed avocados until she found two that would be ready by Tuesday. He put a pineapple in the cart, and she raised an eyebrow.

"We never eat those," she said. "They just sit there and get sad."

"This time will be different."

They ended up with the pineapple, plus a bag of coffee, chicken thighs on sale, and bread from the bakery counter that Marcus declared acceptable. The self-checkout misread the spinach, and a teenage employee came over and fixed it without being asked twice.

At home, Dana put away the cold things while Marcus took the filter down to the basement. When he came back up, she'd already started a pot of coffee, and the pineapple was sitting on the counter, waiting.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the gas company, but Marcus was the one who carried it into the store, folded once and tucked into his jacket pocket like a receipt he might need later.

They'd already been to the hardware store on Winslow, where Dana stood in the plumbing aisle comparing two nearly identical rubber washers while Marcus wandered off to look at extension cords they didn't need. The kitchen faucet had been dripping since Tuesday. She'd watched a video about it on her phone that morning, sitting on the closed toilet lid with the cat pressed against her ankle.

Now, in the produce section, Marcus held up a bag of oranges.

"These are the ones with the seeds," Dana said.

"You don't know that."

"They're always the ones with the seeds."

He put them back and took the other bag, which cost sixty cents more, and neither of them said anything about it.

They moved through the store in the loose, practiced way of people who had done this maybe two hundred times. Marcus pushed the cart. Dana went ahead and came back with things — a box of pasta, a jar of the mustard he liked, a package of chicken thighs she squeezed through the plastic before setting down. At the deli counter they waited nine minutes for a half pound of turkey because the woman ahead of them wanted six things sliced to different thicknesses.

"We could just get the packaged kind," Marcus said.

"It tastes like a sponge."

"It tastes like turkey-adjacent sponge."

She laughed, which he'd been going for.

In the car, the bags sat between them on the back seat, leaning into each other. Dana read the receipt while Marcus backed out.

"We spent eighty-four dollars."

"On what?"

"Turkey-adjacent sponge, apparently."

He put on the blinker. The faucet was still dripping when they got home, and it took him until almost four to fix it.


The list was Maya's, written on the back of a receipt in the car while Dev drove. She kept adding to it at stoplights.

"Do we need eggs?" she asked.

"We have four."

"That's not enough for anything."

"It's enough for breakfast."

She wrote eggs anyway.

The Kroger on Belmont was crowded the way it always was on Saturday mornings, families clogging the produce section, an old man parked in front of the bananas with an expression of genuine indecision. Dev took the cart because Maya drove it into things. She went ahead of him, picking up bell peppers and putting them down, holding a bag of limes up to the light like a jeweler.

"You're doing the thing," he said.

"What thing?"

"Where you inspect every lime."

"One of them is always bad. I'm just finding out which one now instead of Wednesday."

They split up in the middle of the store. He got coffee, tortillas, the yogurt she liked and the yogurt he liked, which were different. She texted him a photo of two pasta sauces with the caption *which*. He sent back the left one, then found her in the freezer aisle holding both.

At the register, they did the thing they always did, where he unloaded and she bagged, and the cashier said they were efficient, and Maya said they'd had practice.

In the parking lot the cart wanted to go left. Dev wrestled it while Maya opened the trunk, and they loaded eleven bags and a case of seltzer, and she remembered they hadn't gotten trash bags.

"Next time," he said.

"We'll be out by Tuesday."

"Then Tuesday I'll get trash bags."

She said okay. On the drive home they argued mildly about whether the laundry could wait until Sunday, and it could, and it did.


The list was Maya's, but Daniel was the one who insisted on the hardware store first, because the toilet in the back bathroom had been running for eleven days and he'd finally admitted he couldn't fix it with willpower alone. They stood in aisle seven while an employee named Rick explained flappers to them with more enthusiasm than the subject warranted, and Maya held up two versions, and Daniel said, "The cheap one," and Maya put the cheap one in the cart and also, quietly, the expensive one, because she'd been married to the cheap one's failures before—not married, she corrected herself, just familiar.

At the grocery store, they split up. This was the system. She took produce and dairy; he took the middle aisles, where he always came back with something not on the list. She was squeezing avocados when he appeared with a jar of pickled okra.

"Nobody in this house eats pickled okra," she said.

"I'm going to become a person who eats pickled okra."

"You said that about kimchi."

"And now look at me." He put it in the cart. She let him.

They argued mildly about which brand of coffee, resolved it by buying neither and getting the store brand, and stood in the self-checkout while a machine accused them repeatedly of unexpected items in the bagging area. Daniel did the scanning. Maya bagged, faster than he scanned, which annoyed him in a way he didn't mention.

In the parking lot the cart wanted to veer left. She held the trunk open while he loaded, and he handed her the eggs to hold in her lap, the way he always did, as though she were the only reliable surface in the vehicle.

At home she put things away. He knelt behind the toilet with the shutoff valve seized shut, and swore, and called her name.


The alarm didn't go off, which meant they both woke at 9:40 to a Saturday already half-formed. Dana made coffee while Marcus stripped the sheets, muttering about how the mattress protector always got twisted around itself in the wash.

"We need to leave by eleven if we're going to hit the hardware store first," she said, handing him a mug.

"Hardware store's not going anywhere."

"The paint counter closes at four on Saturdays."

They compromised: laundry started, then errands. At the hardware store, Marcus held up two nearly identical swatches of pale gray while Dana squinted. "That one's warmer."

"They're the same."

"They're not the same. Yours has yellow in it."

They bought the one with yellow in it, plus a replacement filter for the furnace and a package of picture hangers they'd been meaning to get since March.

The grocery store was crowded. Dana pushed the cart while Marcus worked from a list on his phone, doubling back twice for things he'd skipped. She added a box of the cereal she liked and he pretended not to notice the price. In the produce section they had a brief, low-voiced disagreement about whether they actually needed a second bag of onions, which ended when she pointed out the first bag had sprouted.

At the register, the card reader failed twice before taking his tap. The bagger asked if they wanted paper or plastic and Dana said paper, and Marcus, who preferred plastic, said nothing.

They unloaded the car together, six bags in two trips. Dana put away the cold things while Marcus went down to move the laundry, and came back up to report that the dryer was making the noise again.

"We should call somebody."

"Monday," she said, and handed him the onions to put in the pantry.


Saturday started slower than they'd planned. Dana woke first, stood in the kitchen in one of Marcus's old T-shirts, and discovered the coffee filters were gone. She wrote *filters* on the back of an envelope and set it by the sink, which was how their lists always began.

By ten they had eleven items and a plan. Marcus stripped the bed while Dana wrestled the vacuum out of the hall closet, where it lived wedged behind a folding chair neither of them remembered buying. He carried the sheets down to the basement laundry, came back up, and found her arguing with the vacuum's belt.

"It's the roller," he said.

"I know it's the roller."

He got a butter knife and worked out a knot of hair while she held the base steady. It took eleven minutes. They agreed the vacuum was on its last legs and did not agree on whether to replace it now or in the fall.

At the grocery store, Marcus pushed the cart and Dana walked ahead, moving fast, the way she did everything. She put back the expensive coffee. He put it in again when she wasn't looking. In the produce section they stood a long time over the tomatoes, which were pale and hard, and settled on a can of crushed instead. Dana added a bag of limes that wasn't on the list. Marcus added tortilla chips that also weren't.

The self-checkout flagged the limes as unexpected in the bagging area. Dana waved for the attendant while Marcus kept scanning.

At home they unloaded, and he moved the laundry to the dryer, and she started the vacuum, and for a while neither of them could hear the other. Later, on the couch, she said they should look at vacuums online. He said sure, next weekend. Neither of them meant it.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus was the one holding it, squinting at her handwriting while she pushed the cart down the produce aisle.

"Does that say 'cilantro' or 'celery'?"

"Cilantro. We have celery. It's been in the drawer since—" She stopped. "Actually, throw out the celery when we get home."

He grabbed a bunch of cilantro and dropped it in beside the apples. Saturday morning at the Kroger on Ballard meant navigating around families and a man in a Steelers jacket parked in front of the bananas, talking on speakerphone. Dana steered around him without comment.

They'd already been to the hardware store for a furnace filter and to the bank, where Marcus deposited a check from his uncle that had been sitting on the dresser for three weeks. Dana had waited in the car with the radio on, and when he came out she'd said, "Your uncle writes checks like it's 1994," and he'd said, "He also puts the year in the memo line, so."

In the cereal aisle they had the same negotiation as always. Marcus wanted the sugary one. Dana pointed out he never finished the box.

"I finished the last box."

"You gave the last box to Tyler."

He put it back. She put it in the cart, and he didn't say anything, just smiled at the floor a little.

At checkout, the total came to eighty-seven dollars and change, and Dana paid because Marcus had covered the filter and the light bulbs. In the parking lot, they loaded bags into the back of her Corolla, and Marcus said he'd change the filter that afternoon if she'd help him figure out the thermostat.

"That's a two-person job now?"

"It's a two-person job if you want it done right."

She handed him the keys and got in the passenger side.


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

"Does this say 'cilantro' or 'celery'?"

"Both. It says both. There's a comma."

"There's a smudge."

They started in produce because Maya insisted it was the only rational way to move through a grocery store, and Dev had long ago stopped arguing about it. He pushed the cart while she pressed her thumb into avocados, rejecting four before finding two she liked. A woman with a toddler in the seat of her cart apologized as she reached past them for limes, and Maya said no worries, and the toddler stared at Dev with frank suspicion until they turned the corner.

They disagreed, briefly and without heat, about yogurt. Dev wanted the big tub; Maya pointed out that the last big tub had gone furry in the back of the fridge. They bought the big tub anyway, because it was cheaper, and Dev promised to eat it.

At the register, Maya bagged while Dev paid, and they loaded the trunk in the flat white light of a March afternoon, the wind coming across the lot cold enough to make her pull her sleeves over her hands.

Back at the apartment, they carried everything up in two trips. Dev put away the cold things badly — Maya rearranged the fridge behind him without comment — and then he took the laundry down to the basement while she scrubbed the stovetop, which had needed it for a week.

At three-thirty he came back up with the basket on his hip and found her sitting on the kitchen floor with the cabinet under the sink open, sorting through half-empty cleaning bottles.

"We have four Windexes."

"Four?"

"Four."

He set down the basket and sat beside her on the linoleum, and they started deciding what to throw away.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus held it, because she'd learned years ago that if he didn't have a job at the store he wandered off toward the seasonal aisle and came back with a citronella candle.

They'd started the morning with laundry. Marcus carried the basket down two flights to the machines in the basement while Dana stripped the bed, and when he came back up she'd already stacked the recycling by the door and was standing in the kitchen frowning at the coffee maker.

"It's doing the thing again," she said.

"The dripping thing?"

"The dripping thing."

He unplugged it, took the carafe out, wiped the plate with a paper towel, and put it back. It still dripped. They agreed to look at a new one eventually, which they both understood meant August at the earliest.

At the store, Dana pushed the cart and Marcus read the list aloud, item by item, in a voice like a man calling out train stops. They disagreed briefly about yogurt — she wanted the plain, he wanted the vanilla, they got both — and stood too long in front of the pasta sauce because neither could remember whether they still had a jar at home. Marcus said they did. Dana said he'd said that last time and they'd ended up with four. They bought one.

In the checkout line, Dana remembered they needed trash bags and Marcus jogged back for them, returning slightly out of breath, holding them up like a trophy. The cashier asked if they'd found everything all right. They said yes.

They loaded the car in the gray afternoon light, and Marcus took the cart back to the corral even though the parking lot was mostly empty and no one would have known. On the drive home Dana held the eggs in her lap and told him she'd cook, if he'd do the dishes. He said that was fair.


The list was in Dana's phone, but Marcus wrote his own on the back of a receipt because he claimed he thought better in ink. They left the apartment at ten, later than planned, because Dana had started a load of towels and then decided the whites should go in first.

The hardware store came first. Marcus needed a new washer for the bathroom faucet, which had been dripping since March in a rhythm Dana had learned to sleep through. He stood in aisle six holding two small packages, comparing them, while Dana wandered to the paint chips and brought back a fan of grays.

"For what?" he asked.

"The bedroom. Eventually."

"Eventually," he agreed, and put the fan in the cart, which was not a thing you were supposed to do, and she put it back.

At the grocery store they split up. She took produce and dairy; he took the middle aisles, which he preferred because nobody blocked them with their carts to have long conversations. He texted her a photo of two brands of tortillas. She texted back *the green bag*. He bought the green bag.

They met at the deli counter. She had strawberries that weren't quite in season and a bag of shredded cheese she said was for the enchiladas and he said was for eating out of the bag. At checkout he bagged while she paid, and they argued mildly about whether the eggs should go on top or in their own bag, and settled it the way they always did, which was that she was right.

Back home, Marcus fixed the faucet in eleven minutes and felt disproportionately good about it. Dana folded towels on the bed and put the paint chips on the fridge under a magnet from a wedding they'd gone to in Ohio. The apartment smelled like detergent. It was one thirty. There was still most of a Saturday left.


The list had been magnetized to the fridge since Wednesday, accumulating additions in two different handwritings. Dana's were practical—dish soap, coffee filters, bread. Marcus had written "cereal (the good kind)" and, later, "SALSA."

They left the apartment a little after ten, Marcus carrying the reusable bags they always forgot until they were halfway down the stairs. Today he'd remembered. He held them up like a trophy.

"I'm proud of you," Dana said, unlocking the car.

First stop was the hardware store, because the bathroom faucet had developed a drip that had graduated from ignorable to maddening. Marcus stood in the plumbing aisle for eleven minutes comparing washer kits while Dana wandered off and came back with a small potted succulent.

"That's not on the list."

"It was four dollars and it looked lonely."

At the grocery store, they fell into their usual division of labor without discussing it. Dana took the produce and dairy; Marcus took the interior aisles and the deli counter. They reunited near the frozen section, comparing carts like generals reporting from opposite fronts.

"You got the sharp cheddar?"

"I got the sharp cheddar. You got the salsa?"

"I got two salsas. One's a medium, one's a hot, we'll see how brave we're feeling."

The checkout line moved slowly. A woman ahead of them had a coupon dispute. Marcus read the tabloid headlines aloud in a newscaster voice until Dana told him to stop, which he did, mostly.

At home they unloaded together, Dana putting things away while Marcus broke down the boxes for recycling. Then he knelt under the bathroom sink with a wrench and the washer kit while she read him the instructions off her phone, and after twenty minutes and one small flood, the dripping stopped.

They stood there listening to the silence.

"Should we do the laundry?" Dana said.

"Let's do it tomorrow," Marcus said.

They did it tomorrow.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of a pharmacy receipt, but Marcus was the one holding it when they walked into the store at ten past nine.

"Coffee first," he said.

"Coffee's aisle seven. We start with produce or the lettuce gets crushed."

He didn't argue. He'd learned. She picked over the bell peppers with the seriousness of someone defusing something, and he wandered two steps behind pushing the cart, stopping to read the price on a bag of clementines.

"Do we need these?"

"We don't need any of this. We're not going to starve either way."

"That's a yes." He put them in the cart.

They moved through the store in their usual pattern, which was that Dana walked ahead and Marcus caught up. In the cereal aisle he put back the sugary thing he'd grabbed, unprompted, and she pretended not to notice. At the deli counter she took a number and he leaned against the glass and told her about a coworker who'd started bringing a rice cooker to the office and using it at his desk.

"That's insane."

"It smells great, honestly."

They disagreed about whether they already had garlic at home. She was right. They bought garlic anyway.

Afterward, in the parking lot, the sun was already hot on the roof of the car and the ice cream had to go in the bag with the frozen peas. He drove. She read him the rest of the day: return the drill to his brother, drop off the shoes at the cobbler on Fifth, pick up her prescription.

"That's it?"

"And the laundry, but that's not a trip."

"Everything's a trip," he said, and she laughed, and he took the long way because the light on Wexler was always red.

At home they carried in four bags each so they wouldn't have to make two trips.


The list on the fridge had been growing all week, magneted under a coupon for oil changes that had expired in March. Dana pulled it down while Marcus rinsed the coffee pot.

"We need to hit the hardware store first," she said. "The shower drain's still slow."

"I told you, it's hair."

"It's your hair too."

They took his car because hers was low on gas and neither wanted to deal with it yet. At the hardware store Marcus stood in the plumbing aisle comparing two nearly identical drain snakes while Dana wandered off and came back with a packet of furnace filters they'd forgotten they needed in October. The cashier asked if they'd found everything okay and Marcus said mostly, which made Dana laugh in the parking lot.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturdays always were, carts stalling at the ends of aisles. Dana pushed while Marcus read from the list on his phone, where he'd photographed her handwriting.

"Bread. The seeded kind or regular?"

"Seeded. You hate the seeded."

"I'm buying it for you."

He put back a box of cereal she said was mostly sugar, then quietly put it in when she went for eggs. They argued mildly over chicken thighs versus breasts and settled on both. In the checkout line Dana rearranged the belt so the cold things went together, a habit she'd picked up from her mother and which Marcus had stopped teasing her about two years ago.

At home they carried everything in two trips. Marcus put away the freezer things while Dana wiped down the produce drawer, which had a smear of something in the corner. Then he lay on the bathroom floor with the drain snake and swore twice, and she brought him a beer and stood in the doorway watching, offering advice he did not want.


The list started as a magnet-pinned scrap on the refrigerator and ended up mostly in Dana's head anyway. She read it out loud from the passenger seat while Marcus backed the Civic out of the apartment lot.

"Detergent, coffee, chicken thighs, the good tortillas—not the ones you got last time."

"Those were fine."

"They were cardboard."

They hit the hardware store first, because Marcus had been saying for three weeks that the smoke detector's low-battery chirp was going to drive him out of the building. He stood in aisle six comparing nine-volt multipacks while Dana wandered off and came back with a rubber drain snake, holding it up like evidence.

"Your hair," she said.

"Our hair."

"Mine doesn't clog it."

They bought both. At the grocery store the cart had a bad wheel, and Marcus refused to swap it out on principle, steering it in a slow rattling drift while Dana went ahead into produce. She squeezed avocados, put three in a bag, then put one back. He caught up in the cereal aisle and put a box of Frosted Flakes in the cart without comment. She didn't say anything either, just moved it so it wouldn't crush the bread.

At the deli counter they waited eleven minutes for a half pound of turkey. Dana leaned against the case and told him about her sister's new dog, some kind of terrier mix that had already eaten a remote control. Marcus laughed at the wrong part and she elbowed him.

Checkout was $137.42, more than either expected, and Marcus said so in the parking lot while Dana loaded bags into the trunk. Back home they carried everything up in two trips, and he changed the smoke detector battery while she put the cold things away.

The chirping stopped. He came down off the chair.

"Lunch?" she said.

"Sandwiches. We have turkey."


The list was Nora's, but Deshawn was the one who kept it, folded in his back pocket the way his father used to carry receipts. They'd started the morning slow — coffee, the radio, Nora scrubbing the burner grates while Deshawn hauled two weeks of recycling down to the bins behind the building.

"We need to hit the hardware store first," he said, coming back up the stairs. "That shelf bracket."

"After groceries the ice cream melts."

"That's why hardware's first."

At Ace, they spent eleven minutes in the fastener aisle because Nora insisted the old bracket was 3/8-inch and Deshawn insisted it wasn't, and then an employee named Curtis measured it with calipers and it was neither. They bought a whole new bracket set and a package of drywall anchors and, because Nora spotted them by the register, a set of felt pads for the chair legs that had been scratching the floor since March.

The grocery store on Saturday was a slow river of carts. They split up — she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles — and met near the deli, where Deshawn was holding two brands of pasta sauce like he was weighing evidence.

"Just get the one your mom uses."

"My mom uses whatever's on sale."

"Then that one."

They got the one on sale. Also: chicken thighs, a bag of yellow onions, oat milk, tortillas, dish soap, a birthday card for Nora's coworker, and, at the last second, a rotisserie chicken because neither of them wanted to cook that night. The total was more than they expected. It always was.

In the parking lot Deshawn loaded the trunk and Nora returned the cart, and on the drive home she read the card options aloud from her phone until he laughed and said none of them, just write something.

They put the groceries away together. The shelf bracket sat on the counter until Sunday.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of a utility bill envelope, but Marcus was the one holding it in the car, reading items aloud while she drove.

"Coffee, obviously. Onions. Sour cream — do we need sour cream?"

"We need it for the thing I'm making Wednesday."

"What thing?"

"The chicken thing."

"Ah," Marcus said. "The chicken thing."

They stopped at the hardware store first, because the light in the hallway had been out for eleven days and Dana had started calling it the tunnel. Marcus stood in front of a wall of bulbs looking genuinely defeated until an employee named Rich pointed out the packaging said sixty-watt equivalent. They bought a four-pack and a replacement furnace filter that Marcus insisted was overdue.

The grocery store was crowded in the way it always was on Saturdays, carts abandoned mid-aisle, kids melting down near the cereal. Dana took the left side of the store and Marcus took the right, which they'd worked out two apartments ago. She got produce and dairy; he got the pasta, the canned things, the paper towels that were on sale but only if you bought two. They met near the meat counter and compared carts like customs agents.

"You got the wrong sour cream," she said.

"It's sour cream."

"It's fat free. It'll split."

He put it back. At checkout he bagged while she paid, and they argued mildly about whether the eggs should go on top or in their own bag, a debate with no resolution in six years.

At home they carried everything in two trips. Marcus changed the hallway bulb while Dana put things away, calling out when she couldn't find where the rice had gone. The hallway lit up. She stood at the end of it, squinting.

"Bright," she said.

"That's the idea," he said, folding up the stepladder.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus was the one holding it, because Dana had a habit of losing paper.

"Bread, eggs, whatever we need for Tuesday," he read aloud in the car. "What's Tuesday?"

"Your mom's coming over."

"Right." He folded the list into his shirt pocket. "So, chicken."

At the store, Dana took the cart because Marcus steered it into displays. They moved through produce with the unhurried inefficiency of people who had nowhere else to be until three. Dana squeezed avocados and rejected four before finding two that felt right. Marcus wandered off and came back with a bag of the peppery crackers he liked, which Dana looked at without saying anything, and he put back, and then took again when she turned toward the onions.

"I saw that."

"You didn't see anything."

They argued mildly about yogurt — she wanted the big tub, he wanted the individual cups because he ate them at work — and settled on both. In the meat case, Marcus held up two packages of chicken thighs and Dana pointed at the one on the left without looking up from her phone, where she was checking whether they still had rice.

"We have rice," she said. "We have a lot of rice."

Checkout took longer than it should have because the woman ahead of them had coupons. Marcus bagged. Dana paid, and he said he'd get her back for his half, and she said he always said that, and he said he always did it, which was mostly true.

At home they carried everything in two trips. Dana put things away while Marcus took out the recycling and then stood in the driveway for a minute, looking at the tire that had been low all week.

"It's still low," he called.

"So take it in."

"After lunch," he said, and went inside to see what there was.


The list was Maya's, written on the back of an envelope in blue pen, but Dev was the one holding it in the Safeway parking lot, squinting.

"You wrote 'the good bread,'" he said. "That's not a brand."

"You know which one. The seeded one from the bakery case."

"There are four seeded ones."

"Then buy the one you like and I'll complain about it later."

Inside, they split up, which they always did and which never saved time. Maya took the produce and the dairy wall; Dev took the middle aisles and the bakery. He found her ten minutes later standing in front of the yogurt like she was reading a menu in a foreign country.

"They discontinued the vanilla one," she said.

"They didn't discontinue it. They moved it."

"It's not here."

He reached past her shoulder, two shelves down, and handed her the tub. She took it without comment, which he decided to accept as gratitude.

They argued mildly about whether they needed another jar of peanut butter—there was one at home, she said, but it was almost empty, he said, and the almost-empty jar had been almost empty for three weeks. They bought it. At the register, Maya bagged while Dev loaded, and the teenager scanning items told them about a coupon they could have used, which annoyed them both in a companionable way.

At home, they carried everything up in two trips. Dev put the cold things away; Maya broke down the cardboard box the cat litter came in, which took longer than it should have because the tape was aggressive. Then she started a load of towels while he took the recycling bin out to the curb, even though pickup wasn't until Tuesday, because otherwise it would sit in the kitchen all weekend and they'd both pretend not to see it.

By two o'clock the apartment smelled like laundry detergent. Maya made toast with the good bread. It was, in fact, the right one.


The list was Maya's, written on the back of a receipt in blue pen, but Danny was the one carrying it into the store, folded twice and tucked under his thumb against the cart handle.

"Coffee first," he said. "Then we loop back for produce."

"That's backwards. Produce is right there."

"It's a system."

She let him have it. They'd lived together fourteen months and she'd learned which arguments were worth the calories. In the coffee aisle he stood too long comparing two bags of the same medium roast, one of which was forty cents cheaper, and she wandered off to look at the seasonal display of cookies she wasn't going to buy.

At the deli counter she took a number and he read the list out loud, adding things.

"We don't need capers," she said.

"We're out of capers."

"We've been out of capers since March. That's data."

He put the capers back.

The self-checkout ate a coupon and a teenage employee named Aaron came over and scanned his badge and fixed it without seeming to look. Danny bagged. Maya loaded the cart. In the parking lot the wind picked up and a receipt blew under a Subaru, and neither of them chased it.

At home they unpacked, and Maya found the ice cream had gotten soft on the drive. She stuck it in the freezer anyway. Danny broke down the boxes for recycling and hauled the bin to the curb even though pickup wasn't until Tuesday, because he was already outside and it was there.

They still had the dry cleaning to get, and the bathroom sink was draining slow, and there was a birthday card for his mother sitting unsigned on the counter since Thursday.

"Sink or card," Maya said.

"Card," Danny said. "I need to work up to the sink."

She handed him the pen.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of a takeout receipt, but Marcus was the one holding it in the parking lot of the Kroger on Whitcomb.

"You wrote 'stuff for tacos,'" he said. "That's not a list. That's a mood."

"You know what goes in tacos."

"I know what *I* put in tacos."

Inside, they split up the way they always did—Dana toward produce, Marcus toward the aisles—and reconvened near the dairy case with a cart that had a wobbling wheel. She'd found limes on sale and a bag of tortillas she liked better than the ones he usually got. He'd added a box of the cereal she pretended not to eat.

"We need paper towels," she said.

"We have paper towels."

"We have four sheets and a cardboard tube."

They argued mildly about whether to get the store brand, then got the store brand. At the register, Dana bagged while Marcus paid, and the cashier said something about the weather finally turning, and they agreed that it had.

The car smelled like the rotisserie chicken by the time they got home. Marcus carried the heavy bags in one trip because he always tried to, and Dana held the door with her foot and told him he was going to break a finger someday.

Groceries away, they moved on. She stripped the bed and started a load of sheets. He took the recycling out and then stood in the driveway a minute, looking at the front tire he'd been meaning to check. When he came back in she was on the phone with the pharmacy, on hold, mouthing something to him about the vacuum bag.

By four they were done, more or less. Dana sat on the couch with her feet in his lap, and neither of them said anything for a while, and it was fine.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the electric company, but Marcus was the one who insisted on the store on Eleventh instead of the closer one.

"They have the bread you like," he said, backing the car out.

"They have the bread I *tolerate*."

"That's still a preference."

They hit the laundromat first, because their building's machines had been broken since Tuesday and the super kept saying Thursday. Dana fed quarters while Marcus sorted, and they sat for forty minutes in orange plastic chairs, sharing a bag of pretzels from the vending machine and half-watching a soccer game on the mounted TV. She read him a text from her sister about a wedding in June. He said they should probably book something before the prices went up. She said she'd look tonight and then didn't write it down, which meant she wouldn't.

At the grocery store, they split the list. Marcus took produce and dairy; Dana took everything in the middle aisles, which she claimed was harder and he claimed was where all the snacks were. They found each other by the deli counter. He'd gotten the wrong kind of yogurt, the vanilla instead of plain, and put it back with the exaggerated patience of a man who thinks yogurt distinctions are a conspiracy.

The line was long. A kid ahead of them was having a slow, quiet meltdown about a candy bar, and Dana looked at Marcus and Marcus looked back, and neither of them said anything, but the look had a whole conversation in it.

They carried the bags up in one trip because Marcus refused, on principle, to make two. Dana put things away. Marcus started the dishwasher, then sat on the counter and ate crackers out of the box while she told him he was going to spill crumbs everywhere, which he did.


The list was Dana's, written on the back of an envelope from the gas company, but Marcus was the one holding it as they walked into the store. He liked having a job.

"Bananas first," he said. "You always forget bananas."

"I forgot them one time."

"Twice."

They moved through produce without much system. Dana squeezed avocados and put three in the cart, one hard, one nearly ready, one for tonight. Marcus wandered off toward the bulk bins and came back with a bag of trail mix she hadn't asked for.

"That's not on the list."

"It's now on the list." He wrote *trail mix* under *paper towels* in handwriting that looked nothing like hers.

In the cereal aisle they had the same argument they'd had for two years, which was less an argument than a routine: he wanted the sugary one, she wanted the one with fiber, and they bought both, as always. At the deli counter Dana took a number and Marcus stood a little apart, checking his phone, then held up a finger when the number was called because Dana had drifted to look at cheese.

Checkout took longer than it should have. The woman ahead of them had coupons. Marcus loaded the belt in the order he thought the bagger would want, heavy things first, bread and eggs last, and Dana watched him do it and said nothing, because he was right and she wasn't going to say so.

At home they put everything away, mostly. The bananas went on the counter. Marcus started laundry — his work shirts, her running clothes, one load, mixed — while Dana wiped down the fridge shelves where something sticky had spread.

By two they were done. Dana sat on the kitchen floor with her back against the dishwasher, eating trail mix out of the bag.

"Told you," Marcus said.

She held it out to him.


The list was Danielle's, written on the back of a receipt in her cramped handwriting, and Marcus had already lost it twice by the time they reached the parking lot.

"Eggs," she said, not looking up from her phone. "Just remember eggs. If we forget eggs again I'm moving out."

"You say that about everything." He pulled the cart out of the corral, the one with the wobbling wheel because he never checked first. "Last week it was the shower drain."

"The shower drain is genuinely a moving-out offense."

Inside, they split up the way they always did, though neither had ever proposed it. He took the produce and the frozen aisle; she took everything that required reading a label. He came back with two bags of clementines because they were on sale, and she looked at him the way she looked at their neighbor's dog.

"We threw half of the last ones out."

"These are different. These are Cuties."

"Those were also Cuties."

They compromised on one bag, which meant she put the other back while he was pretending to consider the yogurt. At checkout she remembered the eggs, and he jogged back for them, and the cashier waited with the patience of someone paid hourly.

The rest of the afternoon dissolved into small tasks. Marcus took two bags of donations to the drop-off bin behind the church, then hit the hardware store for a furnace filter and, unnecessarily, a small can of WD-40. Danielle stayed home and stripped the bed, started a load, paid the water bill on her laptop with the cat sitting on the trackpad.

When he got back she was standing in the kitchen eating a clementine over the sink.

"They're good," she admitted.

"I want that in writing."

She handed him half. Outside, someone was mowing. It was almost four, and neither of them had thought about dinner yet.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus held it, because Dana had a habit of losing paper and Marcus had a habit of not trusting her about it.

They started with the recycling, dragging the blue bin down the driveway before the truck came, then hauling two bags of clothes to the donation bin behind the church on Fillmore. Dana wanted to keep a denim jacket she hadn't worn in three years. Marcus said nothing, just raised his eyebrows, and she put it back in the bag herself.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturday mornings always were, carts angled across aisles, a kid screaming somewhere near the bakery. They split up at the entrance. Marcus took produce and dairy; Dana took the middle aisles and the meat counter. They found each other again by the cereal, comparing carts.

"You got the wrong tortillas," she said.

"These are the ones we always get."

"We always get the ones in the refrigerated case."

He went back for them without arguing, which meant he was in a decent mood. Dana added a bag of gummy worms while he was gone and didn't mention it.

At checkout the total came to ninety-four dollars, more than they'd planned, and Dana paid because Marcus had covered the electric bill. Loading the trunk in the parking lot, he noticed the front left tire looked low.

"We can hit the air pump at the Shell," he said.

"Now?"

"It's on the way."

So they stopped, and Dana sat in the passenger seat with the door open, holding the gauge and reading numbers out while Marcus crouched by the tire with the hose. It took eleven minutes. The ice cream would be fine; it was October.

At home they carried everything in together, two trips each, and Dana started putting things away while Marcus went out to mow before the rain.


The list was Dana's handwriting, but Marcus had added things down the side in his cramped print: *coffee filters, that pasta sauce you like, garbage bags (BIG ones)*. He held it up in the car and squinted.

"You wrote 'onions' twice."

"I did not."

"Line four and line eleven."

Dana glanced over from the driver's seat. "The second one says 'oranges.'"

"That is not an R."

They stopped first at the hardware store, where Marcus stood in the plumbing aisle comparing two nearly identical sink washers while Dana wandered off and came back with a five-dollar houseplant she swore she wouldn't kill. At the register, they discovered the coupon on Marcus's phone had expired in March.

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturday mornings always were, everyone moving at half speed, carts nosing into each other near the bakery. Dana took the left side of the aisles, Marcus the right. He was slow in the cereal section, reading boxes he had no intention of buying. She texted him from three aisles over: *deli line is long, get in it now.*

He got in it. A woman ahead of him ordered a quarter pound of six different things.

They met at the eggs. Dana opened the carton, checked for cracks, closed it. Marcus put back the expensive olive oil when he saw the price, then put it in the cart anyway.

At checkout, the total was more than either of them expected, which was also true every week. Marcus paid. Dana loaded the bags.

Back home, they carried everything up in two trips. Dana started the laundry. Marcus fixed the sink, which took forty minutes instead of ten, and involved one trip back out to the garage and some swearing.

By two o'clock the apartment smelled like detergent, the plant sat hopefully on the windowsill, and there were, in fact, two bags of onions.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus had added things in the margins: coffee filters, that hot sauce, batteries?? He drove because she'd driven last week, and because he liked the radio at a volume she tolerated only in the passenger seat.

They hit the hardware store first. The bathroom faucet had been dripping since Thanksgiving, and Marcus had finally looked up a video about replacing the cartridge. He stood in aisle seven holding two small plastic packages, comparing them to a photo on his phone.

"Just buy both," Dana said. "Return the wrong one."

"That's how we ended up with three shower heads."

"We ended up with three shower heads because you're indecisive."

He bought both.

At the grocery store, they split up the way they always did, which mostly meant Dana went to produce and Marcus wandered off toward things not on the list. She found him in the cereal aisle looking at a box of something with a cartoon toucan.

"No," she said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were building an argument."

They negotiated in the middle of the store: yes to the good bread, no to the sixty-dollar cheese, yes to two rotisserie chickens because one was never enough. Dana squeezed avocados while Marcus texted his sister back about Easter. At the register, they bagged their own groceries because the lane was self-checkout and the machine kept insisting there was an unexpected item.

The car got hot in the parking lot. Marcus turned the AC on and let it run while Dana lined the bags up in the trunk so nothing would tip.

"Faucet after lunch," he said.

"Faucet after lunch," she agreed, in a tone that suggested she'd believe it when the dripping stopped.

At home, they put everything away — she handled the fridge, he handled the pantry, both of them stepping around each other in a kitchen too small for two people who had learned exactly how to do it.


The Saturday started slow. Marcus woke first, made coffee, and stood at the kitchen window watching a neighbor drag a recycling bin to the curb. Elena came out twenty minutes later in his old college sweatshirt, hair flattened on one side.

"We have to go to Kroger," she said. "There's nothing here. I ate the last yogurt."

"There's rice."

"I'm not eating plain rice for lunch."

They made a list on the back of an envelope, arguing mildly about whether they needed more olive oil. Marcus said they had half a bottle. Elena said half a bottle was nothing. He wrote it down.

Before the store, they stopped at the hardware place on Ridge Road because the bathroom faucet had been dripping for three weeks. An older man in a green apron listened to Marcus describe the sound and handed him a small package of rubber washers. Elena wandered off and came back with a pack of furnace filters, holding them up.

"When did we last change these?"

"Never, probably."

At the grocery store, Elena pushed the cart and Marcus walked ahead, disappearing down aisles and reappearing with things not on the list — a bag of pretzel thins, a jar of pickled banana peppers. Elena put the peppers back. He got them again on the next pass and she pretended not to notice. In produce, they stood together over the bagged salads, reading dates. The self-checkout froze twice and a teenager with a lanyard came over both times without saying much.

At home they unloaded the car in three trips. Marcus put the cold things away while Elena broke down the boxes for recycling. Then he knelt under the sink with a wrench, and she stood in the bathroom doorway holding his phone with the flashlight on, telling him he had it backwards.

He didn't. The dripping stopped around two.


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 piled up on the back porch until the raccoons found the bin. Marcus hauled the bags to the car while Dana swept up the shredded cardboard and a flattened yogurt container that had somehow ended up under the grill. It was October and cool enough that neither of them wore a jacket, which felt like getting away with something.

At the recycling center they waited behind a man unloading what looked like a hundred glass bottles, one at a time. Dana made a face. Marcus said, "He's committed," and she laughed, and they sat in the car with the windows down until it was their turn.

The grocery store was the usual Saturday crush. They split up—Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the middle aisles—and reconvened near the bread with two carts' worth of disagreement.

"You got the crunchy," Dana said, holding up the peanut butter.

"You said crunchy."

"I said creamy. Last week I said creamy."

"Last week we bought crunchy and you ate it."

She put it in the cart. In the checkout line she remembered they were out of coffee filters, and Marcus jogged back for them while she loaded the belt, and he returned with filters and a bag of the good tortilla chips, which she pretended not to notice.

At home they carried everything in in two trips. Dana put away the cold things; Marcus broke down the boxes because he was better at fitting them in the bin. Then he started the laundry that had been sitting in the washer since Thursday, smelling faintly of mildew, and ran it again with vinegar.

"We should get the oil changed," Dana said, from the couch.

"Next Saturday," Marcus said, and she said, "Sure," and neither of them moved for a while.


The list was Dana's, but Marcus was the one who kept it in his pocket, which meant they argued about it in the cereal aisle.

"It says oatmeal," he said, holding the receipt paper up like evidence.

"It says oatmeal because you ate the oatmeal." Dana pushed the cart forward two feet and stopped again. "I wanted the steel-cut kind. The one in the canister."

"That takes forty minutes."

"It takes thirty."

They compromised the way they always did, which was that both boxes went in the cart and Dana said something about the budget and Marcus said something about how the budget was already ruined by the coffee, which was true. He'd bought the whole beans again, the ones from the roaster on Fifth, because the store brand tasted like a penny.

Before the store they'd gone to the hardware place for a furnace filter and a pack of light bulbs, and Marcus had spent eleven minutes comparing filters while Dana sat on a stack of mulch bags reading her phone. She'd tried, twice, to say that any filter was fine. He'd explained MERV ratings. She'd gone back to her phone.

At checkout, Dana bagged while Marcus loaded the belt, and they did it without talking about it, the way they'd done it for three years in two different apartments. The bagger kid seemed relieved.

In the parking lot the sky had gone gray and low. Marcus fit the paper bags into the trunk around the filter, wedging the eggs against the spare tire cover.

"We forgot dish soap," Dana said.

Marcus looked at her over the open trunk. Neither of them moved toward the doors.

"Tomorrow," he said.

"Tomorrow," she agreed, and got in the car, and turned the heat on before he'd even shut the trunk.


Saturday morning arrived gray and drizzling, which meant the errands could no longer be postponed.

"We're out of coffee," Dana announced from the kitchen doorway, holding the empty canister upside down for emphasis. "Actual crisis."

Marcus was already pulling on his jacket. "Then we should hurry. You're unbearable without it."

They took his car because hers still had the check engine light on, a problem they'd been discussing for three weeks without resolving. Dana rode shotgun with the list on her phone, reading items aloud while Marcus navigated the wet streets toward the shopping center on Fremont.

The pharmacy came first. Marcus's prescription wasn't ready, so they waited fifteen minutes in the little plastic chairs near the blood pressure machine. Dana tested her blood pressure twice and declared herself immortal. Marcus tested his and refused to share the results.

At the bank, they deposited a check from Dana's freelance client and argued mildly about whether to move money into savings this month or wait until after the car repair. They landed on waiting. The teller, a young man with a nose ring, wished them a good weekend.

The grocery store was the main event. Marcus pushed the cart while Dana selected produce with more scrutiny than he thought strictly necessary. She held up two nearly identical bell peppers and asked him to choose. He chose wrong, apparently. In the cereal aisle, he snuck a box of the sugary kind into the cart, and she pretended not to see.

They split up briefly—she for coffee and bread, he for chicken and the cat food Gus preferred—and reunited at the checkout, where the total came in eleven dollars under their usual.

Loading bags into the trunk, Dana said, "Dry cleaning."

Marcus groaned. "Monday."

"Monday," she agreed.

They drove home, and the drizzle stopped somewhere on Elm Street.


Saturday morning arrived gray and mild, the kind of weather that made errands feel less like obligations and more like an excuse to be outside. Dana found her keys under a stack of mail while Marcus rinsed the last of the breakfast dishes.

"Did you write down the thing about the printer paper?" he asked.

"It's on the list." She held up her phone. "Along with your obsession with those crackers."

"They're seasonal. They won't be there in a month."

They took his car because hers was low on gas, and because the passenger seat gave Dana room to sort through the coupons her mother kept mailing them, most of them expired. The first stop was the pharmacy, where Marcus picked up a refill and Dana wandered the aisle of greeting cards, looking for something for her nephew's birthday. She settled on one with a dinosaur wearing a party hat.

At the hardware store they argued pleasantly about light bulb color temperature for eleven minutes before buying the same soft white ones they always bought. Marcus carried the bag. Dana held the door.

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list without discussing it, the way they had for three years now—she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles and the meat counter. They reconvened near the bread, comparing carts.

"You got the crackers," she observed.

"Two boxes. Don't judge me."

At checkout, Dana bagged while Marcus loaded the belt. In the parking lot the sun finally broke through, and they stood a moment by the trunk, squinting.

"Dry cleaning," Marcus said.

"Tomorrow. It closes at two and it's already one-forty."

He nodded, closed the trunk, and they drove home with the windows cracked, the crackers riding in Dana's lap because the bag had tipped over on the turn.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of unopened mail. Dev was already in the car, engine running, defroster clearing a slow arc across the windshield.

"Pharmacy first," she said, buckling in. "They close the drive-through at six on Sundays."

"You always say that and it's never been true."

"It was true once."

They pulled out of the driveway of the little rented house they'd shared for two years now, past the neighbor's inflatable snowman still standing in February. At Walgreens, Dev picked up his inhaler refill while Marisol wandered the seasonal aisle and came back holding a bag of discounted chocolate hearts.

"Seventy percent off," she said, as if defending a thesis.

"I didn't say anything."

The bank was next—a paper check from Dev's aunt that had to be deposited in person because he'd tried the app three times and given up. Marisol waited in the car with the heat on, scrolling through a list she'd made that morning in her phone's notes app: eggs, coffee, the good bread, dish soap, something for Tuesday.

At the grocery store they split up the way they always did, Dev taking produce and dairy, Marisol handling the middle aisles. They reconvened near the frozen food, comparing carts.

"You got the cilantro?"

"I got the cilantro. You got the wrong dish soap."

"It was on sale."

"It smells like a candle store."

They put it back anyway and got the plain kind. In the checkout line Dev leaned on the cart handle and told her about a podcast he'd half-listened to, and she nodded in the places where nodding seemed right.

Outside, the sky had gone a washed-out gold. They loaded the trunk together, arguing mildly about whether the eggs went on top, and drove home with the radio low.


The morning light came through the kitchen window at an angle that meant they'd slept later than planned. Marcus was already dressed, scrolling through the list on his phone.

"Did you add the coffee filters?" Dana asked, pulling her hair back with a band from her wrist.

"Third item down. Also we're out of that mustard you like."

"The whole grain one?"

"Is there another one?"

She laughed and grabbed her keys off the hook by the door. They took her car because his had a check engine light he'd been ignoring since March.

At the credit union, Dana deposited a check from her sister for the concert tickets while Marcus waited in the car with the windows down. He watched a woman try to parallel park a minivan into a spot clearly too small for it, and felt a certain kinship when she gave up and drove off.

The grocery store was crowded for a Saturday. They divided the list without discussing it—Marcus took produce and dairy, Dana took the interior aisles. They found each other again near the frozen section, comparing carts.

"You got the wrong bread," she said.

"They didn't have the seeded one."

"They always have the seeded one."

"Well, today they didn't."

She accepted this. At checkout, they bagged their own groceries because the line for the assisted lane was six people deep.

The last stop was the hardware store, where Marcus needed a replacement washer for the bathroom faucet that had been dripping for two weeks. Dana wandered to the paint chips while he waited at the counter, holding a small plastic ring up to the light.

"What do you think about a green in here?" she said, showing him a card. "For the hallway."

"That's not green. That's gray."

"It's sage."

"It's gray, Dana."

She put it in her pocket anyway.


Saturday morning had the gray, undecided quality of early March, and Nadia stood at the front door jangling the car keys until Theo finally emerged from the bedroom pulling a sweatshirt over his head.

"The list," she said.

"In my pocket." He patted his jeans, frowned, patted the other pocket, then produced a folded receipt with their handwriting overlapping on the back. "Got it."

The Corolla started on the second try, which Theo took as a personal victory. They drove first to the credit union, where Nadia deposited a check from her aunt while Theo waited in the car with the heat blowing on his hands. Then the hardware store, where they spent nine minutes debating the merits of two nearly identical furnace filters before buying the cheaper one, and where Theo also bought a bag of birdseed that hadn't been on the list at all.

"For the feeder," he said.

"We don't have a feeder."

"For the feeder I'm going to buy."

At the grocery store they split the list without discussing it, the way they had for three years now. Nadia took produce and dairy; Theo took the middle aisles and the things neither of them could remember agreeing to need. They met near the frozen foods, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops.

"You got the wrong tortillas," she said.

"They were out of the corn ones."

"They're never out of the corn ones."

They were, in fact, out of the corn ones. Nadia confirmed this herself, walking back two aisles to look, and Theo said nothing about it when she returned, which she appreciated.

The last stop was the pharmacy for Theo's inhaler refill. He waited in line while Nadia read the backs of vitamin bottles she had no intention of buying.

Home by noon. Theo carried the heavy bags. Nadia put everything away, because he never remembered where anything went.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of mail. Dev was already in the driveway, scraping the last of the frost off the windshield with a plastic card, his breath hanging in the air.

"You have the list?" he asked when she got in.

She held up her phone. "And the returns."

The Target run came first. Dev handled customer service — a pair of running shoes that had blistered his heels within a week — while Marisol pushed the cart toward the household aisle. When he found her, she was comparing two brands of laundry detergent with the intensity of a jeweler.

"That one's four dollars more," he said.

"It's the one that doesn't make you itch."

"Oh." He put it in the cart.

At the grocery store they split up. He took produce and the deli counter; she took the interior aisles and the pharmacy, where she picked up her prescription and a birthday card for his mother. They reconvened near the frozen section, comparing hauls like they were reporting from separate expeditions. He'd forgotten the eggs. She'd forgotten the coffee filters. They doubled back, then split the checkout, one bagging while the other paid.

The last stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter and a new washer for the leaking bathroom faucet, which had been dripping since October. Dev held the old washer up to the display rack, squinting.

"That one," Marisol said.

"You sure?"

"I watched three videos."

Back home, they carried the bags in together — four trips, because neither of them liked making four trips. Dev put away the cold things. Marisol started coffee. Outside, the sky was going gray again, and the faucet, for another hour at least, kept dripping.


The rain had stopped by the time Priya found her keys in the pocket of a jacket she'd worn three days ago. Marcus was already in the driveway, scraping a wet leaf off the windshield with his thumb.

"Bank first," she said, buckling in. "The check's been in my bag since Tuesday."

"It'll be a line. Saturday."

"Then we go to the pharmacy while we wait for the line to not be a line."

He backed out without arguing, which she took as agreement. The bank line was, in fact, six people deep, so they walked two doors down to pick up his allergy prescription and a birthday card for his sister. Priya vetoed the first three cards for being too sentimental and the fourth for having a cartoon dog on it.

"She likes dogs," Marcus said.

"She likes her dog. That's a beagle. Kayla has a pit mix."

They settled on one with a photograph of a lake.

The bank took eleven minutes. Then the grocery store, where they split the list without discussing it, the way they had for four years now — he took produce and the deli counter, she took everything in the middle aisles. They found each other again by the eggs. He had gotten the wrong kind of bread. She put it back and got the seeded one.

At the register, the total came up higher than either expected, and they both looked at it, and then at each other, and Marcus said, "The olive oil," and Priya said, "It was on sale," and he said, "Not that sale," and they left it at that.

They stopped for gas on the way home. He pumped; she went inside for a coffee and came back with two. The car smelled like rotisserie chicken the whole ride, and neither of them mentioned it, and both of them noticed.


The rain had let up by the time Danielle found her keys under a pile of unopened mail. Marcus was already in the driveway, scraping a stubborn film of pollen off the windshield with a squeegee he'd bought at a gas station three years ago and never thrown away.

"Bank first," he said, "or grocery store?"

"Bank first. Otherwise the ice cream melts and you get sad."

They took his car because hers made a noise neither of them wanted to think about. At the credit union, Danielle waited in line while Marcus filled out a deposit slip against the wall, his handwriting cramped and slanted. The teller asked if they wanted the receipt printed or emailed, and they answered at the same time—printed, emailed—and laughed, and took the printed one.

The pharmacy pickup took eleven minutes longer than it should have. Marcus leaned against a display of heating pads and read the ingredients on a bottle of allergy medicine out loud in a solemn voice until Danielle told him to stop.

At the grocery store, they split the list. She took produce and dairy; he took the middle aisles, which he claimed were his specialty. They reconvened near the frozen section, and he'd added two things that weren't on the list.

"Pickles?"

"They were on sale."

"We have pickles."

"We have bad pickles."

She let it go. In the checkout line, she noticed he'd remembered the specific brand of coffee she liked without being asked, and she thought about mentioning it and didn't.

They loaded the trunk in the parking lot, the cart rattling as Marcus pushed it back to the corral because he refused, on principle, to leave it. On the drive home Danielle read street signs out loud for no reason, and he didn't ask her to stop.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus found his keys under a pile of unopened mail. Dana was already in the car, engine running, the passenger seat cleared of the water bottles and gym bag that usually lived there.

"Bank first," she said as he climbed in. "The check from your mom's been sitting in my purse for two weeks."

"Because you keep forgetting."

"Because you keep saying you'll do it."

They took the long way, avoiding the construction on Ridgeline. At the credit union, Dana went inside while Marcus waited in the car, scrolling through a group text about someone's birthday dinner. She came back out with a lollipop and handed it to him without comment.

The hardware store was next. They needed a new washer for the kitchen faucet, which had been dripping since March, and Marcus wanted to look at paint samples for the spare room. Dana held up two nearly identical shades of gray and made him choose. He picked the one on the left. She put back the one on the right and said he'd made the right call, which they both knew meant she'd already decided.

At the grocery store, they split the list. Dana took produce and dairy; Marcus took the middle aisles and, unavoidably, the snack section. They met near the frozen foods and negotiated. She put back the second box of ice cream. He kept the pretzel thins.

In line, Dana remembered they were out of dish soap. Marcus jogged back for it while she loaded the belt, and he returned just in time to swipe his card, which was a small point of pride.

Driving home, they passed the dry cleaner and Dana groaned.

"Tomorrow," Marcus said.

"You said that Tuesday."

"And I'll say it again Thursday."

She laughed and turned up the radio. The groceries shifted in the trunk as they turned onto their street.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of unopened mail. Dev was already in the driveway, scraping a film of pollen off the windshield with his forearm, which she pointed out was pointless.

"It's aesthetic," he said.

The list was on her phone, though he'd added things to it throughout the week: *oat milk (the blue one, not the gray one)*, *lightbulbs?*, *whatever makes the sink stop smelling like that*. She read them aloud at the first red light and he defended each one.

At the credit union, she waited in the car while he deposited a check from his uncle, a birthday thing that had arrived four months late. He came back out with two lollipops from the teller's bowl and handed her the green one without asking, because he knew.

The hardware store took longer than it should have. Dev wanted to compare drain cleaners. Marisol wandered two aisles over and came back with a small terra-cotta pot she had no plan for. He looked at it, then at her, and said nothing, which was its own kind of comment. She put it in the cart anyway.

Grocery store, finally. They split the list the way they always did—she took produce and the middle aisles, he took dairy and the meat counter—and reconvened near the frozen foods, where he was holding two bags of dumplings and looking genuinely torn. They got both.

In the checkout line she noticed he'd snuck in a box of the cereal she pretended not to like. He noticed her noticing.

Loading the trunk in the parking lot, the sun came out for real, hot on the back of her neck. Dev slammed the hatch and asked if she wanted to get tacos instead of cooking. She said yes before he finished the sentence.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a pile of unopened mail. Devon was already in the driveway, scraping a wet leaf off the windshield with his thumb.

"List?" he asked.

She held up her phone. "Milk, coffee, the good bread, whatever you were supposed to remember about the light bulbs."

"Sixty watts. Soft white. I remembered."

They stopped at the bank first because it closed at noon on Saturdays, and Devon had a check from his uncle that had been sitting on the counter for three weeks, curling at the edges. Marisol waited in the car with the heater on, watching a woman in the next lot try to fold a stroller with one hand.

At the pharmacy, Devon picked up his prescription while Marisol wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of licorice she hadn't planned on. He looked at it and said nothing, which she appreciated.

The grocery store was crowded. They took a cart with a bad wheel and didn't switch it, out of some stubbornness neither of them named. Devon read the label on a jar of pasta sauce for longer than seemed necessary. Marisol got distracted by a display of clementines and had to be found near the bakery.

"I got the bread," she said, holding it up like evidence.

"That's not the good bread."

"They didn't have the good bread."

He accepted this. In the checkout line, they debated whether they already had eggs at home. They bought eggs. There were, it turned out, seven eggs at home.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, where Devon's one nice shirt had been waiting since a wedding in September. The clerk found it after some searching, still in plastic, still faintly smelling of the ceremony.

Driving back, Marisol ate licorice and read him the weather for the week. It was going to rain again Tuesday.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of mail on the counter. Dev was already by the door, pulling on his jacket, the reusable bags bunched in one fist like a bouquet of limp flowers.

"Pharmacy first," he said. "They close at six on Saturdays."

"They close at seven."

"They changed it. There was a sign."

Marisol didn't argue. She'd learned that Dev noticed signs — closing times, detour notices, the small print on rental agreements — with a thoroughness she found both irritating and reassuring.

The pharmacy took eleven minutes. Dev's prescription wasn't ready, so they waited near the blood pressure machine while Marisol sat down and cuffed her arm for no reason other than that it was there. One-eighteen over seventy-six. She showed him the readout like a report card.

At the grocery store they split the list. Dev took produce and the bakery; Marisol took the interior aisles, where she stood a long time in front of the pasta sauces, trying to remember which one he'd complained about. She bought a different brand entirely. He met her by the dairy case holding a carton of eggs open, checking for cracks.

"They had those little peppers," he said. "The ones you like."

"Did you get them?"

"I got two bags."

At the register she pulled the card from her wallet and he didn't reach for his, because it was her turn, and they kept track loosely, without resentment.

The last errand was the hardware store, for a furnace filter and a package of picture hooks they'd been meaning to buy since August. Dev held the filter up to the light, squinting at the dimensions printed on the cardboard frame.

"Sixteen by twenty-five," Marisol said.

"I know. I'm just checking."

They loaded the car in the gray afternoon and drove home the back way, past the reservoir, saying almost nothing.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys, which meant Dev insisted on walking the four blocks to the co-op instead of driving.

"We have to go to the hardware store after," she reminded him, pulling the door shut behind them. "And the pharmacy."

"So we'll carry things. We have arms."

They walked past the elementary school, where the crossing guard raised two fingers in greeting. Dev returned it. He'd been doing that for six months and still didn't know the man's name.

At the co-op, Marisol pushed the cart while Dev did what he always did: disappeared into the bulk aisle and came back with something unrequested. Today it was dried figs.

"We have figs at home."

"We have three figs at home. That's a sad amount of figs."

She let it go. They moved through the produce section in the choreography of people who had done this many times—him weighing, her checking the list on her phone, both of them stopping to argue briefly about whether the chicken thighs were still good from last Tuesday. Dev won. They bought new ones.

The hardware store took eleven minutes. A furnace filter, a package of picture-hanging hooks, and a brief detour where Marisol looked at paint chips for a room they had not agreed to paint.

"That one's called Whispering Oat," Dev said.

"I know what it's called."

"That's an insane thing to name a color."

At the pharmacy she waited in line while he read the greeting cards out loud from two aisles over, badly, in a voice meant to make her laugh in public. It worked, a little.

They walked home splitting the bags, Dev with the heavier one because he'd insisted. The sun had come out fully now, steam rising off the sidewalk. Somewhere behind them the crossing guard was blowing his whistle.

"Ask him his name next time," Marisol said.

"I will."

He didn't.


The rain had stopped by the time Nadia found her keys under a stack of unopened mail. Owen was already in the driveway, scraping a film of wet leaves off the windshield with a library card he'd probably need later.

"Bank first," she said, sliding into the passenger seat. "Then the hardware store, then Kroger."

"Hardware store closes at six."

"It's two."

"I'm just saying." He backed out slowly, the way he always did, checking the mirror three times.

At the bank they stood in line behind a man depositing a shoebox of quarters. Nadia leaned against Owen's shoulder and read the interest rates off a laminated placard, mispronouncing "amortization" on purpose until he corrected her.

The hardware store took eleven minutes. Owen needed a washer for the bathroom faucet, which had been dripping since August. He held up two nearly identical packages and asked which one, and Nadia said the left one with total confidence, having no idea. He bought both.

Kroger was crowded. They split up—Nadia took produce and dairy, Owen took the middle aisles with the list on his phone. She found him twenty minutes later comparing two jars of pasta sauce like a man defusing something.

"Get the cheap one."

"The cheap one has corn syrup."

"Get the other one, then."

"I'm going to." He put it in the cart anyway with a look of mild betrayal.

In the checkout line she remembered they were out of coffee filters and jogged back for them. Owen was loading bags into the trunk when she came out, and he took the box from her without comment and wedged it beside the milk.

They drove home with the windows cracked. She read him the ingredients on the sauce jar in the voice of a documentary narrator until he laughed and told her to stop, which she did, briefly.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of April weather that couldn't commit to rain. Marisol found Dev in the kitchen already writing the list on the back of an envelope, his handwriting cramped and slanting downhill.

"Coffee filters," she said, pouring the last of the pot into a travel mug. "We're on our third rinse of the same one."

"That's disgusting." He wrote it down anyway.

They took her car because his still had the check-engine light on, a problem they'd been agreeing to address for six weeks. The first stop was the dry cleaner's, where Dev handed over the ticket and discovered that only one of his two shirts had made it back. The woman behind the counter apologized and offered to check the racks. Marisol wandered out to look at the hardware store next door while she waited.

At the pharmacy she picked up her prescription and he bought a birthday card for his sister, holding up three options and asking her opinion until she pointed at the one with the ugly cartoon dog. "That one. She'll think it's funny."

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list without discussing it—she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles—and met near the frozen section, where he'd added a bag of tater tots that wasn't on the envelope.

"For emergencies," he said.

"What emergency requires tater tots?"

"You'll know it when it happens."

She let it go. In the checkout line, he bagged while she paid, and they loaded the trunk in the parking lot as the drizzle finally started. On the drive home she remembered they'd forgotten coffee filters entirely.

Dev laughed and said he'd walk to the corner store later. He didn't, and they rinsed the old one again on Sunday, and neither of them mentioned it.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of mail on the counter. Dev was already by the door, pulling on the jacket with the torn pocket he refused to throw away.

"List?" he asked.

She held up her phone. "It's in my notes. You'll forget the coffee filters."

"I forgot them once."

"Twice."

The grocery store on Harlan Avenue was crowded for a Saturday, and they moved through it the way they always did—Dev pushing the cart, Marisol darting ahead to the produce and doubling back with things she hadn't asked permission for. Two avocados that weren't quite ripe. A jar of the olives he liked.

"We already have olives," he said.

"We have three left. That's not olives, that's a rumor of olives."

He didn't argue. In the cereal aisle he stopped to compare unit prices, squinting at the little orange tags, and she leaned against the cart and let him. It took him four minutes. It always took him four minutes.

Afterward they hit the pharmacy for her prescription, then the hardware store for a furnace filter, because the one in the hall closet had been sitting in there since March with a note on it in Dev's handwriting that said REPLACE ME. The clerk asked what size, and neither of them knew, so Dev pulled up a photo he'd taken of the old one. Marisol looked at him with something like admiration.

"That's the most organized thing you've ever done."

"I have layers."

The last stop was the dry cleaner, closed, hours changed without warning. They stood in the parking lot for a second, groceries sweating in the trunk.

"Tuesday," Marisol said.

"Tuesday," he agreed.

On the drive home she put her feet on the dashboard, and he didn't tell her not to.


Marisol found the keys behind the coffee canister, where they'd migrated sometime during the week. "Ready?"

Dev was still lacing his boots by the door, one hand braced against the wall. "Did you check if we need dish soap?"

"We need dish soap. And whatever that spray is you use on the shower."

They took his car because hers was making a sound neither of them wanted to investigate before payday. The morning had that thin March brightness, cold enough that Marisol kept her hands in her sleeves while Dev scraped a film of frost from the windshield with an old library card.

First stop was the pharmacy, where Dev's prescription wasn't ready, and the woman behind the counter said fifteen minutes in a tone that meant thirty. They wandered the aisles. Marisol picked up a birthday card for her nephew, held it up, and Dev shook his head. She put it back and found one with a dinosaur on it, and he gave her a thumbs up without looking away from the reading glasses display.

At the grocery store they split the list. He took produce and the bakery; she took the middle aisles and the dairy case. They found each other again near the frozen foods, comparing carts like two people reporting from separate expeditions.

"You got the wrong yogurt," she said.

"They didn't have the plain kind. This was the closest."

"This is vanilla."

"It's closer than strawberry."

She laughed and let it go.

The last stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter, which took four minutes and involved Dev standing in front of a wall of identical white rectangles until Marisol read the size off a photo on her phone.

By noon the groceries were on the counter, half of them still bagged, and neither of them was in a hurry to finish.


The rain had let up by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of unopened mail. Dev was already in the passenger seat, scrolling through a list he'd typed into his phone at two in the morning when he couldn't sleep.

"Bank first," he said. "Then the hardware store, then Fiesta, then the dry cleaner if we're not dead."

"The dry cleaner closes at six on Saturdays."

"Then dry cleaner second."

They rearranged the order twice more before backing out of the driveway. At the bank, Marisol deposited a check from her mother that had been sitting on the fridge for three weeks while Dev waited in the car with the engine running, texting his sister about a birthday gift neither of them had bought yet.

The hardware store took longer than it should have. Dev needed a specific size of washer for the leaking faucet in the guest bathroom, and the employee who knew where things were had apparently gone on break. Marisol wandered into the paint aisle and came back holding two swatches, both of which looked identical to Dev.

"This one's warmer," she said.

"It's the same beige."

"It's greige."

At the grocery store they split up—she took produce and dairy, he took everything in the middle aisles—and reconvened near the checkout, where Dev had somehow acquired a bag of frozen dumplings that wasn't on the list. Marisol looked at him. He put them in the cart anyway.

The dry cleaner had closed at five, not six. They stood at the locked glass door for a moment, Dev holding the receipt he'd found in his jacket pocket, and then they laughed, because it was Saturday and the trunk was full and neither of them needed the clothes until Thursday.

On the drive home, Marisol turned on the radio and Dev fell asleep at a red light.


Marisol found the keys where Dev always left them—on the windowsill above the sink, next to the jar of dried-out sponges neither of them would throw away.

"Bank first or store first?" she asked, holding the door with her hip.

"Bank." Dev shrugged into his jacket. "The check's been in my wallet since Tuesday. It's getting soft."

The credit union had one teller working and a line of four people, so they stood in the roped-off maze and did nothing, which was fine. Dev read the rates posted on the wall. Marisol tried to remember whether they had eggs.

"We have eggs," Dev said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You did the thing where you look at the ceiling."

At the grocery store she took the cart because he pushed it too fast. They split up in produce—she went for the apples, he went for cilantro and came back with cilantro and a bag of limes nobody had asked for. In the cereal aisle they had a short, low-stakes disagreement about whether the store brand was actually identical to the name brand. Dev put the store brand in the cart. Marisol let it happen.

The pharmacy counter took eleven minutes. Dev held the cart while she signed for her refill, and when she came back he had eaten three grapes out of the bag, which she noticed and decided not to litigate.

Last stop was the hardware store for furnace filters, because the furnace had been making a noise. They walked the wrong aisle twice. Dev read the box, Marisol read the number written in Sharpie on the old filter she'd photographed with her phone, and they agreed, eventually, on a size.

In the parking lot the sky had gone the color of dishwater. Dev loaded bags. Marisol returned the cart, even though it was far, because she always did.

"Dinner?" he asked.

"Eggs," she said. "Apparently."


Saturday morning arrived gray and cold, the kind of March day that couldn't commit to winter or spring. Dana found her keys in the pocket of Marcus's coat, where they'd migrated sometime during the week.

"Ready?" she called down the hallway.

Marcus emerged holding the list, which he'd rewritten in his own handwriting because hers, he claimed, looked like a doctor's prescription. "We need to hit the bank before it closes at noon."

They took his car because hers still had the check engine light on—a problem they'd been discussing, and not solving, for three weeks. Dana drove. Marcus never argued about that anymore.

At the credit union, he deposited a check from his freelance work while she waited in the car with the heat running, scrolling through her phone. Then the pharmacy, where she picked up her prescription and he wandered the seasonal aisle, coming back with a bag of jellybeans neither of them needed.

The grocery store was crowded. They split up efficiently: Marcus to produce and dairy, Dana to the center aisles. She texted him a photo of two different pasta sauces. He replied with a thumbs up, which was useless, so she bought both.

They found each other in the frozen section, arguing amiably about whether they already had frozen peas at home. Neither could remember. They bought peas.

At checkout, Marcus bagged while Dana paid, then he loaded the trunk with the trash bags and the twelve-pack of seltzer he insisted on carrying alone.

Last stop was the dry cleaner, where his one good suit had been waiting since a wedding in January.

"That's everything," he said, checking the list, folding it into his pocket.

Back home, they unloaded together, moving around each other in the small kitchen with the ease of people who'd learned each other's habits. The peas went in the freezer, beside two other bags of peas.


The rain had let up by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of unopened mail. Devon was already in the car, engine running, adjusting the heater vents the way he always did—too hot, then too cold, then finally something neither of them would admit was fine.

"Pharmacy first," she said, buckling in. "Your prescription's been sitting there since Tuesday."

"It's been sitting there since Tuesday because you said you'd grab it Tuesday."

"I said I'd try."

They took the long way to avoid the construction on Warren Street. At the pharmacy, Devon went in alone while Marisol waited in the passenger seat, scrolling through a text thread with her sister about Thanksgiving logistics. He came back out with the prescription and a bag of gummy worms, which he set on the console between them without comment. She ate four before they reached the grocery store.

Inside, they split the list. Devon took produce and dairy; Marisol took everything in the middle aisles. They met at the end of the pasta section, where he informed her that the store had stopped carrying the ricotta she liked.

"They didn't stop carrying it. You just didn't look."

"I looked."

She found it in ninety seconds, on a lower shelf, and held it up without saying anything. He took it from her and put it in the cart.

The self-checkout ate one of their coupons. Devon flagged down an employee named Reggie who scanned a badge and fixed it in about six seconds, and both of them thanked him more than the situation required.

Last stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter. Marisol read the size off a photo she'd taken of the old one. Devon carried it to the register.

Driving home, she asked if he wanted to order Thai instead of cooking. He said yes before she finished the sentence.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of weather that made the coffee taste better. Dana found the grocery list on the counter where Marcus had left it, half in his handwriting and half in hers, with "??" scrawled next to an item neither of them could decipher.

"What is this? 'Tortellini' or 'tortillas'?"

Marcus looked up from tying his shoes. "Both. Get both."

They took his car because hers needed an oil change, which was errand number three on a list that had grown since Thursday. The wipers squeaked against the windshield on the drive to the pharmacy, where Dana picked up her prescription while Marcus wandered the seasonal aisle and returned with a bag of discounted Halloween candy in November.

"We don't need that."

"It was seventy percent off."

At the grocery store they split up, a system they'd developed over four years of living together. Marcus took produce and dairy; Dana took everything else. They met at the end of aisle nine, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops. He had gotten the wrong kind of yogurt. She had forgotten dish soap. They resolved both problems and stood in the self-checkout line behind a man buying forty cans of cat food.

The hardware store came next. Marcus needed a specific washer for the leaking bathroom faucet, and Dana wandered off to look at paint samples she had no intention of buying, holding two nearly identical shades of green up to the fluorescent light.

"This one," Marcus said, pointing without breaking stride.

"They're the same."

"Then it doesn't matter."

By noon the trunk was full and the rain had stopped. They stopped for tacos on the way home and ate them in the parking lot with the windows down, the receipt from the hardware store fluttering on the dashboard, the groceries slowly warming in the back, and neither of them in any particular hurry to move.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of weather that made the apartment feel smaller than usual. Delia found her keys under a stack of unopened mail while Marcus stood at the door, already wearing his jacket, holding a canvas bag in each hand.

"The list," he said.

"In my phone." She patted her pocket. "Milk, eggs, coffee, whatever you wrote down at two in the morning."

"Peanut butter. The crunchy kind."

The bank came first because the line would only get worse. Marcus deposited a check from his freelance work while Delia stood by the counter reading a flyer about home equity loans, thinking about nothing in particular. Then the hardware store, where they spent eleven minutes debating the difference between two furnace filters that appeared identical and cost three dollars apart.

"Just get the cheaper one," Delia said.

"The cheaper one is thinner."

"It's a rectangle of paper."

He got the more expensive one. She let it go.

At the grocery store, they split up the way they always did—Marcus took produce and the middle aisles, Delia took dairy and the freezer section. They found each other again near the bread, comparing carts. He had bought three avocados at wildly different stages of ripeness, a system he'd explained to her once and she had never fully believed in.

The line at checkout moved slowly. Delia loaded the belt while Marcus bagged, and when the total came up higher than either of them expected, they both made the same face without discussing it.

Outside, the rain had thinned to a mist. Marcus loaded the trunk while Delia returned the cart to the corral, jogging back with her hood up.

"Dry cleaning," she said, getting in.

"Tomorrow."

"It's been there since March."

"Tomorrow," he repeated, and pulled out of the lot, and she reached over and turned the heat up.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of unopened mail. Dev was already in the car, seat pushed back, scrolling through a playlist he'd been curating for three weeks and had yet to finish.

"Bank first," she said, buckling in. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger. If we do groceries first, the eggs sit in the trunk for an hour."

"You say that every time."

"And every time you try to do groceries first."

The bank took nine minutes. Dev waited in the car with the engine running and texted his sister a photo of a dog he saw crossing the parking lot. At the pharmacy, Marisol picked up her prescription while he wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of discounted Halloween candy in mid-November.

"That's not on the list."

"It's eighty percent off. It's practically an investment."

The grocery store was crowded in the way Saturday afternoons always are. They split the list without discussing it—she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles and the things she never remembered, like coffee filters and dish soap. They found each other again near the deli counter, comparing carts.

"You got the wrong pasta."

"There were four kinds of penne."

"There's one kind of penne."

At checkout, Dev bagged while Marisol paid, and they argued mildly about whether the bread should go on top or in its own bag. It went on top. It got a little squashed.

Home was twelve minutes away. They unloaded together, Marisol handing bags up from the trunk, Dev carrying three at a time because he refused, on principle, to make two trips. In the kitchen, she put things away while he broke down the boxes for recycling.

By four o'clock the list was crossed off, and the candy was already open on the counter.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of weather that made the apartment feel smaller than it was. Delia found her keys under a stack of unopened mail while Marcus scraped the last of the oatmeal from the pot.

"List?" he asked, drying his hands on a dish towel.

She held up her phone. "Milk, eggs, that bread you like. And we're out of dish soap again."

"We're always out of dish soap."

The car took two tries to start, as it had all winter. Marcus drove because Delia hated the merge onto Route 9, and she navigated by memory, calling out turns he already knew. At the bank, she went in to deposit a check from her aunt while he waited with the engine running, listening to a podcast about shipwrecks. She came back complaining about the line, and he handed her half of a granola bar without being asked.

The pharmacy took longer. Marcus's prescription wasn't ready, so they wandered the aisles, Delia examining reading glasses she didn't need, Marcus reading the backs of vitamin bottles with genuine interest. He bought a birthday card for his sister. Delia picked out a candy bar and paid for it separately, which annoyed her about herself.

The grocery store was crowded with people who'd had the same idea about beating the afternoon rain. They split up—she took produce and dairy, he took the aisles—and met again near the checkout, comparing baskets like people returning from separate expeditions.

"You got the wrong bread," she said.

"They didn't have the other one."

"They always have the other one."

He shrugged. She let it go.

At home, they carried the bags up together, three trips each, and Marcus put things away in the wrong cabinets while Delia hung her coat and started the coffee. Outside, the rain finally began.


The rain had stopped by the time Marisol found her keys under a stack of unopened mail. Dev was already in the car, adjusting the seat back to where he liked it, which meant she'd have to move it again next time. She let it go.

"Bank first," she said, buckling in. "Then Target, then groceries, then that thing at the post office."

"The thing at the post office."

"The package for your mother. It's been in the trunk for nine days."

Dev made a sound of acknowledgment that committed him to nothing.

At the credit union, Marisol deposited a check from her sister for the flight they'd fronted her in March, while Dev waited in the car and answered a work email he'd been avoiding since Thursday. At Target he pushed the cart and she filled it: paper towels, a plunger to replace the one that had cracked, a birthday card for his coworker Renee, whose name he had to spell for her twice.

The grocery store was the long stop. They split up by aisle out of habit, texting each other questions — *do we need eggs* — *we always need eggs* — and reconvened near the frozen section, where Dev held up two brands of shrimp and Marisol chose the cheaper one without breaking stride. In line, he pressed his thumb into the small of her back while she scrolled through her phone, and neither of them commented on it.

The post office had closed at four. It was 4:20.

"Nine days," Marisol said.

"Ten tomorrow."

They put the groceries in the trunk around the package, and Dev drove home with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on her knee, and she let the window down because the air after rain was the only thing that made errands worth doing.