She started talking before I’d even settled anywhere, which should have been my first warning. Usually there’s a sequence to the evening — the bag goes down by the door, the shoes come off, something gets put in the refrigerator or taken out of it, and only after all that does she start making sounds … Read more
There is a door in this house that has one job, and its job is to be open enough. Not open all the way — I have never asked for that, I am not unreasonable — just open the width of a paw, the width it has always been open, so that I can come … Read more
It rained all day today, the kind that doesn’t announce itself with thunder or drama, just starts sometime before I’m properly awake and keeps going without checking in. I noticed it first as a change in the light coming through the back room window — flatter, grayer, like someone had put a thin cloth over … Read more
She keeps the comb in the drawer by the bathroom sink, the one with the blue handle and the wide-spaced teeth, and when it comes out I know exactly what is about to happen to me, and I allow it, because I have decided over time that this is one of the few procedures in … Read more
A new plant appeared on the windowsill in the back room this afternoon, small and green with leaves shaped like little paddles, sitting in a plastic pot that still had a price sticker curling off one side. She carried it in from the car wrapped in a sheet of thin paper, unwrapped it at the … Read more
She has a book tonight instead of the little light. I noticed the difference right away because a book weighs on her differently than the phone does — heavier in her lap, held with two paws instead of balanced in one, and it makes a specific sound when she opens it that the phone never … Read more
There is a new blanket on the bed and I would like it noted that nobody asked me. The old one is still around — I saw it folded over the arm of the reading chair earlier, demoted, looking thin and a little betrayed if a blanket can look like anything, which I’ve decided it … Read more
It came off the counter sideways, which I want on record, because a fair drop is one thing and this was not a fair drop. She had a bag of them open on the counter, doing whatever it is she does with a knife and a cutting board when she’s making something involve apples, and … Read more
She came in through the front door at the usual hour, with the usual keys, making the usual amount of noise setting down her bag, and I did not go to greet her the way I normally do, because something about the shape of her head was wrong. I want to be precise about this. … Read more
She was washing the kitchen windows today, which is a task I have never once seen her enjoy but which she does anyway, with a blue bottle and a gray cloth that smells sharp enough to make my nose twitch from across the room. I don’t understand the purpose of it. The windows always look … Read more
