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
The light came in wrong today. Not wrong exactly — it came in fine, pale and a little gray at first the way it always does before it warms up — but it kept coming and coming and nothing happened underneath it. Usually by the time the light has gotten that particular buttery thickness on … Read more
