“I don’t know.”
“Good. Don’t pick a speech yet.”
He almost smiled. It did not arrive. He went to the hardware store because the house had a list on the fridge in his own handwriting from two years ago, furnace filter, batteries, and he needed a task that was not a face. At the store he stood in the filter aisle until a clerk asked if he was finding everything. He said yes. He bought the wrong size. He sat in the truck in the lot and did the math again. March. Six months. A kick. A glass of water. Two years. The numbers did not become kinder in a parking lot.
Darren did not come to the door. He texted Megan: I am at Janelle’s. Say when. She did not say when. She put the phone face-down and scrambled eggs Ruth would not eat. Evan came back with the wrong filter. She told him the size. He nodded. They changed the filter together because the furnace did not care who had been in the kitchen. Their hands did not touch. The old filter was gray. He carried it to the bin and stood by the bin longer than garbage required, looking at the side door two houses down.