Ray — Monday, November 16, 2026
June wanted the other soup.
“They're the same,” Ray said.
“Then you won't mind.”
They were not the same. One was chicken noodle and one was a vegetable soup Ruth bought when she was making an effort. He had given the chicken to June because she looked worse. Her face had the yellow-white look people got under these lights. She held the bowl with both hands and watched the other one on the table.
Nadia pushed hers across.
“Take it.”
“I didn't ask you.”
“You asked the room. The room said yes.”
He almost laughed. Nadia had been here less than a day and already he knew that quick, flat voice. It was the voice of somebody dealing with a washing machine that would not drain. This morning she'd been frightened of being late. She had shown him a message on her phone, not because he wanted to see but because she wanted someone to appreciate what lateness was going to cost her. The phone wasn't with her now. Nor was her car. The engine trouble had been real. He had helped her with something real, first.
June picked up the other bowl. “I can't eat noodles.”
“You could have said,” he told her.
“I just did.”
He had carried a bag of groceries up here after spending twenty minutes looking for things that didn't have to be cooked. There was sliced bread, milk, two kinds of fruit. He wanted someone to notice how hard it was to get a meal right for a stranger.
Nadia reached for the paper towels. He handed her the roll, and she tore off a piece with her teeth because her other hand was occupied with the soup she'd spilled. She cleaned the table, her knee, the underside of the bowl. The economical movement pleased him. Ruth would have fetched a cloth, then been annoyed with him for using paper.
“Is there a trash bag?” Nadia asked.
He got one.
“A clean one.”
“It is clean.”
She held his eyes for a second too long, then took it. He had wanted to be helpful and now he was standing there with his hand open as though waiting for a tip.
June wouldn't eat yet. She had set her bowl on her lap and was looking at the little square of window above the counter.
“That light,” she said. “What is that?”
Beyond the glass the trees were black. A small hard light showed well off through them, high enough that it appeared to hang in the branches.
“Farm,” Ray said.
“There's people there.”
“It's a work light. Doesn't mean anybody's awake.”
Nadia looked too. “The road's the other way.”
“You can't see a road.” June pulled her bowl closer. “There's a wall up there. Those stones. You could follow that.”
Nadia said nothing. She had been trying doors and listening when his back was turned; he knew that much. June didn't lower her voice. It was maddening, the way she offered him no chance to pretend they were merely talking about the neighborhood.
“You don't know where anything goes,” he said.
“Neither do I,” Nadia said quickly, as if she were stopping a small argument at work.
He moved the bread out of her reach while he found a knife. It could wait there until he was ready to cut it.
June watched him. Her hair was coming out of its tie in stiff little pieces. Yesterday she'd been traveling to an aunt. That was where she'd wanted to go, and nothing she'd said in the intervening hours had enlarged his place in her plans. She had asked for her bag more times than she had asked for water.
“You didn't need to bring all that,” she said now.
He looked down at the groceries, unable for an instant to see what was offensive in them.
“We need to go,” she said.
The clock above the sink made a faint scraping noise before each tick. His uncle had put it up, years ago. A ridiculous thing to have kept running, but he replaced the battery when he came here because silence made the place feel unoccupied.
Nadia slid June a spoon. “Eat while it's hot.”
“Don't tell me.”
“Fine. Let it go cold.”
He opened the bread while they were still arguing. He remembered Irene Sloane asking whether he had anything to eat. He'd fed her too. He had murdered her in November eleven years ago. The loaf in his hands was repulsive. He put it down.
“What?” Nadia said.
“Nothing.”
“You're looking at me.”
He was. She pushed her sleeve up and wiped soup from the inside of her wrist. He wanted to touch the place. He wanted her to stop looking at him as if she already knew he might. He went to the sink and ran water he didn't need.
Behind him June began eating.
Nadia asked for a second blanket. This time she said please. He was already going to get it. He took two from the shelf and brought them back together, pleased to have something in his hands she actually wanted.
When he came back June had finished the soup. She held the empty bowl out to him.
“I want my bag.”
“There's things here you can use.”
“Mine.”
Nadia took one blanket and put it on the spare chair. She did not offer June the other. They were waiting for him to answer, each in a different way: Nadia very still, June continuing to hold the bowl until he had to take it or let it fall.
He took it. There was a canvas bag in the little back space with the things he'd moved out of their reach. A loop of colored wool hung from its handle. He had thought it a child's bag when he first saw it. June was twenty-six; she had told him twice, sharply the second time, as if the age ought to require something of him. He fetched it without saying where he had put it.
She unzipped it as soon as it reached her lap. He looked away from the clothes inside. She was doing nothing to hide them, but her hands moved fast and he had the sense of having been caught looking at something he shouldn't. He went back to the sink.
“Is all of it there?” Nadia asked.
“Don't.”
“I was only asking.”
“I can look.”
Ray turned the tap on. The water came in a thin uneven stream until he adjusted it. When he looked over his shoulder Nadia was sitting with her hands under her thighs. June had found a sweatshirt and was holding it against her face.
He wondered what the aunt would have cooked. June would say no noodles, and the woman would laugh or complain that she should have said before, and June might laugh too. He began washing the bowls. There were only two and he did each one twice, working at a mark that had been in the glaze long before he'd brought them here.
“Can you turn around?” June said.
He was already facing the sink.
“Properly.”
He kept his head still while she changed one layer of clothing for another. Nadia said something about helping and was told no. A sleeve caught; there was a brief irritated struggle. Then June said he could look. It was worse somehow that she had released him. He could have looked at any time.
The new sweatshirt had a worn little hole beside the cuff. June put her thumb through it. She moved the bag onto the chair beside her and curled one foot around its strap.
“Happy?” he asked.
“No.”
“I meant with the bag.”
She didn't answer. He dried his hands carefully. Nadia was rubbing at a spot on the table where a ring of soup had begun to set. He told her it would come off in the morning. She kept rubbing.
“You do that for work?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Can't leave a thing alone.”
She lifted her eyes to him. “I get paid at work.”
He put the tea towel down. He'd liked her beside the car, the brisk way she had talked about a disaster no larger than a bad morning. He liked her now. There ought to be a joke he could make about getting paid. She kept rubbing the table, head down. He picked up the torn grocery bag and folded it until it would fit into the bin.
When he was ready to leave, June sat forward.
“Ray.”
He stopped with one hand on his coat.
“I want to go to my aunt.”
His name had sounded so ordinary in her mouth that he'd been prepared for a request he could grant. He waited a moment, then put his coat on. Nadia had stopped rubbing the table. He could see both of them waiting to find out whether he was going to say anything at all.
Outside he stood long enough for the cold to reach the sweat beneath his arms. He had left the bread on the counter. The water was where they could reach it. Before he got into the pickup he went back to make sure the blankets hadn't fallen on the floor.