On Thursday Lena left work early and bought milk on the way home.
She didn't need milk. There was half a bottle in the fridge. It was simply something she could do before she opened the flat and waited for Tom.
He texted at quarter past six. Outside in five.
She put the kettle on, then switched it off. He'd asked her not to do things for him. She had made a cup for herself and left it on the kitchen counter, where it went cold.
His key moved in the lock at twenty past. He opened the door slowly, as if he was visiting.
'Hello,' he said.
'Hi.'
He had come with two empty bags and a roll of packing tape. She stepped aside so he could put them down.
'I've left everything,' she said. 'Like you asked.'
'Thanks.'
He looked around the sitting room. His bicycle helmet hung beside the door. There was a square on the carpet where he'd moved the small table to make room for the bike. On Sunday Lena had moved the table back, then moved it away again because it had looked too deliberate.
Tom took the helmet down.
'I'll do the clothes first.'
She stayed in the sitting room while he went to the bedroom. Hangers clicked. A drawer opened, stuck as it always did, then opened the rest of the way with a little thump. He knew to lift it slightly on the left.
Lena picked up her book, put it down, went into the kitchen. The extra milk sat unopened beside the fridge. She put it away.
Tom came out with the first bag full. His shirts hadn't fitted, so he carried them over one arm. He draped them across a chair.
'The books in here are mixed up,' he said.
'We can go through them.'
They stood at the shelves, taking turns. Some were easy. His cycling books, her books about posters. A thriller he'd bought at a station and she'd finished because he lost interest. He gave that one to her. She offered him a cookbook whose spine had cracked at the same page.
'You use it more,' she said.
'I only make one thing out of it.'
'You make it well.'
He accepted the book without smiling.
At the bottom of the shelves he found the picnic tin. Pale blue, with a dent in the lid where Lena had dropped it on the pavement. It held coffee sachets, a little knife in a cardboard sleeve and two cloth napkins. He lifted it, and something rattled inside.
'We didn't wash these,' he said.
She remembered the last outing before the wedding, a morning under trees with the paper bag caught between their feet. It had rained halfway through. He'd put the wet napkins in the tin to wash later, and they had both forgotten.
'They'll be awful.'
He opened it. They weren't awful, just stale, a faint damp smell.
Lena took one out. 'I could put them through tonight.'
'I'll do it.'
'Of course.'
He closed the lid and set it beside the books. She did not ask which one of them ought to keep it. He had brought it into the relationship. He could take it out again.
The paint shelf was last. It stood beside the window, fixed to the wall with three brackets. Tom had made it before they'd moved in together, for the spare room in his old flat where Lena painted on weekends. He'd brought it here with his boxes, careful not to chip the edge.
'Leave that,' he said when he saw her looking.
'Are you sure?'
'I don't need a shelf for paints.'
'It could hold other things.'
'Lena.'
She stopped. He pressed a finger against one of the brackets, testing it without thinking.
'It's fine there,' he said.
They carried the bags to his car. She took the books; he took the heavier things. His brother had given him a room for a few weeks while he found somewhere nearer the shop. It was enough information for her to know where he would be, not enough to imagine his evenings.
Back upstairs, he checked the bedroom once more. Then he stood in the hall, turning the keys in his hand.
'I need this one back,' she said, though he'd already begun easing it off the ring.
'I know.'
She held her hand out. He put the key in her palm. There was a red plastic cover round it, because he'd kept confusing it with the shop key.
'Would you want to get a drink sometime?' she asked.
He stared at her.
'Not now. I just don't want us to never—' She stopped. 'I mean, when it feels better.'
He leaned back against the wall.
'I can't make this feel better for you.'
'I wasn't asking that.'
'You want to know we'll be friends. So this isn't all gone.'
Her eyes filled. She looked down at the red key.
'Yes,' she said.
'I don't know if I want that.'
She nodded, waiting for the words to settle.
'I won't be horrible if I see you,' he said. 'But I don't want messages about whether I'm all right. And I don't want to hear about him.'
'All right.'
'If there's anything I've missed, text me about that. I'll come for it. Otherwise, please leave it.'
'I will.'
He picked up the last bag. At the door he looked back at the shelf, at the lamp they'd argued about buying, at her standing in a place which was still hers because it had been hers first.
'Take care,' he said.
'You too.'
After he went, Lena stood until she heard his car start. Then she put the red key in the drawer with the batteries and spare screws.
She had thought there would be a great space where his things had been. There wasn't. A hook without a helmet. Some books leaning. A wardrobe she could open without moving his shoes. The shelf stayed full of her paints.
She washed her cup and made herself something to eat. Halfway through she remembered the tin, and how they always put the knife in its cardboard sleeve before packing it away, because otherwise one of them would reach in and get cut. She sat at the table a little longer than the meal required.