He peeled the garlic while she quartered the onions. They didn’t talk about the recipe anymore — hadn’t in years. He knew when to hand her the cutting board. She knew the pause where he’d rinse his hands and dry them on the towel from the oven handle, the one she’d replaced three times because he dried too rough.
The onions went into the oil. He held the wooden spoon while she adjusted the flame, then she took it back. This part was hers. He started on the peppers.
There had been a version of them that narrated everything. More garlic? Is the pan hot enough? That version was gone. This one was quieter, and either better or just older.
She tasted from the spoon and added salt without measuring. He watched her hand — the sureness of it. She’d been tentative once, following recipes to the gram, apologizing when things came out wrong. He missed that sometimes. Not because the food was better but because it had needed him.
“How’s your neck?”
“Fine.”
It wasn’t. He knew the angle she held it at when it wasn’t. But she didn’t want it discussed, so he went back to the peppers.
She moved past him to the shelf and her shoulder brushed his arm. Neither adjusted — twenty-two years had taught their bodies to navigate each other without deciding to. His arm stayed. Her shoulder went around it.
Except tonight he registered it. The warmth through his sleeve. Just for a second, before the next thing.
“Basil?”
He handed it to her. She tore the leaves over the pot. He preferred chopping them. They’d had the argument once, years ago. She’d said the bruising is the point and he’d said it’s uneven and she’d said so is everything and he’d let it go because she was right about more than basil.
Outside, the neighbor’s sprinkler hit the fence in a rhythm that was almost regular.
“It’s off again,” he said.
She looked at him. Not quite a smile. “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow was a thing they said. It meant: not now, but not never.
He set the cutting board in the sink and reached for the towel.