She went to the spice rack and removed this and that. She measured rice into a small pot, covered the rice with water. Never in a million years could Malcolm have looked at the random things she assembled and make his mind see a meal.

“Plenty here,” she said. Malcolm lit the pilot on the stove and in twenty minutes they had hot food. Just like the story of the baby shower, she’d made something out of nothing. When they finished their first bowls, eating in silence, they each had another. It was so elemental. Cooking. Eating. Washing up after with the water Malcolm had collected. Two white bowls left to dry on a worn kitchen towel. A cobalt blue sky beyond the window. It was an extravagance, thinking only about the present moment. There was Jess, next to him. He already felt warmer, his headache fading.