The apartment was fine. Thirteen hundred square feet, a kitchen where you could actually set a cutting board on the counter without blocking a burner. It was fine.
She made a list on Tuesday. Not because anyone asked her to — no one would have asked. The list began with practical things:
- Replace bathroom lightbulb (flickering)
- Cancel subscription to The Atlantic
- Return library book (The Waves, three weeks overdue)
She added to it on Wednesday:
- Call Mom (before she calls first)
- Fix the drip in the kitchen faucet
- Move the blue chair to the other side of the room
The blue chair had been by the window for two years. It sat angled slightly toward the door, as though expecting someone to walk through it. She moved it to face the bookshelf instead.
On Thursday, the list grew:
- Buy a new set of towels (the gray ones, not the white)
- Learn to sleep on the left side of the bed
- Stop buying oat milk
She didn't like oat milk. She had never liked oat milk. She'd been buying it every week for eight months.
On Friday she added:
- Take down the extra hook by the front door
- Change the emergency contact on the insurance form
- Unsubscribe from the recipe newsletter
She kept getting emails about dinners for two. Thirty-minute weeknight meals for two. Budget-friendly batch cooking for two. She didn't know who to contact about receiving only the singular versions.
On Saturday she didn't write anything. She sat in the blue chair, which now faced the bookshelf, and read the overdue Virginia Woolf. She found a sentence underlined in pencil — but it wasn't her handwriting.
She added it to the list:
- Keep this.
On Sunday she added the last item:
- Stop making the list
Then she folded the paper in half, left it on the counter between the cutting board and the burner, and went outside into a morning that didn't require anything of her at all.
The lightbulb in the bathroom still flickered. She'd get to it, or she wouldn't. Either way, the apartment was fine.