“We’ve brought you some dishes!” one of the women said, the one whose hand he shook in the basement. She was wearing lipstick so bright red he could almost hear it. “I’m your upstairs neighbor, Corrine Salas, and—” She paused, nudging the woman beside her with an elbow. When that produced nothing in the way of a reaction, she spoke again. “And this is Marian Goodnight, who lives across the hall from you.” Another nudge.

“Not sure if you’ll have much of an appetite,” Mrs. Goodnight said abruptly, holding out her dish and nodding toward his phone. “If that’s the kind of thing you’re listening to.”

“That must be an occupational hazard,” said Mrs. Salas excitedly. “Nora mentioned you’re a doctor! Now if I could scoot right by you here to set this dish down. . . .”

And before he could say anything, that’s exactly what she’d done—moved past him in a cloud of perfume and chatter, her companion silently (and unscentedly) following her lead into the kitchen, pushing aside his Keep, Donate, and Toss boxes. It took a minute to realize that the two covered dishes were only the start, that each of them had also been carrying bags over their shoulders, and were now also unpacking those.

“Now these things will keep nicely,” Mrs. Salas said, not really to him, not really to anyone, so far as he could tell. Her eyes and hands were busy on the absolutely insane amount of food that was being stacked up onto Donny’s stained laminate countertops. “So I’ll pop them in your freezer. As for this Tupperware, the red tops can stay on the counter, and the blue should be refrigerated, though I suppose if you’re not going to eat the red tops within a couple of days, you could refrigerate them, too.”

He cleared his throat, confused. What the hell was happening? Could all this food be laced with laxatives? “This is very—”

“Oh, shoot,” she said, her hands on her hips. “I forgot the shortbread! If you could give me one minute.” She was already shuffling his way, moving in the same path around Donny’s things that he’d taken, only she didn’t seem to have to think about it at all. “I’ll be right back. Marian, start telling him about the bathroom faucet!”

Then it was quiet again, he and a stranger named Marian Goodnight staring at each other across a countertop of casseroles and the width of an apartment he thought no one wanted him in.

“Mrs. Goodnight,” he said. “It’s nice to mee—”

“I’d sure like to know how you got that permit so fast,” she said, abandoning the fussing she’d been doing with the food. She had a voice like his third-grade teacher—loud, insistent, permanently disappointed. She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows over the gold frames of her glasses.