Roxie yawned, sat up, and rubbed her eyes. Keats untied his work boots at the door, went to the kitchen sink, and washed his hands with dish soap.

Roxie kneaded Leo’s haunches absently. “Time is it?” she rasped.

“Eleven thirty,” Keats said. He opened the refrigerator and withdrew a Tupperware container of leftover lasagna. He brought this and a fork to the couch, where he took a seat next to Roxie.

She peered into the container. “That still good?”

“Smells fine.”

“What kept you so late?”

Keats took a big bite and chewed slowly. “House on Greenmont I was telling you about?” he said. “Sewage backed up, shit all over the lawn. Had to drive into Beaufort to get the right part, then back a second time when the first one had the wrong attachment. Old pipes. Gotta have just the right connecting tube or it’ll be backed up again in a week.” Keats ate another large bite of cold lasagna, then licked ricotta from the fork. “How was your evening?”

In the far corner of the room the cricket started up. It had been in their apartment for weeks, although neither of them had set eyes on it. Its chirp was distinctive, uncharacteristically low-pitched, a loose whirring pattern that wheezed and swelled at the rate of human breathing.

“That darn thing,” Roxie said. She combed through her glossy blond hair with her fingers, wincing when her wedding ring caught a tangle. “My evening was good. Took Leo out the pier before sundown, and I pulled in a good-sized mackerel, three or four pounds, using that new bar spinner.”

“Nice. I haven’t had any luck with that lure yet.”

“He’s out in the cooler whenever you wanna fillet him. It’ll be fine for the night if you’d rather wait till tomorrow.”

“I’ll wait. So hot out, the guts’ll stink to high heaven by dawn if I do it now. I’ll do it in the morning, let the gulls carry off the scraps.”

Roxie was quiet for a bit. “You OK?”

“Sure,” Keats said.

“Lady from earlier isn’t bothering you, is it?”

“Nah,” Keats said. “Just tired.”

It was hard to say which of them was more affected by interactions like he’d had with the red-haired woman that afternoon. It humiliated Keats and brought on some version of shame, but mercifully it evoked no sense of guilt whatsoever; he could still hold his head high because his conscience was clear. Roxie, on the other hand, shouldered a tremendous amount of unnecessary guilt. Even all these years later. Keats knew she put on a strong face for his sake, but the whole situation turned her heart to ash if she thought on it too long.

Keats reached over to squeeze her knee. “I’m just tired.”

“That job tonight did take you awful long. I mean, you got the call, what, around three?”

Keats exhaled a long, whistling plume. “Yeah, round about then. Sometimes it drags out, you know how these people are, can’t stand to have me out there hosing shit off their lawn while they sit down to dinner. Force a burger and a beer on me.”