The returns line at Target snaked past the pharmacy, past the greeting cards, all the way to seasonal. My sister and I had been standing in it for forty minutes with a toaster between us.
Not a toaster we were returning. Mom's toaster. The one with the dial that only worked on setting four. We'd split the house in September and this was the last object neither of us would claim.
She wanted me to take it. I wanted her to take it. We'd already divided the things that actually meant something — the photographs, the recipes in Mom's handwriting, the quilt from the guest room. This was just the thing left over.
Outside, rain hit the windows and I thought about the paperback I'd left on the sill at her apartment. It would be warped by now, the pages wavy and swollen. I didn't care about the book. I just wanted to stop standing in this line.
The store was in that dead hour between lunch and dinner. No music playing. A few employees restocking shelves. The whole place felt like a waiting room.
She said, 'You're the one who makes toast.' I said, 'You're the one who has the kitchen counter space.' We'd been having this argument for three months by text, by phone, and now finally in person, and it had never been about a toaster.
She grabbed it off the cart and put it under her arm. 'Fine. I'll take the stupid toaster.' She wasn't looking at me.
We didn't talk on the drive back. But when she got out at her place, she said, 'Come get breakfast Saturday. I'll make toast.' And I understood that this was how we were going to do it now — small invitations, instead of a shared kitchen.