She opens it for no reason at all, the way you check a window for weather. Stands there in the cold blue light with the door propped on her hip, scanning shelves she already knows by heart. Nothing new since ten minutes ago. She closes it. She will open it again before bed.
I used to do that. I never once noticed I was doing it.
Look at the door. The magnets holding up a child's drawing, a coupon three months expired, a photo curling at one corner. The little tray of half-empty jars nobody will finish and nobody will throw away. The milk she sniffs and keeps anyway. All of it humming, always humming, that low patient drone I stopped hearing decades before I stopped hearing anything.
When she leans in, the cold breathes out across her bare arms and she doesn't even shiver. Doesn't feel it. To have skin that registers a draft and simply forgets it, that is a wealth I cannot make her understand. She reaches past the leftovers, takes the butter, lets the door swing shut with her elbow because her hands are full. Her hands are full. Do you know what I would give.
She eats standing up, over the counter, half a thought elsewhere, crumbs she'll wipe with one careless swipe. Bored, a little. Wanting to be somewhere else.
Stay a moment longer in the cold light, love. Let the door hang open. Let the hum go on.
May you keep every dull evening you are wishing away.