“Why aren’t you using any of this stuff?”

For several seconds, Harold said nothing.

The hallway radiator hissed behind Caleb.

Rain tapped steadily against the window at the end of the corridor.

Finally Harold looked down at the milk in his hands.

“I suppose I should be less wasteful.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Caleb softened his voice.

“I just keep getting orders from you.

One or two things every day.

I figured maybe the app was splitting your groceries by mistake.”

Harold gave a small, humorless laugh.

“No mistake.”

Caleb waited.

Harold stared past him toward the empty staircase.

“My wife used to do all the shopping.”

His voice changed when he said the word wife.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

“Diane,” he continued.

“Every Saturday morning for forty-seven years.

Same supermarket on Eastern Avenue.

She carried a handwritten list folded in her purse.

She always forgot to put something on it, so we always went back.”

A faint smile crossed his face.

“She died eleven months ago.”

Caleb’s irritation vanished.

“I’m sorry.”

Harold nodded as though he had heard the sentence too many times to know what to do with it anymore.

“My daughter lives in Denver.

My son works overseas most of the year.

Good children.

Busy children.”

He swallowed.

“They call.”

Caleb glanced toward the unopened groceries.

Harold noticed.

“The first time I used that delivery service, I actually needed medicine from the pharmacy section and some soup.”

He shifted the carton of milk from one hand to the other.

“The young woman who delivered it stood here for perhaps thirty seconds.

She asked me whether the building had always been this hot.”

He smiled faintly.

“That was the longest conversation I had that week.”

Caleb felt something tighten behind his ribs.

Harold continued.

“So two days later, I ordered coffee filters.”

He looked embarrassed now.

“I did not need coffee filters.”

The truth arrived before Harold finished saying it.

Caleb looked at the bags on the table.

Tea.

Apples.

Crackers.

Milk.

Not groceries.

Excuses.

“If you order something,” Caleb said quietly, “someone has to come.”

Harold nodded.

“That is generally how delivery works.”

The joke was weak, but Caleb heard what it was protecting.

Silence.

Days of it.

A television turned on just to create voices.

A hallway listened to for footsteps that never stopped at your door.

Caleb suddenly remembered every time Harold’s address had appeared on his phone and he had muttered something irritated.

Another stupid order.

Another wasted climb.

Another old man who could not plan ahead.

He looked at Harold differently now.

“How long do you sometimes go without seeing anybody?”

Harold considered the question.

“In person?”

“Yes.”

“Three days.

Four sometimes.”

Caleb stared at him.

Harold lifted one shoulder.

“You get accustomed to it.”

But the way he said it made clear that he had not.

Caleb’s phone buzzed again.

He pulled it out.

A red notice covered the screen.

DELIVERY TIMER EXCEEDED.

He stared at it for a moment.

Then he locked the phone and put it in his pocket.

Harold noticed.

“You should go,” he said.

“I do not want to cause trouble.”

Caleb looked at the milk.

“Do you actually need that?”

Harold blinked.

“The milk?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause.

“Not especially.”

Caleb laughed.

For the first