He brought her the crossword.
Every Thursday — she didn’t know if he sought it out or if it was just the paper, but somehow there was always a printed crossword on the kitchen table on Thursday mornings, and they did it together over breakfast, badly.
They were both poor at crosswords. This was irrelevant. The point was the argument over what 14 across could possibly mean, and the way he refused to accept defeat on any clue, and the moment one of them finally got something right and said *I told you* with completely unjustified confidence.
“Seven letters. Roman emperor. Third letter is N,” he said now.
“Anthony,” she said immediately.
“That’s not seven letters.”
She counted on her fingers. It was not seven letters.
“Marcus,” she tried.
“Still wrong.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know it’s not Marcus.”
This was how they argued — circuitously, cheerfully, without any real stakes. It was one of her favorite things about them.
Julia put down her coffee. “Hadrian,” she said.
He counted. Looked at her. Wrote it in.
“Beginner’s luck,” he said.
“Seven years of crosswords,” she said.
“Beginner’s luck.”
She laughed and took the paper from him, scanning the next clue. Outside, the city was waking up in that slow Thursday way, and inside the kitchen everything was exactly as it had been every Thursday for years, and the familiarity of it felt, this morning, like an extraordinary thing.
The rituals we build without meaning to, she thought, are often the ones that hold us most.
✦ Today’s Reflection
What recurring ritual in your relationship brings you unexpected joy — and do you both know how much it matters?
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Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 
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