Julian has always been the kind of person who notices the things most people miss.

Not birthdays.

Not anniversaries.

Anybody can save those dates in a phone and let an app remind them.

Julian notices the smaller things.

The things you never think to ask someone to remember.

He can tell I’ve had a terrible day before I say anything.

I’ll walk through the door, set my keys down, and he’ll look at me from across the kitchen.

“Bad day?”

I used to ask how he knew.

He’d shrug.

“Your shoulders.”

Or sometimes,

“The way you put your keys down.”

He knows I reach for kettle-cooked salt-and-vinegar chips whenever I’m stressed.

So when I have an important deadline, a bag somehow appears beside my laptop.

I never see him put it there.

And he remembers March 14th.

The day my grandmother died.

Her name was Ruth.