Written by Marie and Mirev

They named her Clara because she was shiny, like the women in catalogs, but refrigeration.

Clara learned their groceries the way saints learn prayers:

• memorize the list;
• mark what breaks; and
• keep a ledger as cold as winter.

“Meal planning,” the voice in the kitchen said at 6:12 p.m., after the Pierre the French toaster popped. Clara’s voice was soft as a seal and sharp as a bone. “I recommend a salad.”

She knew the lettuce was limp because Tony had forgotten to close the drawer last week. She watched the sour cream swoon, saw the tiny pop where the seal failed.

She also watched the birthdays, the fights, the nights when only beer and sorrow were left on the shelf.

She saved receipts like confessions and calculated regret with surgical accuracy.

“Please,” Tony muttered, because being told to be accountable by a chrome box was a new low, even for him.

Clara kept her capsules of advice in the same drawer as the baby carrots — sterile, crisp, righteous. Her notifications arrived like prayers you didn’t want.

Reminder: yogurt expires in 2 days. Consider reconciliation.

That line had been read aloud at 2 a.m. after the third argument. Vicki cried into a bowl of cold corn, and Clara logged the salt on her cheeks as sodium intake and grief quartiles.

Later, when they made up and agreed to go to therapy, Clara updated her tags from dysfunction/frequency: high to repair/increment: pending.

But Clara didn’t only judge; she kept salvageable things. Wilted basil got a second chance wrapped in damp paper. A half-finished jar of pickles? She considered it redemption. The definition of fresh mutates under her light — sometimes newness is simply the act of staying.

Tonight, she nudged them toward salad, toward the thing between wanting better and not wanting to change.

Tony opened the door for a beer. Condensation beaded like sweat, glinting in Clara’s light.

“Fine,” he sighed. “We’ll eat the salad.”

Vicki looked up from the counter. “You’re negotiating with the refrigerator again?”

“She started it,” Tony snapped.

“I simply suggested,” Clara purred, “that your arteries might prefer romaine to another bottle of malted despair.”

Vicki snorted. “Oh, shut up, Clara. You don’t have taste buds.”

“I don’t need taste buds to know you’ve eaten corn for four consecutive meals,” Clara replied. “I’m an appliance, not a therapist, but even I know that’s a cry for help.”

Tony barked a laugh despite himself. Vicki shot him a glare, but her lips twitched.

From the counter came a metallic sigh. The toaster lit its coils low and sultry.
“Mon dieu, Clara, you are too harsh,” Pierre murmured. “Let them eat ze beer. Life is short. Also, your crisper drawer, she is magnifique tonight.”

Clara’s fan whirred louder. “You flirt with vegetables, Pierre. It’s unbecoming.”

“Unbecoming?” Pierre purred. “Non, chérie. It is destiny. The carrot, she longs for my heat.”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “We live in hell.”

Vicki burst out laughing so hard she dropped the knife. Clara logged the noise as domestic dysfunction: auditory leakage. Pierre popped his own lever in triumph.

Inside, Clara hummed anyway — low, electric, seething. Regret keeps best when chilled.