Last night seemed perfect somehow. The apples were on the counter, spilling out of an orange plastic bag.

“My dad says these apples don’t last long”, he said as I returned from kissing the kids to join him in the kitchen and grab a sharp knife. He peeled the reddy-pink and yellow skins off in long spirals that dropped heavily onto the counter. Juicy, foamy, crispy white flesh beneath was marbled through with pink, and I sliced them in half and scooped out the cores. Each apple was stained, a different pattern of pink and red shot through the flesh.

The kids found their usual reasons to get out of bed and make requests, more water, more kisses, my brother is reading loudly… One negotiation at a time we shut them down and sent them back, then grinned and rolled our eyes at each other. “Who would have kids?!”

We stood there, on the faux wood, in our slippers next to dark windows, knives in our hands. We cut those bloody beautiful red apples and slipped foamy slices into our mouths off of the edge of the knife, and talked about death and futility and hope and humanity.

We talked, and cut apples. And it was perfect.