The rice was in a Tupperware container. The lid didn't fit properly, so Ray had to hold it with one hand while he opened it with the other, and a few grains spilled onto the breakroom counter and he picked them up and ate them because waste is a luxury he can't afford.

Doris was already there, standing at the coffee machine, watching it drip. The machine was old and the coffee was weak and it tasted like it had been brewed in a kettle that had previously held something else, but she was drinking it because it was hot and hot things make you feel like something is happening.

"Hey," Ray said.

"Hey," she said, without looking at him.

He put the Tupperware on the counter. He stood next to her and looked at the coffee machine. The coffee machine was dripping at a rate of approximately one drop per second. It had been dripping like that for three years. Ray had worked at this station for two and a half. He had not heard it fixed.

"I made too much rice again," he said.

"I can see that," she said. "You always make too much rice."

He had not told her he knew this. He had been watching. For three weeks now, ever since she started coming to the station at odd hours, trying to pitch stories to people who had stopped returning her calls, trying to find work in a city that had stopped creating work for people who were not young and not connected and not willing to lie on their resume about knowing someone on the board.

She came to the breakroom at 3 AM because that was the only time the coffee machine didn't have a line. She came because she was hungry and because her apartment was cold and because sitting in her apartment at 3 AM meant sitting alone with her thoughts, and her thoughts were not kind.

Ray came to the breakroom at 3 AM because the night shift paid twelve dollars an hour and the day shift paid eleven and he needed the one extra dollar because Chester, the cat, was getting older and the vet had said he needed special food and special food cost money and money was the one thing that Detroit did not have in abundance.

He opened the Tupperware. The rice was white and warm and it smelled like rice. Not much else. No sauce. No vegetables. No meat. Just rice.

He took two plastic spoons out of the drawer by the sink. He handed one to her.

She took it. She looked at the Tupperware. She looked at him. "How much is there?"

"Enough."

"That's not an answer."

"There's enough for you and there's enough for me and there are a few grains left over that I will eat off the counter."

She sat down at the small table in the corner of the breakroom. It was a table that had been bolted to the floor in 1998 and had not been moved since. There were burn marks on the surface and someone had carved their initials into the edge: J + L, 1998. Probably a couple. Probably still together. Probably not.

She ate slowly. Carefully. Like the rice was something she had earned. Ray watched her eat and felt something move in his chest that he couldn't name. It wasn't pity. It wasn't desire. It was something that lived in the space between those two things, in a neighborhood he had never visited before.

When she finished, she put the spoon down and looked at her hands. Her hands were thin and the knuckles were prominent and there was a small scar on her left thumb that he had noticed before and wondered about. A cooking accident, probably. Or an old injury that she had never bothered to get looked at.

"Thank you," she said.

"It's just rice."

"It's more than just rice," she said. "It's dinner."

She stood up. She put her spoon in the sink. She looked at the coffee machine one more time and then she looked at Ray.

"I used to be on TV," she said. It wasn't a question. It wasn't an invitation to ask more. It was just a statement, placed on the table like the rice, and left there for him to pick up if he wanted to.

Ray wiped the counter with his sleeve. "I know."

"You do?"

"I clean this building. I see things."

She nodded. She walked to the door and paused with her hand on the handle. "What do you see?"

"I see a woman who knows a lot about nutrition and can't afford fresh vegetables."

She closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were wet but she didn't wipe them. "Yeah."

"I see a woman who used to tell people how to eat and now eats whatever is cheapest."

"Yeah."

"I see a woman who comes to this breakroom at 3 AM because it's warmer than her apartment."

She didn't answer. She just stood there, her hand on the door handle, and the coffee machine dripped, and the rice sat in the Tupperware between them like a promise neither of them knew how to keep.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. And then, because she couldn't help herself: "Your rice was good."

"I know," he said.

She left. The door closed behind her with a sound like a sigh. Ray stood in the breakroom for a long time, looking at the Tupperware. There were a few grains left. He scooped them into his mouth and chewed slowly.

The rice was fine. Not great. Not terrible. Just fine. Like everything else in this building, this city, this life. Just fine, and that had to be enough.

He put the Tupperware in the sink. He washed it. He dried it. He put it back in his bag.

Tomorrow, he would make more rice. Tomorrow, she would come to the breakroom at 3 AM. Tomorrow, they would sit at the bolted-down table and eat and talk about nothing and everything, and it would be enough.

--

Chester the cat sat on Ray's windowsill that night, looking out at the dark street, and Ray sat next to him and fed him a small piece of cheese that he had saved from lunch, and Chester ate it and purred, and Ray thought about the Tupperware container in his bag, chipped and stained and with a lid that didn't fit properly, and he thought: this is what sustenance looks like. Not the way the television people talk about it. Not the way the health gurus explain it. Just this. Two beings, one room, a piece of cheese, and the understanding that tomorrow, you will do it again.