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The damp June heat in Springfield, Oregon, hangs heavy over the pavement, slick with the tail end of an early evening drizzle. Lisa Simpson shifts the heavy strap of her canvas tote over her shoulder, her frayed denim jacket smelling faintly of damp cotton and cheap smoke. Beside her, Maggie drags her sneakers against the cracked asphalt, the soles emitting a rhythmic, wet squeak. They are on foot, having originally made the trek toward the local Kwik-E-Mart, only to find a piece of neon-green poster board taped crookedly inside the glass front door. Written in thick, bleeding Sharpie were the words: *Stick Up in Progress, Come Back in 2 Hours*.
Lisa had stared at the sign for five full seconds, her jaw tightening as she tried to parse whether Apu was being robbed at gunpoint or if it was some bizarre, mid-2010s local slang she hadn't quite caught up on yet. Unwilling to risk getting caught in the crossfire of a convenience store robbery—or worse, wasting twenty minutes—she had simply turned on her heel, grabbed Maggie’s small hand, and redirected them six blocks south to the cavernous, fluorescent-lit expanse of the Resalia Supermarket.
Inside, the cool, air-conditioned air hits them like a wall. Resalia smells of floor wax and bruised citrus. Maggie immediately takes charge of a chrome shopping cart, her small hands gripping the plastic handle as she leans her entire body weight forward to set the squeaky wheels in motion. Lisa walks beside her, holding a crumpled piece of loose-leaf paper—Alyson’s meticulous, overly demanding grocery list.
They reach the produce section, where the automatic misters periodically hiss, spraying a fine cool rain over rows of wet lettuces and gleaming peppers. Lisa stops, her fingers hovering over a wooden crate filled with dark, pebbled fruit.
"Avocadoes?" Maggie asks, her voice crisp, turning her head up toward her older sister. "Are we making guac?"
"Yeah," Lisa says, letting out a long, weary sigh that seems to drain the posture right out of her shoulders. She stares down at the produce aisle, mentally hearing Alyson's internal checklist, ticking off the requirements for the perfect taco night. Her perfectionism often manifests as a culinary inquisition. If the guac lacks the exact creamy-to-chunk ratio, Alyson will treat the meal like a failed chemistry experiment. "Alyson said we needed ripe ones, otherwise Tuesday dinner will be a flop."
Lisa bends down, pressing the pad of her thumb gently near the stem of a dark green Haas. Alyson, currently seventeen and fully immersed in a dramatic theater phase that had recently peaked with her starring as the lead victim in the high school’s blood-drenched spring musical of *Jack the Ripper*, brought that same life-or-death intensity into the kitchen.
Since today was Alyson's scheduled night to cook, but she was currently bedridden and miserable, Lisa had inherited the mantle. And inheriting Alyson’s kitchen duties meant adhering to Alyson’s militant standards, lest they all endure a night of theatrical sighing and passive-aggressive commentary from the couch. Maggie shifts the heavy cart, the rubber wheels squeaking against the linoleum, as Lisa moves down the line and reaches for a dense, dark bundle of iron-fortified spinach and a brown paper bag of dried lentils.
"This one's for me," Lisa remarks, dropping the heavy greens into the top basket of the cart. "I'm still a fierce advocate for the planet, but I've started worrying about my iron levels."
Maggie tilts her head, her sharp blue eyes tracking the spinach. "Doesn't your body produce that organically?"
"Traditionally, yes," Lisa replies, her voice dropping into that familiar, academic cadence she uses whenever she's trying to rationalize her own anxieties. She pulls back her upper lip slightly with a finger, inspecting her reflection in the glass of the misted display case. "But I've seen a pale hue in my gums lately, and I'm worried about the onset of anaemia."
Maggie blinks, her small face scrunching up. "What's that?"
"A low number of red blood cells," Lisa explains, turning away from her reflection and dusting her hands off on her jeans. "It'd tank my energy levels just as soccer season hit its peak."
She doesn't mention the real reason her energy levels are in the gutter—the suffocating weight of being stuck on Yale’s waitlist, the lingering, jagged guilt over the car crash she and Nelson had caused down on Route 9 last month, or the constant, humming tension of living in a house with a wildly rearranged family dynamic. It’s easier to blame red blood cells. Maggie gives a sage, old-soul nod, accepting the explanation without further commentary, and leans back into the cart, pushing them farther down the wide central thoroughfare.
They pause next at the glass-fronted seafood counter, where whole fish lie embedded in mountains of crushed ice. Lisa stops, her eyes lingering on a thick, pale-pink fillet of wild salmon. Her thoughts instantly drift away from the grocery store to her brother. Bart had been legally emancipated for over a year now, living in a bizarre, quiet domesticity with former convict "Sideshow" Bob, complete with a legal restraining order keeping Homer at a strict distance.
But three weeks ago, Bart’s body had betrayed him in the most terrifying way possible—a sudden, catastrophic heart attack that had left him pale, fragile, and terrified in an ICU bed.
"Logically, I know the heart is just a pump," Lisa murmurs, her voice dropping an octave, lost in the icy glare of the seafood case. "But ever since Bart's heart attack, I've thought of it in terms of antagonistic muscles."
Maggie looks up from the metal rim of the cart, her hand pausing on the handle. "That sounds scary."
"It can be," Lisa says softly, her fingers tracing the edge of the glass display. "They're a delicate pair of muscles that balance between contraction and relaxation that his heart sometimes struggles to maintain."
She remembers sitting by his hospital bed, listening to the electronic beep of the cardiac monitor, watching the rhythmic spikes on the screen and wondering how something so vital could be so wildly unstable. The doctor had stressed a strict, uncompromising regimen: low sodium, zero stress, and high omega-3 fatty acids to help stabilize his temperamental cardiac tissue. Lisa shakes off the chill of the memory and turns back to the cart. As they move down the center aisle, her eyes catch a brightly colored endcap. Before they reach it, she reaches out and casually tosses a brown bag of high-protein, flax-seed granola into the cart alongside the lentils.
"Consider this a concession," Lisa says, looking down at Maggie with a faint, rare flicker of a smile. "Your energy levels are an atmospheric phenomenon."
Maggie’s eyes light up. "Does that mean I can have the sugary stuff?"
Lisa gives a brief, permissive nod. "Go ahead."
She watches as Maggie instantly takes off down the cereal aisle, her small sneakers squeaking against the floor. Lisa stands by the cart, picturing the amylases in her sister's saliva already beginning to break down the starches of whatever gas-station snack Maggie had undoubtedly snuck into the car earlier that afternoon. Maggie is nine going on thirty, listening to Kendrick Lamar and Travis Scott on her worn-out iPod, obsessed with turtles, and navigating the weirdness of their expanded family with a silent, observant resilience that Lisa deeply admires.
A minute later, Maggie returns, proudly marching down the aisle holding a bright yellow box of Turtloops—a high-sugar, bright-green cereal with a cartoon sea turtle on the box. She slides it into the basket with a satisfying thump.
"Got 'em," Maggie announces.
"Good choice," Lisa says dryly. "Now let's get the dairy before the whole house revolts."
They navigate toward the refrigerated back wall, where cold air cascades down from the open dairy cases. As they approach the rows of gallon milk jugs, Maggie’s expression shifts. A sudden spike of stress tightens her small forehead, her mind darting back to the dreary pediatric clinic visit from last week, where a specialist had spent forty-five minutes poking and prodding her over her relentless, systemic allergy flare-ups.
"What did the specialist say about my body on fire from the cow milk?" Maggie asks, leaning against the cold metal border of the display case.
"Are you talking about your overactive immune system?" Lisa asks gently, turning to face her.
"Yeah," Maggie says, her voice small.
Lisa leans back against the cart, framing the medical jargon into terms her little sister can process. "Your body produces too many antibodies against things that aren't actually threats, and your anterior pituitary gland plays a role in the broader hormonal cascade that keeps you in a state of perpetual inflammation."
Maggie frowns, digesting the information. "So no milk?"
"No, Mags," Lisa says, shaking her head. "It's similar to being lactose intolerant, but it's an immune reaction, not just a digestive one. We're sticking to oat and almond."
"Oh," Maggie says. She looks across the aisle toward the grain section, her hand tapping rhythmically against the edge of the cart. "Should we get some organic corn tortillas?"
Lisa glances at the tortillas, then down at the scribbled, chaotic nightmare of Alyson’s list. She takes a breath, pivoting on her heel as Maggie pushes the cart right behind her, tracking back toward the produce section where the middle crate holds the actual ripe avocados they missed on their first pass. Lisa hovers over the wooden bin, carefully selecting four perfect, dark, slightly soft avocados and nestling them into the top of the basket.
As she stands there in the middle of Resalia, listening to the low hum of the refrigeration units and watching Maggie carefully organize the items in the cart by height, Lisa momentarily considers claiming "managing a miniature civilization" as a full-time professional qualification on her college application resume. It certainly feels more complex than anything Yale’s admissions board has ever asked her to write about.
The walk back to Marge and Ruth's house is quiet, the twilight settling into a deep indigo over the Oregon suburban streets. The house on Elm Street is brightly lit, yellow square windows glowing against the damp evening gloom.
When Lisa pushes the front door open, carrying two heavy paper bags in the crooks of her arms, a wall of warm, stagnant air hits them. The living room is a scene of absolute, pathetic domestic quarantine. Wrapped in a tangled mountain of fleece blankets, sitting side-by-side on the massive sectional sofa with their bare feet submerged in plastic storage tubs filled with steaming, warm water, are Bart, Alyson, Marge, and Ruth. The entire room smells of eucalyptus oil, Mentholatum, and damp wool. Used tissues are piled in little paper mountain ranges on the coffee table. On the TV screen, an old, grainy monster movie is playing, a giant creature roaring through a low-budget cityscape.
The moment the front door latches shut with a sharp click, all four people on the couch jump violently in unison, splashing warm water over the edges of their tubs. Alyson lets out a dramatic, raspy gasp, clutching her blanket to her throat like a Victorian tragic heroine. Bart groans, leaning his head back against the sofa cushion, looking pale and exhausted, his chest rising and falling in a slow, calculated rhythm. Ruth sniffles loudly, wiping her nose with a red-bordered handkerchief, while Marge—her iconic blue hair pinned down softly—blinks through bleary, fever-glossed eyes.
Lisa rolls her eyes hard enough to cause physical pain, stepping around a stray throw pillow. Maggie, coming in behind her with the lighter bag of cereals and tortillas, lets out a sudden, bubbling laugh. "We're home," Lisa announces, setting the heavy grocery bags down on the kitchen counter just off the living area. "And nobody is being eaten by a swamp monster. You can all relax."
"Lisa..." Marge rasps, her voice stripped raw by the summer flu that had swept through the household like wildfire yesterday morning. "Did you... did you get the ripe ones?"
"Yes, Mom," Lisa says, unpacking the lentils and the salmon. "I got the ripe avocados. We're making tacos tonight."
Alyson lets out a weak, theatrical sigh of relief from under three layers of plaid fleece. "Thank god... the acid balance... it's the only thing that will clear my sinuses..."
"You sound like a broken oboe, Alyson," Bart mutters from under his own blanket, his voice quiet, flat, and cautious.
He shifts slightly, resting one hand over the left side of his chest—a subconscious habit he'd developed over the last three weeks, constantly monitoring the silent, delicate thumping beneath his ribs. Ruth gently reaches over, wrapping a warm, sturdy arm around Marge's shoulders, drawing her wife closer under the shared electric blanket. Ever since Marge and Ruth had gotten married, and subsequently opened their marriage last month—leading to Marge's bewildering, high-society dating spree with Krusty the Clown—the house had operated under a strange, fluid kind of honesty. But right now, struck down by the same microscopic bug, they were just four miserable adults and teenagers clinging to warm water and monster movies.
Maggie drops her bag on the floor and walks straight over to the couch. She looks at the thin, ratty throw blankets currently draping over her sick family members, then looks at the way Bart is shivering despite the room's stifling heat. Without a word, Maggie turns and marches toward the hallway closet, unlatching the narrow door that leads up to the small attic space. She climbs the first three steps, reaching up into the dark storage shelf where the thick, heavy winter quilts are kept—the real ones, packed away in cedar boxes.
She hauls down three massive, hand-stitched comforters, their cotton worn soft by decades of use. She carries them back into the living room, wrestling with the sheer volume of the fabric, and begins swapping them out. She pulls the damp, thin fleece off Bart first, gently draping a heavy, dark-green quilt over his shoulders. Bart looks up, his eyes tired and rimmed with red, and offers his little sister a faint, genuine smirk.
"Thanks, Mags," he murmurs, tucking the heavy quilt tight around his chin, feeling the immediate, deep warmth sink into his aching chest.
Maggie doesn't say anything, just gives his shoulder a firm press before moving on to Ruth and Marge, dropping the thickest quilt across both of their laps, then laying the final heavy blanket over Alyson’s dramatics. In the kitchen, the sound of Lisa turning on the tap and chopping the fresh spinach rhythmically against the wooden board fills the room. The monster on the television roars again, but under the weight of the heavy attic blankets, the living room slowly settles into a quiet, warm, and breathing calm.