The Last Subscription
The spreadsheet had fourteen rows. Karen had made it in the hospital parking lot the day after, sitting in the driver's seat of his car because hers had been blocked in, and she'd gotten through six entries before she realized the seat was still adjusted for his legs.
Now it was down to three. She crossed off Netflix with a single line — that one had been easy, just a button — and wrote DONE in the margin. The Costco membership she'd handled on the phone yesterday. Forty minutes on hold. The woman who finally answered had called her "Mrs. Kowalski" four times and then offered condolences in a voice that sounded like it was reading from a laminated card.
She picked up her coffee. It was cold. She drank it anyway.
Row twelve was his gym. Row thirteen was the cloud storage — she still needed the password for that one, and the sticky note he'd kept inside the junk drawer had coffee stains over half the characters. Lowercase L or number one. The eternal question of the dead man's handwriting.
Row fourteen was the Italian app. She'd highlighted it yellow three weeks ago and hadn't touched it since.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Lisa — the third one today, and it wasn't yet noon.
Hey, I was thinking about Thanksgiving. I know it's early but I thought maybe we could do something with his recipes? The lasagna? I found his notebook when I was going through the garage boxes. Call me when you can. ❤️
Karen stared at the message. Thanksgiving was two months away. The lasagna recipe wasn't even his — it was from a YouTube video he'd bookmarked in 2019. But she could already see how Lisa had framed it in her head: the family gathered, his apron on a hook, someone crying into the ricotta. A beautiful scene. A produced one.
She typed "Sounds nice" and deleted it. Typed "Let me think about it" and deleted that too. Left it on read and went back to the spreadsheet.
The gym was next. She pulled up the number and dialed.
A hold recording kicked in immediately — upbeat, aggressive, like someone was going to spot her through the phone.
Karen set the phone on speaker and put it face-down on the table. She pulled his laptop toward her — the gym could wait in her ear — and opened the browser. His tabs were still there from whenever he'd last used it. A weather forecast for Rome in April. A forum thread about the best neighborhood to stay in near the Colosseum. An article titled "10 Phrases That Will Make Italians Love You."
She closed the weather tab. Then the forum. She left the phrases article open.
The hold music played on. Tinny and relentless. Outside, someone was mowing a lawn.
The hold music cut out mid-bar.
A voice came on, young and slightly out of breath, like he'd jogged to the phone.
Hi. I need to cancel a membership.
Sure, I can help with that. Can I get the member's name?
Tom Kowalski.
And are you — is this Tom, or —
I'm his wife.
A pause. She could hear him typing.
Okay, I've got the account pulled up. So for cancellations, usually the member has to call in themselves, but I can — let me check if there's a — hold on one second.
Karen looked at the spreadsheet. Row twelve. His gym. He'd gone three times a week for six years and then not at all for the last four months, when getting out of bed had become the workout.
The typing stopped.
I'm — I'm really sorry, ma'am. Let me just — I need to get my manager to do an override on this. Can I put you on a brief hold?
Sure.
No saxophone this time. Just the open line and the faint sound of an office behind it — someone laughing about something, a chair rolling across a hard floor.
Her phone buzzed on the table. Lisa again.
No pressure at all obviously ❤️ Just thought it might be nice
Then, ten seconds later: I can do all the cooking
Jaylen came back.
That's it. Thank you, Jaylen.
I'm sorry again for your loss.
She hung up. Drew the line through row twelve. Wrote DONE.
On the laptop screen, the phrases article was still open. Number four: "Mi sono perso." I'm lost. The pronunciation guide said to stress the second word. She closed the laptop.
The junk drawer stuck. It always stuck. You had to lift the handle and pull at the same time — Tom had said he'd fix it for three years, and then it became the kind of thing that was just true about the house, like the way the back door swelled in summer.
She lifted and pulled. Inside: a tangle of rubber bands, two dead batteries, a takeout menu from the Thai place on Broad Street that had closed in March, a book of stamps with four left, a pen cap that didn't match any pen she owned, and the sticky note.
His handwriting. The way he wrote capital letters too big and lowercase ones too small, like he was always adjusting the volume mid-sentence. The password read: LukeSkywa1ker! Or LukeSkywaiker! Or LukeSkywaikerl. The coffee stain covered the middle stretch like a Rorschach test.
She brought the sticky note back to the laptop and opened it. His browser had reset overnight — no tabs. Just the homepage. She typed the cloud storage URL from the account confirmation email she'd dug out of her own inbox last week, the one he'd forwarded her in case of exactly nothing like this.
Username: tkowalski84@gmail.com. Password: she tried the capital I version first. Incorrect. Tried the lowercase L. The page loaded.
His cloud storage was mostly what she expected. Tax documents. A folder called HOUSE STUFF. Scanned receipts he'd never need again. A subfolder labeled ROME that she didn't open.
She went to Account Settings. Subscription: $2.99/month, auto-renewing. A red button at the bottom said Cancel Plan. Above it, a cheerful yellow banner: We're sorry to see you go! 😊
She clicked it. A confirmation box. Are you sure? We'll delete all stored files after 30 days. She clicked yes. A second box: We hate goodbyes! Here's 50% off your next three months!
She clicked Cancel Anyway. A third screen, white with a single line of text: Your account has been closed. Below it, a survey. How would you rate your experience? Five empty stars.
She closed the tab.
In his email inbox — still open from the login — a shipping confirmation from July sat three scrolls down. A luggage tag set. Monogrammed. Ordered July 30th. Eleven days before.
She drew the line through row thirteen. Wrote DONE. The spreadsheet had one row left.
Her phone rang. Not a text — a call. Lisa's name on the screen.
Karen picked up.
Hey. I know you're busy. I just — did you get my texts?
I did. I've been dealing with accounts.
Right. The spreadsheet.
A beat.
What about Thanksgiving, Lisa.
I just thought it'd be good to have something. You know? Like a — not a memorial, that's not what I mean. Just dinner. His lasagna. The one he always made.
He got it from YouTube.
I know where he got it.
Karen leaned back in the chair. Outside, the lawn mower had stopped.
He put shrimp in it. Remember? That was his thing. Shrimp and raisins, which is disgusting, but he —
Yeah.
They both almost laughed. It came out wrong on both ends.
So maybe we just do that. Nothing big. I'll cook. You don't have to do anything.
Can I think about it?
Of course. Yeah. Obviously.
Then Lisa said: "Have you — are you almost done? With the accounts?"
One left.
Lisa didn't ask which one.
I don't know.
She didn't finish. Karen didn't help her.
I'll call you later, okay?
Okay. Love you.
Love you too.
She hung up and set the phone on the table. The laptop screen had gone to sleep. The sticky note sat next to the spreadsheet, his handwriting still facing up. She folded it in half and slid it into the junk drawer without looking, and left the drawer open.
She closed the laptop harder than she meant to. The spreadsheet sat next to it, one row left, the yellow highlight catching the overhead light. She didn't fold it. Didn't cap the pen.
She just stood up and walked into the living room.
The couch had a dent on the left side that wasn't hers. She sat on the right, where she always sat, and pulled the throw blanket over her legs. The TV remote was on his side. She didn't reach for it.
On the bookshelf across the room, between a photo of their wedding and a half-dead succulent she kept forgetting to water, sat the Italian phrasebook he'd bought at Barnes & Noble in June. A receipt still marking his page.
She got up and got the remote. Turned on the TV. A home renovation show. Two strangers were arguing about backsplash tile — subway versus herringbone — with the intensity of people who had never had a real problem. She watched eleven minutes of it without moving.
Then she picked up the remote and opened her phone's notification mirror on the smart TV, because the phone was in the kitchen and she wasn't going back in there yet. Three texts from Lisa. A credit card alert for $2.99 refunded. And underneath those, a notification she hadn't seen before.
Parlando — Italian for Everyone: Tom's streak is on fire! 🔥 347 days and counting! Don't break the chain!
Karen read it twice. Then she counted backward from today, which was November, through October, September, to August. To the week he died. Past the week he died. The streak didn't stop in August.
She got up. Went to the kitchen. Picked up the phone and opened the app notification. It took her to a login screen. She typed his email — tkowalski84@gmail.com — and the password from the sticky note she'd just put back in the drawer. The drawer was still open.
His profile loaded. A cartoon flame next to the number. His daily lesson history showed a green checkmark for every day going back months — through October, through September, through the second and third weeks of August. Through the twelfth. He died on the tenth.
Someone had completed a lesson today. Beginner Italian, Unit 14: Ordering at a Restaurant. Vorrei un tavolo per due. I'd like a table for two.
She stood in the kitchen holding the phone with both hands. The backsplash couple was still arguing in the other room. The junk drawer hung open beside her.
She scrolled down to his profile's conversation partners. One name. Marco V. Last session: today, 2:14 PM.
A message sat in the app's inbox, unread, from three days ago.
Ciao Tom! I hope you are well. You missed our conversation Tuesday — first time! I wanted to check. Are we still practicing for your Roma trip? I have restaurant recommendations for you and your wife. —Marco
She tapped the lesson. The screen loaded a cartoon restaurant — checkered tablecloth, a waiter with a mustache that belonged in a children's book, a chalkboard menu with words she couldn't read. A green checkmark already sat next to the first section of Unit 14. Someone had done half the lesson today at 2:14 PM and stopped.
The second section started with a prompt: How do you say 'I would like the check, please'? Three options underneath. She didn't know any Italian. She tapped the middle one.
Wrong. A gentle error hum. The correct answer highlighted green: Il conto, per favore. The app moved on. Next question. Then the next. She got every one wrong and it didn't matter — the app just kept feeding her the next one, relentless.
The last question was multiple choice. Come si dice 'for two'? She stared at the options. Per due. She'd seen it twenty minutes ago in the lesson title. She tapped it.
Confetti filled the screen. The cartoon waiter held up a gold star. Unit 14 complete! The flame icon pulsed next to 347.
Her hands were shaking. The cartoon waiter grinned at her from behind his gold star and she almost dropped the phone.
She went back to the profile. Scrolled through the lesson history again — all those green checkmarks, day after day, through August and September and October. Someone sitting down every day and opening this app and pretending to be him. Learning to order food at restaurants he would never walk into.
She looked at the conversation partner tab. Marco V. The unread message. Restaurant recommendations for you and your wife.
She closed the app and opened her text thread with Lisa. Took a screenshot of the streak notification — the flame, the 347, the exclamation point — and sent it. No message. Just the image.
Thirty seconds. A minute. Then Lisa's reply: a screenshot of her own phone. The Parlando app, open. A lesson completion screen from 2:14 PM. Unit 14, Section 1. The same cartoon waiter, the same gold star.
Then a second text.
I didn't know how to stop.
Karen pushed the junk drawer shut with her hip. She stood there in the kitchen holding the phone, reading the five words over and over. The backsplash couple had stopped arguing.
She started typing. Deleted it. Started again.
She closed the app. Set the phone on the counter by the sink, not the table, and walked out of the kitchen.
She made it as far as the hallway. His coat was still on the hook by the front door — she'd walked past it since August and it had never once been the thing that stopped her, but now she stood looking at it. It was a gray North Face, size large, with a granola bar wrapper still in the left pocket from when she'd checked it in September.
She went back to the kitchen.
Lisa's five words were still on the screen. I didn't know how to stop. Karen typed: Neither do I. Sent it before she could delete it.
The reply came fast. Not the usual cascade of softening follow-ups. Just one text.
Can I come over?
Karen looked at the kitchen. The spreadsheet on the table, the pen beside it, the laptop closed. She typed yes.
Lisa lived eleven minutes away. She made it in eight. Karen heard the car door and then the knock — not the doorbell, the knock, three quick ones low on the door the way Tom used to knock when his hands were full of groceries.
Lisa stood on the porch holding her phone in both hands. Her eyes were red but her voice was steady.
I started the day after. I just opened the app and there was a lesson queued up and I thought if I didn't do it the number would go back to zero.
Karen stepped aside. Lisa came in and went straight to the kitchen like she'd been there a hundred times, which she had.
I didn't read Marco's messages. I saw them come in and I just — I couldn't do that part.
Karen leaned against the counter.
Two-fourteen. Every afternoon. I set an alarm.
She said it flat. A fact about her life now.
Lisa.
I know.
You learned how to order food in Italian.
Lisa's mouth pressed into a line and then broke apart.
Karen laughed. It came out wrong, too loud, and then Lisa was laughing too, and then Lisa was crying, and the two sounds were so close together that for a few seconds it was hard to tell which was which.
Lisa wiped her face with her sleeve.
Karen didn't say anything.
Maybe I am. But the app was just — it was the only thing that still had him in present tense. Every other thing you do, it's past. It's 'he was a member,' 'he had an account.' But the app said 'Tom's streak' like he was still — like he hadn't finished yet.
Karen opened her mouth and nothing came out. She opened the cabinet behind her and took down two mugs.
She filled the kettle. Lisa sat down at the table, right in front of the spreadsheet, and didn't look at it. Or looked at it and chose not to say anything.
There's a man named Marco who thinks Tom is coming to Rome in April.
I know. I saw his name.
He has restaurant recommendations.
The kettle ticked on the stove. Lisa picked at a callus on her thumb.
Are you going to cancel it?
The question sat between them. Row fourteen. The last one.
Someone has to tell Marco.
Yeah.
I don't know how to say it in, like — I don't know how to say it.
Lisa pulled out her phone. Opened the app. Scrolled for a moment.
Karen picked up her phone from the counter. Opened Parlando. Opened Marco's message — the one about the trip, the restaurants, the wife he didn't know was reading this alone. She tapped the message field.
She typed: Marco, I don't know if — and stopped. Deleted it. Tried: This is hard to write — and deleted that too.
Just tell him who you are.
Karen typed: Hi Marco. This is Karen, Tom's wife. I'm sorry to tell you that Tom passed away in August. She stopped. The cursor blinked at the end of the sentence.
She kept going. He loved learning Italian with you. He talked about the trip all the time. I'm sorry no one told you sooner.
She looked at Lisa. Lisa was reading the screen from across the table, upside down, not pretending she wasn't.
Karen hit send. The message turned blue and slid up the screen underneath Marco's three-day-old note about restaurants.
The kettle screamed. Karen pulled it off the burner and poured two cups. She set one in front of Lisa without asking what she wanted in it. Lisa wrapped both hands around it.
Thanksgiving.
Yeah?
You're doing the lasagna. I'm not eating raisins.
Lisa almost smiled.
He'd get over it.
They sat with their tea. The spreadsheet was right there on the table, row fourteen yellow and unmarked. Karen picked up the pen. Held it over the row for a moment. Then she set it back down and picked up her mug instead.
Tomorrow's lesson is Unit 15. Travel phrases.
Karen blew on her tea.
What time?
Two-fourteen.
Karen nodded. Outside, a car passed.
Marco's reply came at 6:47 the next morning. Karen was already awake — had been since five, lying on her side of the bed, watching the ceiling turn from black to gray to the flat white of a Wednesday.
She read it standing at the counter in Tom's old Marquette sweatshirt, the one she'd started wearing in September without deciding to.
Cara Karen. I am sitting in my apartment in Trastevere and I do not have the English for what I feel. Tom was — he was so happy to be bad at it. The Italian. He would say every word wrong and then laugh and try again and I would think, this man, he is not learning a language, he is learning how to be excited. I did not know. I am so sorry I did not know. He talked about you every session. The trip was for you. He said that every time. Per Karen, he would say, like it was the reason for all of it. I will light a candle at Santa Maria tonight. —Marco
She set the phone down on the counter. Picked up the kettle, filled it, put it on the burner. Turned the burner on. Stood there with her hand on the knob.
Per Karen. She said it out loud to the empty kitchen. The vowels felt wrong in her mouth.
Her phone alarm went off at 2:14 PM. She was in the living room, pretending to read a magazine she'd already pretended to read last week. She'd set the alarm that morning, standing at the counter after reading Marco's message.
She opened Parlando. Unit 15: Travel Phrases loaded — a cartoon train station, departure boards with Italian city names, a ticket counter. A loading bar crept across the bottom.
The first question: How do you say 'one ticket to Rome'? Three options. She didn't know. She tapped the first one. Wrong. Un biglietto per Roma. She said it under her breath. The app moved on.
Halfway through, her phone buzzed. A text from Lisa: just a flame emoji. Nothing else. Karen locked the screen, then unlocked it. Went back to the lesson.
She got the last three right. Not because she knew Italian but because the app had drilled the same words four different ways and repetition is its own kind of teacher. The progress bar filled. The streak counter rolled to 348.
She went to the kitchen. The spreadsheet was gone — she'd put it in the cabinet above the refrigerator yesterday evening, behind the wedding china, after Lisa left. She'd folded it in half and then in half again and put it up there with the warranty cards for appliances they'd already thrown away. She stood looking at the cabinet door for a moment, then opened the fridge and took out the leftover soup she'd made on Sunday.
She texted Lisa back: 348.