eight days a week

August 2040 - Anthony Cooke is 23, Anjali Ramaswami is 22 (Benjamin Long is 49, Elizabeth Long is 43, Patrick Seiff is 27, Clara Long is 22).

Anjali and Anthony move into a beautiful new townhouse-style apartment. Initially they hadn't planned to live together; but when Paul took a new job in Bridgeport, Anthony and Anjali decided it didn't make sense for both of them to look for new places.

The apartment is beautiful and spacious: two bedrooms, one of which they use as an office, and a large porch on the second story. They set up a telescope outside, although it's hard to see much because of the city lights.

The apartment has an attached garage, and Anthony buys his first car. He needs it to get to work now that he's a few miles from the lab.

He loves working at the lab. Some of his colleagues are kind of eccentric, like this guy in his neon vest and UFO shirt. But he loves being surrounded by interesting people who also love talking about science.

Anjali doesn't need a car. The hospital is just a block away, so she walks to work every day.

She and Clara are both residents at Providence Hospital. It's a little weird being at the same hospital as Clara's father and stepmother; working with her best friend's parents makes her feel like a kid.

Anjali is in radiology, so she spends most of that day alone staring at a computer. But Clara comes by every day to say hi.

They go down to the cafeteria for coffee almost every day.

"...and then Dr. Myers yelled at me because I didn't have the scans for her patient ready in time. It wasn't my fault radiology got backed up, but the doctors always take it out on me."

"That sucks," Clara says.

"And surgeons are the worst. They're so demanding."

"So how's internal medicine?"

"Okay," Clara says. "It's a little weird working in the same department as my dad. But they've arranged things so I mostly report to Dr. Carter."

To celebrate unpacking their new apartment, Anthony and Anjali invite Clara and her fiance Patrick over for dinner. For the boys' sake, they avoid talking about medicine or the hospital. Mostly they talk about Patrick and Clara's upcoming wedding.

"My mom is doing most of the planning," Clara says, "and she calls every day with new details she's freaking out about."

Even though Clara has been with Patrick for three years, Anthony and Anjali don't know him very well. They both really like getting to know him better.