Row G, seat 14. Every Tuesday at seven-thirty for eleven years. She sat in 14, Dana sat in 15. The Rialto Theater on Fourth Street, ninety-six seats, single screen. They never missed a week.

Dana has been dead for two years. She still goes every Tuesday. Still sits in 14. Leaves 15 empty.

One November Tuesday, a woman is sitting in her seat.

Small. White-haired. Green cardigan buttoned to the neck. Reading glasses pushed up on her forehead. Eating peanut M&Ms from a box in packaging that was discontinued in the 1990s. She refuses to move.

Her name is Bette Olsen, from Duluth, Minnesota. She was married twice. First to Walter, thirty-two years, the love of her life. Then to Phil, three years, a mistake. Walter died of a heart attack in 1983. In seat 14 of the Rialto. He and Bette had attended every Tuesday for twenty-six years.

Bette died of a stroke in her kitchen in 1997. She's been coming back to the Rialto every Tuesday since. Sixteen years alone before the narrator started coming. Thirteen more years of watching from the dark.

She took the seat on purpose. "I took your seat so you'd have to sit somewhere new. So the pattern would break."

They watch movies together through the winter and into spring. Bette shares her M&Ms. The narrator shares her grief. And Bette grows fainter week by week, the projector light passing through her shoulder, Walter pulling like a tide from wherever he's been waiting since 1983.

The last Tuesday is in June. When the credits roll, seat 14 is empty. A box of peanut M&Ms sits on the armrest with one left inside.

The narrator sits in seat 14 now. She eats peanut M&Ms at every movie. And when a young woman with red eyes sits down alone in seat 16, she offers her the box.