A new routine moves into time that already had someone living there.

Since late September, Inés has spent the 7:52 train working through Portuguese verb cards. Most mornings, somewhere past the river crossing, she looks down and finds the puzzle book already open on her knee, pencil out, three clues filled in. She does not remember deciding. For four years, that ride belonged to the crossword.

It would be easy to call those mornings a lapse of will. They look more like an old tenant returning. The crossword was never a bad habit. It had a time, a place on her knee and a pencil, and the verbs arrived asking for all three. The verbs still need remembering. The crossword only needs the train to pull out. Inés might stop wrestling the puzzle for the morning and give it the ride home, where it can stay something she likes.

What used to happen in the time you gave your new routine, and does it have somewhere else to go?