Instalment One Hundred and Twenty Eight

It was one of those brief moments that can pass between strangers. Still sweaty from yoga, I’d stopped for a coffee on the way to the car. I was waiting for my name to be called, idly scanning the other customers in a thoughtless way as he look up from the paper he was reading. Our eyes met and neither of us looked away. He looked kind, friendly even, lived in but not worn out.

We exchanged smiles.

My name was called and with coffee in hand, I left without so much as a glance over my shoulder.

I was grinning ear to ear as I walked in the door. I never did that.

“You look different,” my husband said, scowling over the top of the paper.

I was still wearing the smile another man had given me, writ large across my face. The smile I had for my husband, the one he knew and fell in love with was gone, lost forever. I dropped the foreign smile from my face and searched for a new one as he laid the paper flat. He was wearing my pink dressing gown and the smile it gave me was just for him.