Two unknown persons

Silence. A deep, hollow night. Lights still blazed defiantly in a handful of windows—what lives were being lived behind them? In the swallowing darkness, she stared at those distant squares of yellow streetlights. She was lying beside her husband. She knew his body down to every mole, but she couldn't even remember the color of his eyes.

Her mind went back to that night. She had walked in. There had been a dark, quiet atmosphere. Some people, mostly men, had been sitting at the bar. Others had been sitting at tables, quietly talking. A thick, reddish smoke, filled with the smell of wine and cigarettes, had seemed to cover the entire air.

'Vodka, please.'

The bartender had nodded and poured a glass. She had sat down and taken it.

'May I sit down?'

'Don't ask.'

'Isn't this drink too strong for a woman like you?' a voice had asked.

'It's none of your business,' she had snapped.

His hand had touched her thigh. 'I just want to get to know you.'

She had pointed to her ring.

'Sorry, I'm married.'

'But you aren't with your husband now,' the man had said.

And in that moment, leaning on the sticky bar, she had thought about her marriage. She had been so disappointed with it already. 'More vodka for me and this man!' she had cried, then added more quietly, 'gentleman'.

He had smiled and moved closer.

They had hardly talked. A dark, hot silhouette had melted into the darkness. She had smoked silently and had watched as he prepared to leave. It had been just a one-night stand, nothing more, but in that moment she had felt the fire that had gone out of her life so quickly.

She had looked with pain at the wristwatch, which she never took off—either out of despair or because of the image of a good wife—it had been a quarter to five. It had been time for her to go back.

She touched her sleeping husband, straightened her hair, which had become stiff with age. They had been together for thirty years. And now, lying in the dark, she thought about their life. It had been over thirty years since their wedding. She loved her husband, still. But now, pinned by the sharp weight of insomnia, a single thought refused her peace, gnawing with relentless teeth. What was it she was thinking?

She remembered their first meeting—a warm memory that still awakened old butterflies inside. It had been just after she had graduated from university and received her diploma. She had needed to find a job. She had met a classmate from school, who had offered her a position in his company. She had gotten the job and there had met her love—if, of course, it was love, and not passion, a fleeting crush, or something else entirely.

They had dated for a long time before marrying each other. How come he hadn't proposed in a romantic way? There had been no candlelit restaurant, no kneeling, no cherished words. He had simply asked one day, and she had said "yes." After all, he had already entered her life, and she hadn't been able to imagine it without him.

It had been their first summer after the wedding. He had surprised her with two plane tickets to Italy. She had dreamed of visiting that country for what felt like a lifetime, and he had made it real. Perhaps it had been the single most romantic act of their long marriage. They had spent three breathtaking weeks wandering the ancient streets of Rome, savoring robust red wine in sunny vineyards, and driving through the fairytale fields of Tuscany. Now, thinking about this trip, she wanted to believe that she had been truly happy then.

When they decided to build their own home, things moved with breathtaking speed: the wooded plot, the blueprints, the practical puzzles of plumbing and power. They had laughed while brushing a warm, blushing pink onto the walls. They had stolen kisses over the careful alignment of bathroom tiles. He would lean on the veranda railing, cigarette in hand, a silent spectator as she tucked delicate seedlings into the rich, dark earth. They filled albums with photographs and shelves with rows of identical frames. A perfect picture.

The decision to have a child was joyous. And then she arrived—their long-awaited daughter. But tragedy, swift and cruel, intervened. After the devastating loss, they tried again and again, a cycle of hope and crushing silence. Perhaps that was the genesis of the first, hairline fracture in their world. After nearly five years of futile, heart-sore trying, they adopted a serious-eyed boy from an orphanage.

Their son grew with a velocity that stole her breath: first garbled words, first wobbly steps, the bustling chaos of elementary school, a passionate, fleeting hobby, the turbulent waters of middle school and awkward first crushes. High school brought heated arguments. Then university, serious girlfriends, “We’ve found a place,” and finally, the quiet, permanent emptiness of his departed presence. And here they were again, profoundly alone—just he and she.

But when she reached into the past, scrabbling for a handhold of warmth, her fingers closed not on something solid of memory, but around a handful of cold, fine ash. The good times, it seemed, had burned away to nothing, leaving only the scent of smoke and a hollow in her chest where their light should have been.

Over thirty years. She was no longer young, nor was he. The great, sweeping bulk of life, if not all of it, was irrevocably behind them. They were like water and sky, so close, yet so far apart—a space where there was neither warmth nor people.

In the morning, he would wake, press a dry, familiar kiss to her temple as she feigned sleep, and go to make breakfast. He would forget that she does not like fried eggs and would cook them for her again - he was never able to fill it out. Perhaps he would even venture out for flowers—it was their anniversary, after all. If he remembered.