She smiled, tilting her face up to look at him. There was something in her eyes.
Something that looked a lot like devotion.
I watched from several counters away, and the pain flared again.
Not the sharp kind. A dull ache. Like someone punching me in the chest, slow and steady, over and over.
In all our years of marriage, the number of times we'd gone shopping together could be counted on one hand. Every time I offered to take her, she'd wave me off. Shopping is exhausting. Isn't it nicer to just stay home?
I'd always wanted us to catch a movie together, but she'd say theaters were too loud, that watching on the projector at home was the same thing. So I bought a projector. Then she said she was tired, said maybe another day.
Another day became another week, became never.
I'd always believed she genuinely didn't enjoy shopping. Didn't enjoy movies.
Now I knew.
It wasn't that she didn't enjoy them.
She just didn't enjoy them with me.
They left the mall and headed to a steakhouse on the third floor.
I stood in the fire escape at the end of the corridor, watching through the small window in the door.