He was thirty years younger, handsome, confident, and strangely interested in everything I said. His name was Adrian. He claimed to be a photographer who had recently returned from traveling abroad.
At first, I assumed he was being polite. But he listened carefully as I spoke about my marriage, my children, and the dreams I had abandoned. He never looked at his phone. He never made me feel old.
When he learned it was my birthday, he ordered a small dessert with a single candle.
“To the years you still have left to live,” he whispered.
No one had made me feel so visible in years.
Perhaps it was the wine. Perhaps it was loneliness. Or perhaps I simply wanted one night in which I was not a widow, a mother, or the woman everyone had forgotten.
When Adrian invited me upstairs, I followed him.
The next morning, I woke to pale sunlight and an empty space beside me.
