218 words

 
 
I tiptoe into the kitchen. Look around. Check in the fridge.

Nope, she is not here.

So I can make some experiments. But just to be sure, I prepare a cup of fruit tea and go upwards.

-Just thought you would like some tea.

-Eh? What? Why?

-Cannot the husband bring some tea?

-Of course. But why just now? Without my asking? What did you do?

-Oh nothing (yet, I say so silently that even I hardly feel the wind of wording it.)

-What? (Has she 1000 times better hearing than I or is it that she just knows me too well?)

-I say, drink and enjoy it.

-Thanks. (But her sight is like X-ray. I think that she sees THROUGH me).

-I will go to prepare some sandwiches.

-OW. (Was it a disappointment?)

Still, I go down and enter the sacred place. Her sacred place.

The place that you feel that you can only whisper.

The place that has my wife's scent all over it.

Then I understand that it is blasphemous for me to be there.

I retreat to my sanctuary of gadget-filled room. I look on all those super-knives and blue-tooth kettles.

One day I will dare to come out of the closet and enter the kitchen.

Just some more courage and I will do.