Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the woman in the mirror.
Seventy years old, soft around the eyes, silver hair brushed back because she still liked to look nice at night. Not for the world. For the man reading ten feet behind her.
Arthur turned a page without looking up.
On the nightstand, their wedding photo leaned beside the lamp. In that picture his hand was wrapped around her waist like he was afraid the room might take her from him.
Now he could pass her in the hallway and only ask if the thermostat had been changed.
Evelyn touched the sleeve of her robe. It was not new. Nothing about her was new. That was not what hurt.
What hurt was remembering how he used to notice.
A dress. A tired look. A smile she was trying to hide. He had once known her face the way a person knows the road home.
“Arthur,” she said.
He made a small sound, still inside his book.
She almost asked it plainly. Do you still want me? Do you still see me? Am I just furniture in the room where your life happens?
Instead she looked back at the mirror and swallowed the question.
At seventy, she was not asking to be young again.
She only wanted, for one moment, to be wanted.
