Left behind

And then one day he was gone from her life. Thirty years together gone in a snap and a green unwavering line on a black screen.

No more newspapers left lying around on a Sunday morning. No more loud TV playing in the afternoons. No more subtle requests for pakodas on rainy days. No more. No more. No more.

And she had to live with the dent in the sagging mattress on his side. She'd complained about it each day, nearly wearing down his resistance night by squabbly night. And now, she didn't care to change it any more. She put away one of the two blue mugs and one of the two ceramic dinner plates. She packed away the spectacles. She donated the wrist watch to her nephew. She cancelled the sports channels on their subscription package. And she lived.

And then one day, in her tidy little house for one, with the newspapers neatly piled up and the TV sitting silent and the fry pan lying unused, she opened an old book and a little note fell out: a shopping list from a trip abroad, and on it the last item, neatly crossed out when bought - "earrings for M".

She touched the fading gold of the artificial carved roses on her earlobes. And smiled.