A short-short story I wrote in November 2001 at 4:52 pm.

Breakfast.


Joanna looked at her dining room and decided they would eat there this morning. Not at either end of the table the way she and her late husband did, always formal. They would sit across the middle, close yet individual.

The breakfast would be a little plain, english muffins and coffee and the Sunday paper. She was so glad she had splurged for home delivery of The Sunday New York Times. She would have a tussle with him over the Arts section. Hm. That never had happened with John. He was a front page junkie. Editorials came second and the rest of the paper could rot.

She was toasting english muffins for someone else, another wonderful man, and using John's table informally. She had thought, a whimsy after John died, to copy an idea she'd seen in a decorating magazine, have the top of her dining room wall painted with the Alice in Wonderland quote about believing six impossible things before breakfast. But she aborted that idea as a product of grief and anger, getting back at John for dying on her.

But here she was. He had spent the night, they did it last night and they did it this morning again. Did it for fun, for the hell of it. She offered to make the coffee while he showered. He would like to shave. There is a new disposable razor, but it's pink. He smiled, it'll do. No one could question his manhood this morning, she teased.

And now she was setting the table across, the short way. Impossible things? Was that six? She would call the painters tomorrow.


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