Wednesday April 6th 2022

A tall man in a black fitted pea coat and fitted dark navy jeans bustled along the streets, his head tucked low, chin to chest, trying to keep the gusting gales from penetrating down the collar of his shirt. As he was passing by a small boutique, a flash of color caught his eye.

He would know that color anywhere.

He stood outside for a few minutes, admiring it and thinking of the person who loved it. It was her favourite.

The man turned so that his back was to the wind, his broad shoulders hunched up as he reminisced a bit. He cupped his hands around his mouth and blew on them a bit to get some feeling into the fingers. Then with a decidedly eager air, he threw the door open to the boutique.

She would love it.

~ ~~~~

“Yes a mango-mousse. Mmmm…a medium sized one would do. Yes thank-you. I will have someone bring a bouquet of flowers to your shop. If you don’t mind, I would like the delivery to come with the flowers? Would you have someone deliver it that day? Yes the address is my residence. Someone will answer the door. But please be sure to tell the delivery staff that my wife is not to be disturbed. She is very delicate. So ask that they just lightly knock on the door. Someone will be there caring for her. Oh that’s not a problem. Thank-you again,” the phone was hung up and he stood in his study gazing down at his desk where the present lay.

With long slender fingers, the man wrapped the present with care, liking how the material slid between the rough pads of his fingertips. In keeping with the theme, he had been able to find some gift-wrapping paper and tissue paper to match it.

The man grinned like a child as he finished-up writing down his outpouring of love to his wife on the large blue post-it, his elegant sloping penmanship scrawled across the soft-pastel blue paper.

‘I’ll love you forev…’

Winters were cold here, this would keep her warm.

~~~~~

It was the sound of laughter that woke her; the sound of her son, chortling like the little precocious baby he was.

Alex only ever did that with his father, her loving husband. The child must have woken early. He had a knack for doing that when his parents wanted to sleep in the most, in other words…the weekend. Thank God her husband was a morning man and a doting father. He would have gathered their tiny baby boy in his arms the moment he heard the gurgling babbles from the baby monitor. She could imagine how he would nuzzle his face into Alex’s baby soft skin as a silent reproach for not letting him sleep in a little more. Her baby boy would squeal, half in delight at seeing his father and half in admonishment at being scratched by a whiskered chin. Her husband would then have taken their baby downstairs, made himself a cup of the best coffee and sat Alex down in his bouncy baby chair with some cheerios and his sippy-cup of ‘moo-moo’, something their son would have insisted on with much reaching of chubby fingers and adorable whining. The boy liked ‘moo-moo milk’ with everything, no guesses as to where he got that trait from.

The woman stretched like a cat underneath the covers, her body warm and supple with a peaceful sleep, her long slender legs outlined under the cool cotton sheets. She rubbed the remnants of her somnolent state from her eyes and rolled to the edge of her bed. Swinging her gangly legs to the side, she made her way to the bathroom to freshen up. Stephan had insisted on installing radiant heating into their home. She had raised an eyebrow at the pricing it incurred, thinking her husband too promiscuous with their funds. He always insisted on the finer things in life, having been brought up with almost nothing. He enjoyed the fineries of life simply because he could, and sometimes she thought it unnecessary.

But now, as her bare feet brushed past warm bathroom tiles, making her curl her toes appreciatively, she thanked her dear husband silently in her heart.

Downstairs, Alex was giggling up a cherubic storm and she smiled.

Finishing her morning routine, she cinched up her terrycloth bathrobe and made her way downstairs to join her family.

The rich pungent earthy smell of coffee greeted her, as well as the aroma of buttery scrambled eggs and bacon. She found