It was such a long day, and she just needed a coffee to feel like she could sleep. People that knew her always told her that was backwards, which she pondered as she parked her car in front of the 7-11 around the corner from her house. She held the steering wheel in her hands for a moment as she prepared to leave the car. This is tangible.

     The familiar bell as she opened the door and walked past the threshold, always with purpose and direction, had been a comfort like no other. It begins the end of her night. She grabbed the cup, always the same color, filled it and added the same ingredients and it will be the last thing she tastes before she sleeps if she doesn't get up to brush her teeth (a ritual that has seemed less and less important in the days and weeks that have been passing, the ones during which she was alone.)

     The man at the register watches her every night. It is not as though he is really interested in her. He would never dream of speaking to her except to give her the total price of her purchase which is the same every night unless she finds some unplanned necessity that only becomes a necessity once seen. On that night, when he saw her walk in with the same stride she always had he was struck by the way she walked. It reminded him of the night his wife left him. It reminded him of the way she was so determined as she walked towards the door, holding only one suitcase, insisting she would send for the rest of her things. It wasn't her appearance and it wasn't her dress, it wasn't the way she performed a ritual that he noticed and understood even though he only worked this late three nights out of the week, just that walk.

     As she walked towards him, towards the register, he was swept up in the tides of regret and sadness and it took him a moment to realize she had arrived at her final destination. Same total. Same change. She collected her coins and her coffee and retreated to her car. She sat in the parking lot a moment, blew on her coffee to cool it as though that made a difference then drove the two blocks home. The man behind the register relished the time after she left. Very seldom did people follow her because it was so late, sometimes old gentlemen buying cigarettes or kids he had to kick out for trying to buy alcohol. Alone in the store, he tried to regain his grip on reality. It had been so long since he had thought of his wife, it had been so long since he cared. He leaned against the counter, pained. “Why now?” he thought as he stood there.

     The woman returned to her home. She pulled in to the drive way, unlocked her door, stepped inside and kicked off her shoes then threw herself on to the couch, never even thinking to turn on a light. She grabbed the remote conveniently located on the arm of the sofa that had been worn after the nights she had been spending sleeping there. She turned on the television and tossed the remote to the floor, basked in the glow of the TV show she paid no attention to. She faced the screen and let this reality lull her to sleep. She sipped her coffee while she drifted off, unaware of the turmoil she had caused the man she hardly ever noticed.

     He didn't really miss her anymore. His small studio apartment was an adequate replacement for the home they had shared together. He finally got to put up his neon bar signs and leave his towels to dry where ever he pleased. On the weekends, he saw his children and always felt they were very close. His wife was just a side effect, but that night something made him miss the confines of his old life. The chains that kept him from living the way he had always dreamed. It was just that walk, that reminder that someone could leave him. The reminder that she never really wanted him in the first place, he wasn't part of a ritual, he wasn't the comfort of a cup of coffee.