My wife was always rather shy, like a wild hare you spot at the edge of a misty meadow. Amongst our friends, she was quiet and reserved, never the first to speak, her voice only rising when a question was gently floated her way. She never caused a scene or quarrel, was never jealous, and always treated me with a sort of soft attention, accepting all my gifts with the air of someone receiving delicate wildflowers.
Our marriage could have been painted as nearly perfect. There were no locked doors between us; every difficulty was solved together, as if pushed about on a tiny, gently rocking boat. Returning home after work, I would always find a warm supper waiting, a cheerful wife with a smile as light as dappled sunshine, and a house swept clean as an old country inn. What more could a man want, truly?
But the winds of human folly are unpredictable. Even with my snug, storybook life, an itch for something adventurous remained. There was one thing that left me uneasyour intimate life, or rather, the whisper of it, intangible as the echo of an owl in the night. This didnt sit well with me, so, in a stumble of foolishness, I found myself someone else to warm the long evenings.
Of course, my wife discovered everything and we parted wayslike two clouds thinning apart before dawn.
I moved in with my new lover. Only then did reality begin to drip like rain through a leaky roofa perpetual untidiness hovered about, and no warm roast greeted me after work. Our conversations dried up, the words fluttered away, and silence grew until it filled the flat like damp fog.
Eventually, I thought to return to my wife, but times trickery ensured I was too late. She had already found herself someone else, someone worthy of her gentleness.
I will never forgive myself. I let the finest woman slip through my fingers, lost in a fog of my own foolish making.
