She went to the volleyball game
because her daughter would ask.
Because the gym smelled of rubber and noise,
better than her quiet kitchen.
Bleachers too hard,
coffee too thin.
She watched the girls leaping
toward something unseen—
arms, knees, hair flying.
He sat two rows down.
Older.
A good coat.
A book in his lap he wasn’t reading.
Their eyes met—then again—
a slow volley.
Between points, he asked,
'Yours on the left?'
'Mine on the right,' she answered.
Small talk,
the easy serve and return:
schools, the weather,
the hours that won’t come back.
After the game,
outside in the cold-lit lot,
he said,
'There’s a place down the road—'
and her keys answered for her.
Later, in a room that smelled of detergent and him,
she let him take off her coat.
Her blouse.
Her practiced restraint.
He learned her with both hands,
steady,
like writing an unfamiliar word.
She gave him the body she had lived in all these years—
the one that still surprised her,
sometimes.
After, she lay watching the shadows climb the wall,
while he slept,
breath shallow as tide.
She dressed in the quiet,
keys in hand before the day began.
The street outside went on as if she hadn’t been there.
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