Ex

Long after I married you, I found myself in his city and heard him call my name. Each of us amazed, we headed to the café we used to haunt in our days together. We sat by a window across the paneled room from the table that had witnessed hours of our clipped voices and sharp silences. Instead of coffee, my old habit in those days, I ordered hot chocolate, your drink, dark and dense the way you take it, without the swirl of frothy cream I like. He told me of his troubled marriage, his two difficult daughters, their spiteful mother, how she’d tricked him and turned into someone he didn’t really know. I listened and listened, glad all over again to be rid of him, and sipped the thick, brown sweetness slowly as I could, licking my lips, making it last.