A very short story I wrote during a writing group exercise. Not my normal type of writing, but it was well received.
‘Hi, honey! Welcome home.’
What did I forget? I thought. She’s smiling. She hasn’t smiled in years. I’ve forgotten something, and she KNOWS it!
‘Hi, dear.’ I hung up my jacket, meticulously putting everything back in its place the way she liked it. It’s not February, so it can’t be Valentine’s Day. Anniversary? No, that’s in…shit, when WAS it?
‘Did you have a good day at work?’
A kid’s game. I forgot to take time off for our kids…wait, we don’t have kids. What did I forget?
‘Good enough. Yourself?’
‘Oh, I can’t complain. I did make plans with my parents for dinner.’
I missed an email or text about dinner! I checked my phone. ‘That’s good,’ I said, not seeing anything I hadn’t seen before.
‘It should be fun,’ she said.
I finally stopped and shrugged. ‘Okay, I give up. I know I forgot something. Was it milk? Dry cleaning? Did I send flowers to the wrong somebody? What did I forget?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you forgot that we got divorced.’