Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

Daily Dose of Romance – Short Stories for FREE

Thomas kept his late wife’s books on the shelf in the same order she’d left them, which meant they were organised by colour rather than any logical system, and for two years he’d thought this was a memorial and then one day a woman named Vivienne had come to his book group and looked at the shelf and said, “Oh, I do mine the same way,” and something small but essential had shifted.

She’d come back the following month. And the month after.

He was not ready. He told himself this at regular intervals, the way you took a temperature — not ready, not ready, not ready. He had Emma’s coffee cup still in the cupboard. He talked to her photograph on Tuesday evenings without apology.

He was also, quite specifically, paying attention to the way Vivienne held her wine glass.

“You’re a very careful person,” she said to him one evening, after the book group had dispersed and they were the last two at his kitchen table.

“Is that bad?”

“No. I mean it as an observation. You listen with care. You speak with care.” She looked at her wine. “My husband was the same way.”

He’d known she was widowed — someone had mentioned it, carefully, the way people mentioned these things. Two years ahead of him on the same road.

“Do you still talk to him?” he asked.

“Every day,” she said, without embarrassment. “Not for answers. Just to keep the habit of telling him things.”

“Tuesday evenings,” he said. “For me.”

She nodded. She understood.

This was the thing that nobody else understood — the way the grief wasn’t a wall you were supposed to get over but a room you learned to live in, to carry around. She’d furnished her room and so had he, and there was something in recognising that in someone else that was different from sympathy.

“Thomas,” she said.

“Vivienne.”

“I’m not ready either,” she said. “I want you to know that. In case you were wondering.”

He exhaled.

“But I think,” she said carefully, “that I’d like to keep coming back to the book group.”

“I’d like that.”

“And if at some point we had coffee somewhere. Not for any reason. Just coffee.”

“Not for any reason,” he agreed.

She put on her coat. At the door she stopped and looked at his bookshelf — the coloured spines, the impractical beautiful order.

“What was her favourite colour?” she asked.

“Blue,” he said.

She found the blues. She put her finger on a small indigo spine.

“Mine too,” she said.

He stood in his doorway and felt two things at once — the old ache, the new warmth — and thought that perhaps you didn’t choose between them. Perhaps you held both. Perhaps that was the way through.

“Next month,” he said.

“Next month,” she agreed.

She went down the steps.

He closed the door gently and stood in his coloured library and told Emma about it, on a Thursday instead of Tuesday, because something worth saying didn’t have to wait.

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So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.