n honor of Valentine's Day. (I have made all of this up.)

#1.
He wakes up alone to an ashtray brimming with evidence. Rough night. The kitchen smells of dog food and dishwater and lettuce gone brown and syrupy.

These days, he can remember things without bleeding, so he indulges in this: The first year of their marriage, when he had been enchanted by her scent. Nothing cheap or perfumey, but pure like a schoolgirl’s smell. He bragged about it to friends, this smell that hid in her clothes and the sheets, and lingered long after she left a room. He never told her, but sometimes he would track her scent around the place like he was trying to swat a fly. One night, her hair wet and splayed across a white pillow, he asked her: What’s that smell?

She giggled. “What, this?” She sniffed her bathrobe. “It’s fabric softener.”

#2.
They didn’t hold hands like some couples. They didn’t, like, make big displays of affection, which they both considered kind of tacky, if you want to know the truth, like flinging around a fur coat and a gold Rolex. There wasn’t some fancy, operatic tale about the way they fell in love – they just did. I mean, they watched the same programs, they were both cat people, and he thought she looked smashing in tight jeans. Sometimes, when a friend recounted another wild misadventure, a toppling romance, a fantastic collision, they wondered if there was more than this. But honestly, they doubted it.

#3.
The bubble bursts on the tip of her nose, and they both laugh at that. He blows another string of bubbles, away from her this time, and they float on the breeze, past the children who leap and grab for them, past the cars lining the street, the bubbles keep going and going, like they have somewhere to be.

Her eyes watch them; his eyes watch her.

“I think bubbles are life’s first great lesson in not touching beautiful things,” she says. One drifts toward her, and she flicks it for punctuation. Plonk.

“You can touch beautiful things,” he says, coaxing one into his palm, where it quivers. “You just have to be very careful.”

#4.
“I was thinking about going to the movies tonight if you wanna go maybe.”

Or this: “I’m going to the movies. Do you wanna join me?”

Or this: “You look like you could use a movie.”

Wait. What the hell did that mean?

She tugged at the hemline of her skirt, far too tight she realized now, and walked to his desk. “I was thinking about seeing a movie tonight.”

“Really?” He touched his pen to his lips. “Can I join you?”

Jesus. Why didn’t she do this every day?

#5.
The singer did little interviews with little papers before each show. And the kids – seriously kids, with spiky hair and pimples in their smiles – would meet her backstage, ask the same questions, agree with everything she said.

“So you write love songs,” the kid said, pad and pen at the quick.

“I do. Yes, sir.” Was that a question?

“I mean is it, umm, hard to write love songs?” His hand trembled, and it broke her heart.

“It is sometimes,” she said, tapping her cowboy boot against the couch. “It is sometimes because you get the feeling that it’s all been said before. And there ain’t nothin’ you can add.”

His head bobbed vigorously. “What do you do then?”

“You keep it up, I guess.”

She smiled at him, and his eyes darted back to his notebook.

“Now, you wrote a couple of love songs about your ex-husband.”

“Yes, sir. I sure did.” A picture floated up -- him at the window, smoking, looking everywhere but at her.

“And I’m wondering, well, if it’s strange to sing love songs about someone you left.”

What’s funny, what she never told anyone, was how calm she was. How unflinching she felt about severing their life together. Once, when she was driving the interstate from Houston to Dallas, she swerved to miss a dog and lost control, her car screeching into a spin that pitched her, finally, into a ditch. As the world swiveled around her, all she could think was: Oh my God. So THIS is what it feels like.

“I think it’s kind of nice to remember that I felt that way,” she said finally.

“Right, right.”

After the divorce, she knew: That was it. Just knew she’d be alone, which was fine by her, she welcomed the numbness that settled in, the quiet and predictable certainty of the thing. Everyone assured her she’d get married again, pretty ol’ thing like her, and she smiled and nodded politely, hoping to comfort them so they’d go away. But she knew.

“This is my last question, I guess,” the kid said. Do you ever think you’ll write about anything other than love?”

“I doubt it,” she said, recrossing her legs. “It’s the best subject, really.” A little bit of her thigh was showing, and he blushed when she caught him staring. “Because just when you think you’ve got it figured out, it up and surprises you. Know what I mean?”