mundane

I used to love nights like this. 

After dinner, when the house was suddenly quiet and we stood alone together in the kitchen, surveying the mess: Purple-stained wine glasses clustered in the center of the table and dirty dinner dishes piled up in the sink. 

"That was fun, " he would say. 

"Yes. I do think everyone had a good time." 

I could taste the bourbon in his kiss.

We would get most of it cleaned up before falling into bed, feeling like such grown-ups. We were married now with grown-up things like matching dinnerware and crystal. We had married friends and threw grown-up dinner parties. We slept in a queen-sized sleigh bed we'd bought together and had a second bedroom that we called "the office."

Tonight it's just me, leaning against the sink, negotiating counter space for the dirty dishes and crystal.