I took a big gulp of water from the wet plastic bottle, and set it back down in the cup holder of my lawn chair. The hot sun was beating down, slowly cooking my legs and bare chest, and the sound of quiet voices passing by was lulling me to sleep.
"You look awfully cute in that straw hat Bobby," a familiar female voice said.
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Her passing had been very sudden. We had been sat together watching nothing in particular on the TV and she had slipped into a sleep that I realised, eventually, was death. The family had been caring, the funeral sensitive and then followed the lowliness -- that awful sense that something was missing in my life.
Our children had all left home, but living close, they had kept in touch, not oppressively, but supportively.
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Mrs. Khanna ran into Mrs. Sorabji as the latter was stepping out of an exclusive shoe store at Nariman Point in Mumbai.
"Hi Yasmin," exclaimed Mrs. Khanna," haven't seen you in ages! How are you?"
"Very well, thank you. And you?"
"Oh, vadhiya ji vadhiya," said Preeti Khanna jovially, then her eyebrows knitted into a frown, "you are a clinical psychologist, right?"
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"Have you guys seen Ms. Evans?"
"Yeah, she looks even hotter. I mean, man, she was hot before, but NOW ... FUCK, what a MILF!"
Another student ran up to join his two friends. "What are you guys talking about?" The Cindy-haired youth wanted to know.
"Ms. Evans."
"Oh yeah, although I heard she's divorced now and she's gone back to being Ms. Silvers."
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It was raining and we still had nine or ten miles to go down the long glen before reaching a road and the dubious chance of a bus. I and two mates were backpacking in the Scottish highlands in our first university vacation. We'd bagged a couple of Munros, slept in a bothy, waded a few rivers and almost run out of food. We were sweaty, footsore and tired.
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I kissed my wife good-bye. Then I watched as the car pulled out of the driveway of our beach rental with her and my sister. I didn't waste time before I pulled on some swim trunks and headed down to the shore. I made my way across the street and up the public access out to the beach. There was nearly no one around as made my way across the sand. It was no wonder, the waves were pounding hard on shore and the water was still too cold for swimming long this early in the season.
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