izzy

Siri says:
The whole city had tended to trace the leaves fell and people swamped

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sarah

You’re like a good cheese, he says, and winces even before she screws up her face in disdain. No, I mean, he says, heat rushing to his face, no, I mean, like, you’re getting better. With age. No, I mean, not, age – you’re not old, you’re more – You look beautiful. I meant like a good wine. They both get better, though. Cheese. And wine. I mean, is what I’m saying. Not that you weren’t. Better. Stop looking at me like that (and she is. Looking at him like that). I – can’t a man tell a woman that he’s noticed that yes, though she is increasing in years, after twenty-eight years of marriage, can’t a man – and you often comment on my nose hair! And my balding – can’t a man, is what I’m saying, notice that his wife is, yes, is ageing, and that yes, she is putting on a little bit around the middle, can’t be helped, it’s just the slowing of the youthful metabolism, can’t be helped, can’t a man, you know, who has indeed noticed that the powder settles a little deeper into the cheeks of his beloved, can’t a man, is what I am trying to ask you, say that his wife, though a little more dragged through the world, a little more shaken and rumpled by the passing of time, can’t a man, I would like to know, tell his wife that she becomes, in some way, ever more beautiful, perhaps, to him? (She left some time ago).

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