My husband doesn’t want to go.”

“Huh! I don’t think mine will either!” a woman giggles.

I smile, listening.

wanting to smack them across their whiny, made-up faces which happen to be attached to well-dressed bodies,

wanting to complain about MY husband,

wanting to scream at the top of my lungs…

“I want to belong to this group again!”

I want to live in happy, oblivion and complain about…

MY husband

And laugh at the expense of…

MY husband

And shake my head at the thought of what

MY husband

would say

But I don’t HAVE a husband.

When I refer to MY husband

it’s in past tense…always.

I stand there with a plastered smile, seething.

Finally I turn

walk to the buffet

pick out some fruit and decide to top it with whip cream

that is sticking to the spoon

so I bang it,

on the plate

too vigorously.

And the plate cracks in half.

I let out a “HA!”

Other woman stare.

I smile.

The grief-rage having exited my body so appropriately.

MY husband would have had a good laugh over that.

But MY husband is dead.