Composure

The widow is composure. She must be, has to be.

Sometimes, composure is natural, like this evening, when everything is bearable, normal even. Her son is helping unpack the groceries and lay the table for dinner, her youngest daughter is having her piano lesson in the room across the hall, her eldest is upstairs, duvet sprawled, book-reading and radio listening.

But there is something missing.

He is missing.

She chops peppers and puts them into the sizzling buttered pan, peels onions and does not cry.

For if she starts, she thinks, it will never stop.