The Paris Review

The Wait

The moist cheese on his blue-and-white porcelain, the Pinot.

Our entire marriage, I had been accepting those gifts, not waiting for the meal. My husband came into the living room and sniffed behind my ear. He moved my pretty hair. He told me I smelled like a newborn. Not baby powder: it was something else about me.

Did you ever find pineapples? he

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