Blanche Devereaux

Red pops around the restaurant in women’s skirts and complimentary roses. Out of necessity, there’s me, table for one on Valentine’s Day, far from home at a convention.

Does anyone, I wonder, see the light catch the tungsten of my wedding ring and assume I am some Blanche Devereaux? In half-remembered Golden Girls memory, these lovers might recall the southern widow marking a day with two glasses of champagne to toast the husband no longer there. She sat and sighed at the restaurant, maybe even the table, once theirs.

Do they expect me to ask the host for a rose to lay across the spouse’s empty chair like a coffin? Do they expect me to mumble “Happy Valentine’s Day, darling” as a cinematic tear rolls down my cheek?

Nothing so melodramatic as all that. Husband and son safely at home. He bargains with him to eat another baby carrot, then piggybacks him up to bed. There is no sadness at this table, except that I miss them, but never have to miss them for long.