Barricades by Lesley Whyte

She couldn't bring herself to look at him. She fussed with the flowers and fidgeted with the curtains, adjusting them every time a cloud moved. She didn't want the room to be too bright or too dull, it was a constant battle, but it kept her hands busy and her thoughts occupied so she didn't mind. She got as close as bending to adjust his tie, focusing on the stripes of silver and black and ice blue, on the weave of the silk under her fingertips. She untied and retied his shoelaces seven times in total. She wanted to fix the cufflink on his left wrist, but she couldn't bear the thought of disturbing him by touching his skin, even briefly.

Time seemed to stop in that small room. After a while, she took a seat in the armchair by the window, the one she had always favoured, and read to him from the paper, starting with the sports pages as was their tradition. He had always read the sports pages first, handing her the arts section, which he had no time for, and then perused the rest, spending longer on business than politics, less on lifestyle than science. Then they would do the crossword together, him always using pen and refusing to put anything in until they were absolutely certain. It could take them hours sometimes, and was more of a mental exercise than anything else.

There was a gentle knock at the door just as she closed the newspaper. She stood up, smoothed down her skirt and set the folded newspaper on the arm of the chair. She hesitated for a moment, and then looked down at her husband.

She pressed two fingers to her lips and then placed them on his. "Goodbye," she whispered, and then left the room, rejoining the world of the living. They would go to the church now and say their final goodbyes, she would be surrounded by their weeping children and fidgeting grandchildren, but she would not cry. She had already said her farewell.