Mom, don’t drink from that glass! The new dad PUT SOMETHING IN IT. Mary was in shock hearing these words from her daughter and decided to SWITCH the glasses. What she saw made her hair STAND ON END…..

Mary sat next to her daughter and took her hand. «Sophie, you know we manage just fine, right? We’re good together.» «I know, Mom,» Sophie suddenly looked at her mother with a serious, unchildlike gaze. «But sometimes I see you crying in the evenings when you think I’m asleep.

And I want you to be happy, like Aunt Susan with new Uncle Nick.» A lump rose in her throat, and Mary tried to discreetly wipe away the tear that had welled up. When had her little girl become so wise?

«Let’s finish watching the movie about the robot first, and then we’ll tackle such serious questions,» Mary smiled, hugging her daughter. «Besides, we have to get up early tomorrow. You have a test in English, remember?» While they watched the old classic movie on the worn couch in the living room, drank tea with grandma’s cookies, Mary thought about her daughter’s words.

«Maybe it’s really time to move on. Sophie needs a male role model around, and for herself. She probably needs to learn to live again too.

Alex definitely wouldn’t want her to spend the rest of her life alone, remembering the past.» That night, after putting her daughter to bed and kissing her forehead, Mary for the first time in a long while pondered that perhaps their life could change. And these changes might be for the better.

«Mary Johnson, there’s a man here to see you,» said Mrs. Peterson, the school librarian, peeking into the teachers’ lounge. «Quite handsome, with flowers.» Mary raised her eyebrows in surprise and set aside the grade book where she was entering quarter grades…

«For me? Are you sure?» Absolutely, the librarian nodded with a slight smile. «He introduced himself as Victor, said you left your gloves on the bus yesterday, and he picked them up.» Mary thought about it.

Indeed, yesterday she rode the crowded bus after the parent-teacher meeting and, it seems, held the gloves in her hands, not in her bag. Did she drop them? In the hallway, a tall man in a strict dark-gray coat was waiting for her. He looked about forty, short-cropped blond hair with barely noticeable gray, regular features…

He held a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, and indeed, her leather gloves. «Mary?» he asked with a slight smile.

«Did I get it right? Yesterday you were on bus number 16, around five-thirty in the evening, and dropped these,» he handed her the gloves. «Yes, those are mine,» Mary confirmed embarrassedly, taking the gloves. «Thank you for returning them, but.

How did you know where I work?» «There was a transit pass in one of the gloves,» the man explained. «It had your last name and a note about benefits for education workers. I called the department of education, said I found documents, and they told me which school you teach at.

I hope you don’t consider this an excessive intrusion into your private life.» He smiled slightly, and fine wrinkles fanned out from the corners of his eyes. «Not at all, thank you for the trouble,» Mary replied, feeling her cheeks flush slightly.

«No one had shown her such attention in a long time. That’s very kind of you.» «And this is for you,» he handed her the bouquet of chrysanthemums.

«A small compensation for the inconvenience.» «You really didn’t have to.» «It was worth it,» he gently objected.

«You know, on the way here I thought it would be nice to invite you for a cup of coffee. As an apology for the intrusion.» At another time, Mary would probably have politely declined.

But today something prompted her to agree. Maybe yesterday’s conversation with Sophie, or just tiredness from loneliness. «Actually, I have an hour before I need to pick up my daughter from music school.»..