The Gift of Love

She silently slid out from under the bed covers, put on a robe and slippers, and stepped to the large bedroom window.

Peering out into the early morning pre-dawn light she could see nothing out of the ordinary in the outside world. The lights were still off in the cafe across the street, “too early for Ellen to be up yet” she thought. She glanced up at the second floor and could not detect any movement in the McGee apartment above the cafe. No light, nothing appeared to be out of place. Still something told her that all was not right. Something seemed to tell her “I don’t belong here.” It was a sensation more than knowledge of fact that the quiet surroundings hid some intrusion. She wondered if she should wake George. And tell him what? “George, I have this funny feeling, something isn’t right.” She could just hear his answer.

“What’s not right is that you woke me from a sound sleep. That’s not right.” George would roll over, pull the bed covers around his chin and ask, “What are you doing prowling around in the middle of the night anyway?” And before she could answer he would be snoring, she decided to leave George alone and take a look downstairs.

Downstairs was the small grocery store that Sally and George had owned for the past twenty years. She didn’t have to stop and figure up the years because George had suggested just yesterday that they have “an event” at the store to celebrate the anniversary. “What did you have in mind?” She had asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe a special sale. . .or a contest, yeah, we can have a contest!”

“What kind of contest, George?”

“Jeez, Sal, I don’t know, I just thought . . . yeah, that’s it, we will have a shopping cart full of groceries and let people guess the total value, and the closest guess wins the groceries. What do you think of that?”