Today's Writing in a Woman's Voice, "Garden" by Carol Reid, is one of those diamonds that has stayed in my memory for a long time since first reading. 

Garden

by Carol Reid

He knows the woman contemplating groceries. She has kept her hair the same shade of beachfront gold. She hides her body as always under loose drapes of grey and blue. A flicker slips across his heart--that night when she mentioned the convent in the same breath as a three a.m. invitation. There were no vows made then or ever.

He is aware of standing mid-aisle and staring back at her for much too long and of her, aware now of his staring. She bursts open like a firecracker and light shines out, enough light to turn the produce aisle lush and leafy—the garden of what should have been their youth, and they the only people anywhere, here.

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"Garden" was first published in Camroc Press Review.