I press the purple mug that Roy gave me for our anniversary to my parched lips. The warmth from the coffee feels gorgeous against the chill that snaps at me while I walk the last block to the office building. Swinging open the heavy door creates a wave of heat that rolls down my body. Into the building and down the hall of sleepy people we go.

The sun is brilliant as it spreads its arms through the clean windowpane and down the hall. I press the mug to my lips again. People flap their hands at me and I nod in agreement- the mug is in my waving hand. Plopping down at my desk, I flick on the computer. The picture of my boys so covered in powdery snow that their red and blue jackets are barely visible greets me, and I smile. I press the mug to my lips again. To work we go, we go, and we go.

I pull up the New York Times online and gently scroll until I have to force the coffee that I’ve inhaled out of my windpipe. “3 Children Shot at Mall in Philadelphia” is not a headline for a mother to read. Still coughing, I decide I need to use the restroom. “To the bathroom we go, we go, we go, we go, we go.”

I can’t help dancing a little in my tight black dress as I walk to the young ladies room. “I’m not a young lady, I’m a grown woman! I laugh at the thoughts that build and dissolve in my head as my heels tap dance against the marble floor. I should write a symphony. The Heel Toe Symphony,” I think. I’m too preoccupied with planning out the tuba section to notice the man who held me last night when I found out about my husband’s affair. Tom’s dark brown eyes cast back at the floor and his sweet brows plow lines into his forehead because he thinks he did something wrong when he really is the only one who has done something right in a long time. He always thinks he did something wrong and maybe I need to tell him that he was beautiful yesterday but there are so many things fluttering like fallen leaves in my brain that I don’t even acknowledge him.

The sunlight in the hall is dimmer now as I approach my boss’s office. The heck? I’m supposed to be peeing. I turn around and around because I suddenly need to move my toes. They’re like small projections of me trying to communicate something in another language. The coffee has made me bouncy this morning.

“About face!” Oops. I don’t mean to say that out loud as I turn in the direction of my own office. People pause their boring lives to witness something a little more exciting, possibly much more exciting. The sunlight in the hall is bothering my eyes. It feels like the fluorescent lights that Roy installed in the house, which I so despise.

I realize that I’m tapping again and people are trying to look concerned but are really absorbing the excitement I’m creating. I need more coffee. O, brown juice of life, where art thou? I jump and twist so that I’m facing due east. To the cafeteria we go, we go, we go. We go, we go, we go! I really should have taken up singing as a child. What the hell was I thinking, selling insurance in a rectangular office in a rectangular building in a rectangular world?

The people seem so sharp- not well dressed sharp like I so wish they were. They’re jagged cliff peaks and church steeples. So I trot down the hall feeling like a dog and a rhino and a rat, careful to avoid them. My thumbs don’t prevent me from being like any other animal. I can reason but I have a much smaller heart than any of them. Roy did a nice job of chipping off a nice piece with our- his- sledgehammer yesterday. This makes me sad but I can’t stop merrily tapping my feet as I pick up a Styrofoam cup from the stack next to the coffee pots. The nice brown concoction spills out of the pot into my golden goblet. Sitting down at an empty table, I close my eyes to the blindingly white walls, spread my legs, accidentally ripping my tight black dress, and bring the toxic stuff to my lips. Thank God for caffeine.