You had resigned yourself to another empty evening, expecting nothing, because you already knew how things were with him: a strange marriage, full of gaps and silences where the words “I love you” never appeared.

Then you heard him come in. The slam of the door, the echo of his erratic footsteps. Maybe he’d been drinking, maybe smoking, maybe he just came with that Krishna vibe that clung to him like cheap incense. And there he was, George, with that half-lost, half-illuminated look, as if he were floating in a different dimension that wasn’t yours.

He didn’t say anything. He just picked up the guitar, collapsed into a chair, and began to play. That song. That damn song. “Michelle, ma belle...”

You felt your blood boil. How could he? How could he come home like that, play that trash, while you watched him with years lodged in your throat? You wanted to smash his head against the table, to make him understand that those strings weren’t consolation, that that borrowed language didn’t cover what he never told you.

He, meanwhile, kept playing, with a soft, lost half-smile, as if in that moment the music was his excuse, his shield, his way of not facing your anger or his silence.