On Saturdays Almir left with a large sports bag. Belma handed him a water bottle and stayed to finish the housework. He said he went for coffee with the group after exercising, so he often returned near lunchtime. One morning he left the bag open. Inside were mandarins, detergent, and soft slippers. Belma thought her husband had discovered a very unusual form of exercise.
She did not follow him. When he returned, she asked whom he had bought the slippers for. Almir looked towards the door as though the answer might remain in the hallway. They were for his former mother-in-law, Zlata. After divorcing her daughter, he had continued speaking to her occasionally. In recent months shopping had become more difficult for her, so he helped. Belma said she did not understand why that required inventing an exercise group.
He claimed he had not wanted her to feel threatened. He spoke slowly, in the tone used to soothe someone's assumed jealousy in advance. Belma asked when she had forbidden him from talking to people in his life. He could give no example. Then he admitted telling Zlata that Belma disliked their meetings. That was why the older woman never called their home. That was why his former wife had treated Belma coldly during their last chance encounter.
Belma did not want a visit at which she would demonstrate her generosity. Nor did she ask Almir to stop helping. She wanted him to tell everyone to whom he had invented her prohibition what he had actually done. He said that would be humiliating. She looked at him, waiting for him to hear his own sentence. He stood by the sink for a long time before taking his phone.
Zlata called Belma several days later. The conversation was awkward, full of apologies from the wrong person. Belma said she did not have to apologise for needing groceries. They talked a little longer about the mandarins that had turned out sour. They did not suddenly become friends. At the end Zlata asked whether she could call the home phone in future if Almir did not answer his own. Belma said she could.
The Saturday shopping continued. Almir left with canvas bags and finished the housework on his return. Belma no longer saw him off with a water bottle. It was not a punishment she had planned. She simply needed time to feel pleased again when the man returned from a visit about which he was now telling the truth.