Robert knew exactly what he wanted to buy Anna for their fortieth wedding anniversary.
He had known for eight months.
It would sit beside the large window in their hall, where the afternoon breeze entered the house and moved the curtains just enough to disturb the newspapers on the table.
Anna would sit there after lunch.
She would lift her feet, lean back and watch the street outside. She could read if she wanted, sleep if she wanted or simply complain about the neighbour leaving his bins out for too long.
Most importantly, her back would not hurt.
The chair already existed clearly in Robert’s mind.
He just didn’t know its name.
Robert had not bought Anna a proper anniversary gift in years.
There had always been a reason.
One year, the refrigerator stopped working. Another year, their daughter needed help moving homes. Sometimes they went out for dinner. Sometimes Robert brought flowers from the supermarket and removed the price sticker before giving them to her.
Anna never complained.
“After this many years, what are we going to surprise each other with?” she would say.
But Robert wanted to surprise her this time.
Forty years felt too important for supermarket flowers.
Eight months before their anniversary, he began saving the tips from his delivery job.
Robert delivered groceries three evenings a week. He liked the work because it gave him a reason to leave the house, and because every customer seemed pleasantly surprised when he carried the heavier bags without asking for help.
At the end of each shift, he emptied the tips from his pocket and placed them inside an envelope hidden in an old biscuit tin.
Some nights, it was twelve dollars.
Some nights, it was twenty-three.
Once, just before Christmas, a woman gave him fifty dollars because he had carried six bags up three flights of stairs.
Robert went home unusually cheerful that night.
“What happened to you?” Anna asked.
“Nothing.”
“You only smile like that when you’ve found money or proved someone wrong.”
Robert kissed her forehead and went to hide the fifty dollars.
Every afternoon, he watched Anna settle into the old chair beside the window.
She placed a cushion behind her back and shifted several times before becoming comfortable. When she stood, she pressed both hands against the armrests and paused before taking her first step.
Robert noticed all of it.
Anna noticed him noticing.
“It’s just age,” she said once.
“Whose?”
“Yours, mostly.”
The envelope slowly became heavier.
Two weeks before their anniversary, Robert counted the money at the kitchen table after Anna had gone to bed.
He decided it was enough.
The nearest large furniture store was in the city, almost two hours away. Robert took the Saturday morning bus and carried the envelope inside his jacket.
The store was unlike any furniture shop he had visited.
Its glass entrance opened automatically before he reached it. Inside, lights shone from ceilings taller than his house. Music played somewhere above him.
The showroom seemed endless.
There were living rooms with no walls, bedrooms nobody had slept in and dining tables already decorated for dinners that would never happen.
Customers moved confidently between them, checking screens and scanning small squares with their phones.
Robert stood near the entrance.
A young salesman approached him.
“Welcome in. Is there anything I can help you find?”
“A chair,” Robert said.
“Of course. Accent chairs are to the left. Recliners and motion furniture are at the back. Lift chairs are in our comfort-living section.”
Robert understood the word chair and almost none of the words surrounding it.
“Thank you,” he said.
The salesman pointed towards the back and hurried to another customer.
Robert began walking.
He passed chairs that looked too beautiful to sit on and chairs that looked large enough for two people. He saw chairs with cupholders, speakers and rows of buttons.
One had blue lights underneath it.
Anna would hate the blue lights.
Robert sat in a brown leather chair. It leaned back suddenly, startling him. He stood and moved to the next one.
That chair shook his shoulders when he pressed a button.
Another lifted his legs but left his back completely straight.
Robert tried to picture each one beside the window at home.
None of them belonged there.
After nearly an hour, he began to feel foolish.
He had travelled to the city believing he knew exactly what he wanted. Now he was surrounded by hundreds of chairs and could not explain which one was his.
A saleswoman named Maya found him standing between two rows of recliners.
“Are you looking for something particular?”
“Yes,” Robert said.
“What kind of chair?”
Robert opened his mouth and stopped.
He could describe where it would sit.
He could describe the breeze.
He could describe Anna rubbing her back when she thought he wasn’t looking.
But none of that seemed like an answer to Maya’s question.
“It is for my wife,” he said finally. “Our fortieth anniversary.”
Maya smiled.
“What does she like?”
Robert looked at the nearest chair.
“Not that.”
It was black leather with silver cupholders.
Maya laughed.
“That helps. What does she need the chair to do?”
Robert considered the question.
“She sits beside the window after lunch. There’s a breeze there.”
“All right.”
“She likes to read, but usually she falls asleep.”
Maya nodded.
“Her back hurts. She uses a cushion, but she thinks I don’t notice.”
“What colour is the room?”
“Does that matter?”
“It matters to Anna.”
Robert smiled.
“Green curtains. Wooden table. Too many photographs.”
Maya began walking.
“I think we should look somewhere quieter.”
She took him to a smaller corner of the showroom.
The chair there was simple. Soft fabric. Rounded arms. No cupholders, speakers or lights.
It was a gentle shade of green.
Robert sat down.
His back settled naturally against it.
Maya showed him one button.
The footrest rose slowly. The chair leaned back without throwing him into it.
Robert closed his eyes.
For a moment, the store disappeared.
He could see the chair beside the window at home. The curtains moving in the breeze. Anna asleep with a book resting on her lap.
“This is the one,” he said.
He had not asked the price.
When Maya told him, Robert reached inside his jacket and removed the envelope.
He counted the money twice.
He was short by thirty-eight dollars.
Robert stared at the notes on the desk.
“I can come back next week.”
Maya looked at the envelope, worn soft after eight months inside the biscuit tin.
Then she checked the computer.
“The chair is part of our anniversary promotion,” she said.
Robert looked up.
“What anniversary?”
“Yours.”
She adjusted the price.
Robert had seven dollars left.
“Can it arrive on Thursday morning?” he asked. “She goes to the market on Thursdays.”
The chair arrived while Anna was out.
Robert moved the old chair away from the window and helped the delivery men position the new one.
He placed Anna’s cushion on it, although he suspected she would no longer need it.
When Anna returned, she stopped in the hall.
She looked at the chair.
Then at Robert.
“What have you done?”
“Happy anniversary.”
“Our anniversary is tomorrow.”
“I needed you to go to the market.”
Anna walked slowly towards the chair and touched the fabric.
“How much did this cost?”
“Sit first. Be angry afterwards.”
She sat.
Robert pressed the button.
Her feet rose. The chair leaned back. The afternoon breeze entered through the window and lifted the edge of the curtain.
Anna rested her head against the chair.
For once, she did not adjust the cushion behind her back.
Robert stood beside her, waiting.
“You bought this for me?”
“I haven’t bought you anything good in a while.”
“You bought me a washing machine.”
“That was not romantic.”
“It was more useful than flowers.”
“This is better than both.”
Anna looked at him for a long moment.
“How long have you been saving?”
Robert picked up the newspaper.
“Would you like some tea?”
“Robert.”
“Eight months.”
“The delivery tips?”
He pretended to read.
Anna reached for his hand.
For their anniversary, Anna sat beside the window with her feet raised, the curtains moving in the breeze and no pain across her face.
It looked exactly as Robert had pictured it.
He thought about the enormous showroom, the hundreds of chairs and how close he had come to returning home with the envelope still inside his jacket.
Then he thought about Maya.
What if she hadn’t been there that day?
Or worse - what if there had been no Maya there at all?