#moments

The woman at Table 7 ordered black coffee and asked for the check before taking her first sip.

Marco had been working at Café Luna for three years, long enough to catalog the patterns. Sunday morning regulars nursed their cortados, stretched their newspapers across two tables, made the café their living room. But Table 7 was already counting coins from her wallet, arranging them in neat stacks on the marble surface.

She wore a wedding ring—gold, thin, catching the morning light slanting through the Gothic Quarter's narrow streets. Her phone lay face-down on the table. She hadn't touched it.

The woman at the café wore yesterday's mascara and ordered three espressos.

Maria watched from behind the counter, noting the tremor in her hands, the way she checked her phone every thirty seconds. The first espresso disappeared in two swallows. The second, she cradled like a prayer.

"Rough night?" Maria asked, wiping the counter between them.

The coffee cup was chipped on the rim. Emma noticed it before the woman sat down.

"Is anyone—?"

"No, please." Emma moved her bag.

The woman at table six ordered the same thing every Tuesday—cortado, croissant, newspaper folded to the crossword. She never finished the crossword. She'd fill in three, maybe four words, then stare at the half-empty grid like it was a window into something she couldn't quite see.

Miguel had been watching her for months. Not in a creepy way—just the way a barista watches regulars, the way you notice patterns in people the same way you notice the afternoon light hitting the espresso machine at exactly 4:47.

Today she was crying.