One day soon after we got married, as I was walking home from the university, I passed a small clothing boutique in the city center. “I think I’ll buy Ljubica something,” I thought to myself. I walked in. Two young clerks asked me what I was looking for. I told them that I had just gotten married and wanted to buy my wife something. They helped me pick out a nice striped sweater. The stripes where white, pastel blue, and pastel green.

I don’t remember if they wrapped it up for me or not. I do remember taking it home and giving it to Ljubica. After I gave it to her, she became very angry. She was livid, in fact. She said that she didn’t want it. She wanted to know why I had bought it. I told her that it was a just-because gift. It was a gift given because I loved her. She didn’t want to hear it. She said that she didn’t want it. She demanded to know where I had bought it. She demanded to know how much it had cost.

And then she made me go with her to the store to return it. Over there, returning merchandize is difficult boarding on impossible. Shop owners would rather never see you again than give you back your money. So it was no surprise that the same two clerks who had helped me not thirty minutes before told Ljubica that they could not accept the return and give her back the money. Ljubica then began to argue with them. “You will give us back our money!” she demanded, shouting. “Why?” they asked. “There is nothing wrong with the sweater.” “I don’t want it,” she argued. “Give me back my money.” Meanwhile, I stood by, silent, mortified, ashamed, scared, horrified.

And humiliated. The same young female clerks who with a twinkle in their eyes had helped me pick out the sweater, who had praised me for being so nice, who had said, “our husbands would never do this,” were being verbally accosted by Ljubica. My heart sank.

“We can’t take it back,” they said, trying to be reasonable. “We’ll get in trouble with our boss. He’ll fire us.” Ljubica demanded to talk to the owner. He wasn’t there, the clerks said, but they would call him. I still stood there, anxious and nervous. While we waited for him to come, a superficial calm prevailed in the store. Act I was over; what would Act II bring?

The owner arrived shortly. “What’s the problem?” he asked. “This woman wants to return this sweater that her husband just bought for her,” the clerks informed him. “We don’t accept returns,” he said. “I’m sorry; there’s even a sign on the door: ‘Returns not Accepted.’ ” Ljubica then began to argue with him. “You have to take it back!” she demanded. “Why?” “Because I don’t want it.” “That’s no reason,” he said. Back and forth they went, neither giving way, until finally the owner offered a compromise: store credit. Ljubica reluctantly accepted the offer. The sweater was returned, a receipt was written up, and we left.

We said nothing on the way home. I would not have known what to say in any case. We never spoke of the event. Later, Ljubica bought a dress there with her store credit that she wore at her graduation ball.

I didn’t stop buying Ljubica gifts. But I never walked into a store after that to buy her a present without experiencing a similar sinking feeling of humiliation rising in my chest. “What will she do when I give her this,” I would think with trepidation. “How will she respond?”

This memory has been haunting my thoughts for the past two weeks. I think about it at least once a day. It is immediate and fresh but with a dream like quality. I am not an outside observer, seeing myself, but I am actually there in the store. I am standing by a rack of clothing, half-hidden from Ljubica and the clerks. I watch them argue. I watch the owner come in. I watch the receipt being written. I am somehow invisible, my generosity lost and forgotten in the storm of Ljubica’s rage. Her words are imprecise, as are the clerks’ and the owner’s. But my emotions churn in my gut. My heart sinks and my countenance, once lifted by the clerks’ praise, falls. Shame, humiliation, and anger pervade my soul.

This happened fourteen years ago, but it can feel more real than last Tuesday.