My husband , Alex, strode across the football field and toward me wearing a white undershirt, black dress shoes and socks, and a pair of skintight, blaze-orange nylon shorts that fit like hot pants.

“Hi,” he said.

After a moment of stunned silence, I said, “Hi.”

“Something wrong?”

We were at our children’s school for an eclipse party. Our city, Columbia, South Carolina, was in the path of totality for the Great American Eclipse of 2017 . Thousands of people had come from all over the country, from around the globe, to watch the moon cover the sun for two-and-a-half minutes on August 21. Restaurants handed out eclipse glasses. The local news had been warning us for weeks about burned corneas. Bars had opened at 8 a.m. Now, in mid-afternoon, the sun was high and the temperature was nearing 100 degrees.

Alex was supposed to be at work, but he’d come here instead, unexpectedly swaddled in orange.

“Where did you get those shorts?” I said.

“I found them in a garbage bag in the back of your minivan,” he said. “Why?”

They were in the bag to go to Goodwill because they were too small for our 12-year-old son. Now my 6-foot-one, 250-pound husband was wearing them. In public.