Garrett asked whether he could buy me coffee, and I said perhaps a slice of pie too, if he was feeling generous.
He stayed through the bake sale, then paid for both coffee and pie before escorting me to my car as though we were still living in 1972, before life had separated us.
After that, we met at the same diner every Tuesday.
He spoke about his late wife, Patricia, who had been gone nearly 10 years, and his grown children, Margaret and Daniel, who lived close by and called every Sunday. I told him about Howard, our long good marriage, and the even longer quiet years that followed.
“I always wondered about you,” Garrett said one afternoon while stirring sugar into his coffee.
“You had a funny way of showing it with five decades of silence,” I rebuffed.
“Life got in the way.”
“Life always does.”
—
Six months later, Garrett stood on my front porch and partly fulfilled his old promise by asking me to marry him. He did not have the ring yet, but he said he was working on it.
I said, “Yes!” Not because of his mansion or the wealth his children would eventually whisper about. I agreed because I remembered the boy who had once walked me home through the rain.
Our engagement dinner took place at Garrett’s mansion, where I met his children in person for the first time.
Margaret embraced me with her arms but not her shoulders. Daniel shook my hand with the formality of someone greeting a contractor.
“So good to finally meet you,” my soon-to-be daughter-in-law (DIL) said, wearing a polite but strained smile.
“Your father’s told me so much about you both,” I answered.
