Then I met Linda.
“Oh, you have company.” Linda looked me up and down, then tilted her head. “This is the woman you told me about?”
Arthur nodded. “This is Caroline. Caroline, my daughter, Linda.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Linda said, holding out her hand, but nothing about her suggested she meant the words.
Later, Arthur said, “She’s just protective. It’s been only us for a long time.”
I believed him. Why wouldn’t I?
Nothing about her suggested she meant the words.
There were other moments, too. Small things I ignored because happiness, when it arrives late, feels too precious to challenge.
Once, Arthur and I were having dinner at a restaurant when an older man clapped him on the shoulder.
“Arthur! It’s been, what, 25 years? How have you been?”
Arthur stiffened, and for a moment, I thought I saw fear in his eyes.
Then he smiled and said, “You can’t honestly expect me to sum up 25 years in one sentence?”
The man laughed. “Same old, Arthur.”
There were other moments, too. Small things I ignored.
They chatted for a few minutes, then Arthur called for the check and said we had to leave. We hadn’t even discussed having dessert yet.
In the car, I asked, “Who was that man, and why were you in such a hurry to leave?”
“I wasn’t. I just…” he paused for a long time. “That man is unbearable. That’s why we haven’t spoken in 25 years.”
“He seemed nice enough…”
Arthur didn’t reply, and I let it go.
That is the humiliating part of this story. How much I let go.
“Who was that man, and why were you in such a hurry to leave?”
We’d been dating for a year when he proposed.
He took my hand and said, “I know we don’t have the kind of time younger couples imagine they do. I don’t want to waste what we have. Marry me, Caroline.”
I said yes almost at once, with tears in my eyes.
At 72, when joy knocks, you do not make it stand on the porch.
A week before the wedding, Linda caught me alone in the kitchen.
I know now that was her first attempt to warn me.
We’d been dating for a year when he proposed.
She stood across from me, wringing her hands. “Do you feel you know my father well?”
“As well as one can know another person.”
“Don’t be so glib. Please.” Her face tightened. “Has he ever mentioned—”
“I found them!” Arthur entered, carrying the wedding invitation mock-ups. He froze. “Did I interrupt something?”
“No.” Linda grabbed her purse. “I should be going.”
I didn’t see her again until the wedding.
