Page 120 of Grown-Up Second Chance

“Sure. May I take one of you right now?”

A few poses later, I hoped I got what I saw in the restaurant owner: beauty and inner wisdom.

“How long have you been married?” I asked.

“Over thirty-five years,” she said.

“Wow.”

“It was an arranged marriage,” she continued. “They aren’t so common anymore, but they were when I was young, especially in small villages. I was lucky. My parents chose a compassionate and handsome young man for me.”

“And you are still together.”

“Yes.”

“Happy?” I asked.

“Very happy,” she said.

“How did you manage that?”

“I take it you are not married.”

“No.” I shifted my gaze to the silver bracelets on her arm.

“We were awkward at first, especially … well, you know.”

I nodded, although I couldn’t imagine my first time being with a man my parents had chosen for me. Although she probably knew him better than I knew my first sexual partner—a college buddy after a long night of drinking.

“But we both had the same goals, and more importantly the same values. We respected and loved our families, were willing to work hard, and had a dream of emigrating to America.”

“And you made it come true.”

“With hard work, yes. Along the way, we learned to trust each other and to care for each other. I believe we also realized how important it was to be honest with ourselves and admit our own flaws. We discovered how to talk things through, even difficult things we would not like to reveal to each other. He was, and still is, a loving man.”

“And you love him.”

“I have learned to do so. It has been a great gift in my life.”

A man pulled open the front door, and the woman’s face lit up. He may no longer be young, but he was still a good-looking man. He leaned down and kissed her cheek.

“You have been chatting to our guest?”

“Yes. Telling her how we got here.”

“Ah, good.” He smiled at me. “It is a good story, is it not?”

“The best kind of story,” I said.

A love story.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The story made driving the next few hours tolerable. I couldn’t imagine being party to an arranged marriage, but maybe older people who had a more clear-eyed vision of what people became were better judges of the perfect match.

That conversation would not have gone well for me.

“Diane, we’ve been talking to Sam’s parents. The four of us agree the two of you would be great partners,” my father might intone.

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