WRITING SHORT: 9/50

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[Come summer heat, much of my blogging momentum melts away. Hence an experiment until Labor Day: fifty minimalist posts about whatever.]

Shortly after leaving my first husband, I became involved with a man I met on New Year’s Eve at a masked costume ball. I was twenty-nine, he was thirty-six, and we were together from Friday evening until late Sunday afternoon all the following year, except for two summer weeks he spent with his parents in Illinois. There was never a question of marriage. I was not divorced until halfway through that year and certainly unready to contemplate remarrying. He had already been married twice, had three children by his first wife and barely enough salary left after monthly alimony and child support payments to scrape by in a single room at a residential hotel off Fifth Avenue. Yet I never regretted that year. He put me back on my feet and gave me a better opinion of myself.

One evening as we were about to make love in his single room, he said something that disappointed me.  I was hoping for the conventional language of romance. Only later, when we’d drifted apart, did I realize what he had said was better than that: “I’d like to fill you up with babies.”

The last time I saw him was two years ago, when we had lunch. He was nearly ninety; I recognized him only by his height. I had looked him up because of those words. He no longer remembers them. It doesn’t matter. He gave them to me, and now they’re mine forever.

9 thoughts on “WRITING SHORT: 9/50”

  1. Well, at nearly ninety, the multi marriages and odd remarks before love making did not seem to effect his longevity.
    Most of our friends have gone through marriages or are divorced. I am always amazed how they get through all that. Ending up in a room at fifth Avenue might have a lot going for it!
    Who knows?

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    • I think his long life was likely too full to remember. He remembered me all right, though. He asked me at that lunch why we had separated. He didn’t remember that either. I had to remind him it wasn’t that I “didn’t keep him.” He had drifted off to another (married) woman, hoping to juggle two at once, and I found out. Ah well, it was all so long ago. But yes, the words are timeless.

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    • Thanks for enjoying the read, Barbara. But why can’t you write about your “interlude,” too? (Are they so much naughtier than mine?) Who would expect a divorced woman to live like a nun between marriages? 🙂

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