She was thirty-six years old, tall, beautiful, and impeccably groomed. She was the kind of woman people turned around to look at when she walked down the street.
We met at a charity event. She sat beside me, asked about my life, laughed at my old stories, and spent the entire evening looking at me as though I were not some seventy-four-year-old man whose best years were already behind him.
My daughter, Sarah, told me,
“Dad, you barely know her.”
My son, Mike, did not even come to the wedding.
I was angry with them.
I thought they simply refused to accept that I could still be happy.
During the first few months, Lauren was wonderful. We traveled, ate at restaurants, and spent our evenings sitting together on the patio.