‘Rebecca.’ I’d know that voice anywhere. Hearing the timbre of his voice evoked such a vibrant warmth in my heart. When he looked at me I felt bashful and coquettish, awkward and exhilarated, poised and animated. When we first met in college I was engaged to my second husband and he had a long-term girlfriend. His friendliness surprised me as we worked side by side in the Registration Office. Out of his earshot, our supervisor would tease me that our good-looking co-worker liked me. I couldn’t believe a tall, handsome, self-assured man would find me, a quiet mouse, appealing. Besides, our lives were already on different trajectories given our respective significant others, so I shrugged off any fantasy that he found me attractive.
Fast forward three years—my 2nd marriage had ended in disaster, and I was living with my parents for safety. Though I graduated college, I still kept in touch with my Registration Office supervisor. When she heard I was divorced, she chortled she just had to tell our former co-worker I was now available (having changed his major, he was still taking classes; and he, like me, was now available). I rolled my eyes, knowing he would not be interested. But shockingly, he was! I was incredulous, and in love from the moment he showed up at my door. This love went deeper than anything I’d ever felt before or since; more substantive than the naive youthful love I had with my 1st husband, my children’s father, infinitely more precious than the superficial rebound relationship that quickly fizzled with my 2nd husband.
Lacking self-confidence, I was in disbelief as our relationship grew, but oh, so thankful. Neither of us had a lot of discretionary time; along with full-time jobs, he was completing an education degree and active in sports, while I was the busy single mom and volunteer for church activities. He was very used to doing his own thing; I gratefully folded into his life wherever he invited me, but he stayed aloof from mine, though he was nice to my kids, and visited church with me on occasion. I cherished every moment we were together, fearing the day he would realize I was not enough for him to stay. Three years into our relationship, when he graduated from college and took a teaching position in a remote rural village, I thought that was it. But it turned out he missed me – a lot. We grew much closer that first year of his teaching career. He finally said he loved me. But the next year brought change, new teachers into his rural community, and one of them decided she wanted him. I was no match for the siren, being a straight-laced devoted Christian with no flirting skills. He swore she had nothing to do with our Spring breakup, but when he moved to Texas with her that Fall, well, what would you think?
To be fair, he struggled giving me up, especially the first ten years after our relationship ended. Texas didn’t work out, and he wanted to remain friends when he returned. But I stayed in love, my heart breaking a little more each time he walked away. I discovered I was the only woman he ever walked away from; girlfriends before and after me left him because they couldn’t handle his solitariness. Finally, the years have taken their toll. Where I used to hear from him a couple times a year, now it’s every couple of years, and I’m the one reaching out instead of him. When I finally published my book last summer, we met for lunch so I could sell him a signed copy. He has lost some of his energy and enthusiasm; of course, we are thirty years older than when we met. We had a nice visit, though we were reserved with one another. As he walked away from me this last time, I caught a glimpse of thinning hair on his crown; my middle-aged 6th grade teacher Mr. Countryman flashed across my memory. My lost love and I are aging; nonetheless, after all these years, the apparition of who I wanted us to be still walks in my soul.
