I worked in people’s homes all my life.

First, I worked for my father for many years as a boy and young man. Then on my own after I took over the family business.

I met some interesting, wonderful and strange people over 48 years of working.

Just as I was getting divorced, I worked for a very attractive and lively woman a few years older than I. She was very friendly and seemed interested in me.

I am a car guy and she drove an XKE. That was all I needed to be interested in her.

She followed me around her building as I repaired all of the holes in the walls after a repipe of the building. We talked all day as she watched over me in her tenants apartments. It was easy talking between the two of us.

After I finished the job, she asked me to join her for a drink. I don’t drink alcohol but we sat and talked for some time as I nursed a glass of juice with her. She lingered over a shot of vodka. She was a beautiful woman with fine features and manners.

She was much more experienced in life than I. It showed in her eyes. They were bright, intelligent and kind.

As I sat looking at her, I couldn’t get her car out of my mind. It was sleek, long and beautiful. It was almost as beautiful as she was.

“You know R.C. I’ve had some serious boyfriends over the last few years, but I never let them drive my car.”

I was twenty-eight and nursing a broken heart at the time. I thought of the possibilities with this woman sitting across from me and the fact that my wife had just informed me that she was in love with another man.

My heart pounded in my chest with a mix of lust and sorrow. But I was still a married man with hopes of saving my marriage.

I always had my clipboard with me filled with invoices and estimate forms for work. She had me so worked up that when I left, I left it behind.

I called her when I arrived home that night and asked if I might stop by the next day to pick it up. “Of course,” was her answer.

I had a two year old son at the time and I was leaving my home at my wife’s request. I was losing my opportunity to be a full time father and husband. I was leaving my life as I knew it and my son behind to move in to my brothers home.

When I arrived the next day, she was just as beautiful and kind as I remembered her to be. My marriage was more of a mess than ever and I had an unknown and unhappy future lying in front of me.

Nothing came of that encounter, sadly, but I often think of what might have been.

I tried to contact her when my marriage was over to no avail. She had sold her building and disappeared.

I often wondered if she could have mended my broken heart and made my journey through the loss of my marriage a little easier.

Thankfully I soon met another woman who did. She has been my wife and partner in life for over forty years.

As I tell my son, “you should never regret meeting a new lover even if it doesn’t work out. You will have learned something along the way and perhaps it will make you a stronger and better person.”