In Memory of Love

"This was my grandfather's house," said the Real Estate agent. I'd been away for many years, living and working in Europe and Asia. Twenty years ago, I tried to retire in Florida, but I hate the constant summer. I am old and I want what I want. I want seasons, winters. I'm old, but I'm strong. I can take care of myself! I've come home to Kansas. "He'd had his own construction company and built houses," the agent continued. "This is the last one he built before he died."

"Oh?" I asked, distracted by the detailed carving on the front porch posts. "I lived here years ago. Who was your grandfather?"

"Michael DeLano," she answered. "Did you know him?"

At the sound of his name, I was once again a young woman. I hadn't thought of Michael for decades, and here was his granddaughter showing me his house. We'd dated for years, Michael and I. We'd known each other better than we knew ourselves. The whole world was before us-or so I had thought.

It was a blistering day in August 1939, but it's like it was yesterday. Michael and I talked about getting married, off and on, for several years, but he kept putting it off. He wanted to accomplish certain things, he said, before he would feel ready. The night before this blistering day, we talked about it again. Although he'd done everything he'd said he wanted to do before he got married, he still wasn't ready.

I was 25 that year, old in those days to be a single woman. I'd taken a job at the small grocery store in my little town, where all the married ladies, and many of the men, would look at me out of the sides of their eyes. "Must be something wrong with her," they'd whisper and nod to each other knowingly. "Such a pity. She's so beautiful. I wonder why she won't marry."

People always said I was beautiful, commenting on my long red hair, clear skin, and dark green eyes. I had a good figure, and I thought I was beautiful, too. My mother scolded me for it. Said I thought too much of myself. She scolded me for everything, it seemed, and blamed my personality-I was often stubborn and I had a temper-for not finding a husband. "You're too fierce," she'd say.

So there I was, 25, single, working, too fierce for my own good, and Michael still not ready to marry me. That afternoon, no one came in the store. You couldn't blame them, the heat would've eaten you alive. I couldn't stop thinking about us getting married, though. I wanted it so badly. How to get him to agree to it, that was the problem. That is, until another one walked through the door.

He drove up in a big, fancy car. Pale yellow. Chevrolet, I think. Then I saw him. He was beautiful, if you could call a man that. Tall, elegant, not a wrinkle at all in his cream summer suit. How he could look so crisp and cool, it was a wonder. He had the most remarkable dark brown eyes. They're what did me in. I couldn't take my eyes off of his, and his fixed on mine as he came into the store. "Hello," he said, his voice smooth and cool as satin. "Do you have anything cool to drink here?"

"Yes," I croaked out a whisper. I forgot to be ladylike or delicate, cleared my throat, and tried again. "Yes, we have Coca-Cola, root beer, and lemonade. I can get you ice from the back." I tried to be calm, and matter-of-fact, businesslike; instead, I blushed. He just smiled, those eyes twinkling in that dusty old store.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Marie Stanton."

"It's a mighty fine day, Miss Stanton," he said. "How is it you're stuck here inside?"

I don't know what possessed me, but I closed the store-somehow I got away with that. I got into his gorgeous car and off we went for a drive. I didn't know this man from Adam, and there I was getting into a car-a car!-with him and driving all over the bumps and isolation that made up western Kansas in those days. It was like a dream, sitting in this beautiful car with this beautiful man, drinking sodas, letting August blow into the windows.

What did we talk about? Everything, it seemed. He worked for a magazine taking pictures, and was traveling around the country in search of local beauty. "Looks like I found it in a grocery store here," he said. I loved his words like you love cut flowers. You know they won't last, but they're breathtaking now. We bought food at the grocery in another little town, and had a picnic under a copse of trees off the side of the road.

The afternoon became evening, and then night. We listened to the radio and counted falling stars along the back roads that held those towns together. We just drove and talked, stopping now and again for a rest. The sky turned pale and brightened to a dusty sunrise, and we turned back toward home. He dropped me off outside my house. Through a window I saw my mother sleeping in her reading chair, the lamp on the table throwing pale shadows around her.

I didn't go in, but sat on the porch steps, pondering life and wondering how I was going to explain this to her. I thought about Michael, too, you can be sure of that. I'd loved him for too long to let another man sweep me away in his search for local beauty. He surely found a local beauty in every town, I thought. He'd never hinted for me to go with him, and I hadn't even thought of it until Michael brought it up later that day.

"Why didn't you go with him?" Michael asked me.

"Huh?" I asked. I was so tired, I couldn't think.

"Marie," said Michael, "we both know there's a problem. You've been after me for years to marry you, and I'm still not ready. I don't know if I'll ever be ready."

"What do you mean?" I asked. Then I realized what he'd said. "After you? I didn't realize it's been so difficult for you!" I felt tears catch in my throat.

"Sweetheart, that's not what I mean." He started again. "I'm just not ready to get married, and I don't know if I'll ever feel ready. I can't string you along anymore. It's not fair to you. I know you want a family, Marie. If you're interested in this man, go after him. I won't stop you."

"No, Michael!" I cried. "I don't want him, I want you!"

"Marie, it's not right," he said. "I love you, you know I do. But I've got to let you go. You need a man who will marry you now. You're free, Marie."

I died right there. I couldn't think. I couldn't feel. There was nothing. Somehow I got home to my mother, and for the first time in many years, she didn't scold me or warn me or tell me I was wrong. She just held me and rocked me, and let me cry in her arms.

Well, of course, life did go on. In the end, he's the one who married and had a family. I stayed single-I was older than the other single women, after all, and then the war took up everyone's interest, once our boys started leaving. The money I earned from the grocery store let me go to the state college in Hays, and I became a teacher. A few years after my mother died, I heard about an opportunity to teach overseas, and I took it. I never looked back until I started feeling old and tired.

I thought Florida was where I should go to retire. But I hate it there. Six months ago, an instinct like that of a wild animal urged me home to Kansas. I know I'll buy the house. Although he didn't build it for me, it was built by the only man I ever loved. To honor his memory and the love we once shared, I will buy his house.

"Yes," I answered the Real Estate agent. "I knew him well."