I Married My High School Sweetheart at 72 – Two Weeks After His Kids Threw Me Out, a Black Limousine Arrived at My Trailer
“So good to finally meet you.”
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“Margaret, I’m not changing a thing. We’ve talked about this,” my fiancé said.
“Daddy, please, just think about it.”
I stepped back before they saw me, and for the first time since Garrett had found me, I wondered exactly what I’d walked into.
***
The first morning I woke up in Garrett’s house as his wife, I half expected to feel like a guest who’d overstayed her welcome. Instead, my husband brought me coffee in a china cup and kissed the top of my head as if he’d been doing it for years!
“We’ve talked about this.”
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“Stop grinning,” I said. “You’ll spill it.”
“Let me grin, Eleanor. I waited a long time for this!”
***
Margaret came by that Sunday with a casserole dish and a face like cold weather. Daniel followed two steps behind, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Mother used to set the table that way,” Margaret said, eyeing my linen runner. “Patricia. In case you forgot her name.”
“I didn’t know your mother, honey. But the runner can come right off if it bothers you.”
“You’ll spill it.”
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“Everything about this bothers me,” she retorted.
Garrett cleared his throat from the doorway.
“Margaret. That’s enough.”
She gave him a small, tight smile and didn’t apologize. Her brother wouldn’t even meet my eyes.
***
The comments kept coming week after week.
A remark about my dress being “a bit much for a woman your age.” A question about whether I’d “ever worked a real job.” Once, Margaret asked, right at the dinner table, what exactly I thought I’d be inheriting.
