I Didn’t Know Her All That Well

// A short story

Danny was a nice enough guy. Didn’t know him very well but we would often drink coffee at McDonalds in the morning and lament about the antics of the city’s politicians and their crazy decisions. He came in the other day, sat down with his coffee and sighed.

“What’s the problem, boy?” I said to him as the 70 something old man sat down.

“Got an anniversary coming up and don’t know what to get the wife,” he said.

I responded “how many years has it been”?

“Forty- Five”

“Forty- Five!! Well, she certainly is the Love of your life, huh?”

He looks at his coffee, takes a drink and says softly to me after a minute of coffee drinking,“No, not really”.

“What are you talking about man?- you have been married to her, Mary right? For 45 years”.

He looks at me long and hard and finally says- “No, Rita was and still is the Love of my life”. He pauses, then continues “but then again, I didn’t know her all that well”.

I said “who in the devil is Rita”?

Danny thinks into the distance for a moment and continues as if talking to himself.

“Oh, Rita and I met my senior of college when I visited a friend in Little Rock for a long weekend of college fun. I loved her the minute I saw her- she was an angel”. We met on Friday night. By Saturday afternoon, we were walking in the park together. I kissed her the first time Saturday night. I can remember the taste of that kiss fifty years ago like I can taste this coffee today. We spent the rest of the weekend oblivious to everything and everybody else, including the guy I went to visit. It was great. I was madly in love.”

He caught his breath.

“Puppy love, huh?” I said.

If looks could kill, his micro-second look on me would have buried me, ten times over. But he caught himself.

“No- it was not puppy love. We went on to see each other often for three years- every time we met it was as wonderful as the first time. But she was in Little Rock and I was in Madison. There were lots of phone calls. Wonderful phone calls.”

“Wow, three years! What happened?” Why didn’t you get married?

“Well, I graduated, she was a sophomore. I got drafted, went in the army. Timing was bad. She wanted to finish school- I understood. I came home, went to work, she graduated, started her career, met somebody, I met Mary, we both got married and the rest is history.”

Do you talk?

"Yep, once a year by phone on her birthday- takes three minutes.She is the Love of my life, but, of course I don’t know her all that well”.

"Does Mary know?"

"Nope, and never will, right?"

"Right!"

“Well”, Danny said, “got to move on and find an anniversary gift for Mary- see ya tomorrow”

“Ok, Bud”.

As he walked away, I heard him say softly to himself “Yep, the Love of my life- but I didn’t know her all that well”.

//