My mother died eight years ago, and for the first three, my father wouldn’t so much as look at another woman.
Then, at sixty-eight, he finally started dating again. And I was happy for him. I really was. After watching him move through those first years like a man walking underwater, I wanted him to have something. Company. A reason to put on a nice shirt.
I was happy for him right up until I noticed the pattern.
Six women in eighteen months. Every single first date at the same Italian restaurant across town. And every single woman gone afterward. No second date. No explanation. Most of them wouldn’t even return his calls.
At first I thought maybe he was just rusty. It had been decades since he’d dated anyone. Maybe he talked too much about Mom, or not enough, or maybe he was one of those men who’d gotten strange and particular living alone. I’d ask him how it went and he’d say, “Oh, it was nice. She was a lovely woman.” And then I’d never hear that name again.
