I still have that business card, now faded and gray,
that you handed me at our first meeting.
I was a young woman who had been left the family farm
and wanted to invest for the future, my future.
Trapped within a marriage arranged by my father
to a man I did not love and could not leave
with three children at my knee
and another on the way.

I took a taxi into the city
and an elevator up to your skyscraper office.
Your secretary offered me tea,
while I fiddled with my plastic pearls.
Nervous, and unsure, I wore the gingham dress
I bought earlier that spring
for Easter dinner at my mother-in-law’s.

You were, as I had been told by my father’s lawyer,
young and handsome,
with a whisper of gray that made you even more distinguished,
in your three piece herringbone suit
with a checkered bowtie,
than a movie star.

As I sat and explained my dilemma,
you listened intensely.
You talked with me,
not to me or at me, but with me,
in an age when being a woman came with its own curse
that caused men in three piece suits to issue a quick order
and dismiss the woman before they missed their tee time.

You invited me to meet with you each March, June and December
to learn about my investments in railroads and meatpackers,
airlines and gas companies. You sat with me at my side and taught me
how to read the business section of the Sunday newspaper.
From your kindness, our friendship blossomed into love.
Not infatuation or lust, but a bond so strong in friendship, that love is born.

Over the next thirty nine years,
we met in small hideaway restaurants each Thursday at two,
and there we lived the lives of the other.
You watched my children grow in snap shots and stories,
laugher and tears. You cared for me when he hit me
after he lost his job at the plant,
and when my only boy was sent off to war never to come back.
Over coffee, we talked about cancer, dying and that mole on your back
that changed colors and made you think of your father’s early death.
You helped me bury my husband,
who died after decades of three packs a day
and fifth of corn whiskey.
I learned about your world of stamps, your dogs and your mother.

Over the years,
you entrusted with me the secret of your big lie,
and told me stories of your boyfriends and one night stands,
married men that you met in private bars or referred by friends.

Once, on my birthday,
after too much wine,
you tried to make love to me, but drunk
and inexperienced,
we spent the afternoon
cuddling on a big king bed
at the fanciest hotel in the city
reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
You never spoke to me about that day,
nor I to you, but I knew that you deeply loved me,
a girl from a world so far from yours that
you were surprised that I spoke English.

You made sure my investments grew and all my girls went to college.
And I earned your soul and a debt I shall never be able
to repay for you were the truest friend
I have ever had.
Today, holding your hand as you breathed your last breath,
I wiped my tears thinking back to
long ago wearing plastic pearls
and a gingham dress and the future that you gave me.

22 January 2009