Chapter 1

I wasn’t always like this. I used to be a normal modern-day woman, a woman who was at the forefront of the Women’s Lib movement ... the original “I Am Woman”. I had a good job, where I was respected by both my peers and my supervisors, and a husband who loved and supported my choices (or so I thought at the time). Yeah, I had a pretty good handhold on my life.

But life can sometimes get a little slippery and hard to hang onto. One day, I came home from the office to a letter laying on the kitchen table. With my name on it in his writing, I was naturally curious, so I opened it and began reading.

It came like a bolt out of the clear blue sky. I never had so much as a hint of trouble or a word of warning. We had never fought, never slept alone mad at the other. I thought we were as tight as a married couple could be. But there it was in print. Steven, my beloved husband, was leaving me for another woman!

To say I was devastated was a gross understatement. I collapsed into one of the dining room chairs, my eyes not believing what I was seeing. If this was a joke, it was in extremely poor taste! But it was no joke. It was all too real.

Life after that went into a slow-motion downward spiral. I could see what was happening, but I was powerless to do anything to stop it. I was on the Titanic and there was no Jack Dawson to rescue me.

Then one day, we were sitting in the courtroom in front of the judge – him and his lawyer on one side of the aisle, and me with my lawyer on the other. I thought back to the day we both stood in the middle of the aisle in that church in Lancaster, PA where we became man and wife. I still had no idea why we were there. I suppose he told me somewhere along the way, but I was too numb (or dumb) to hear it.

After the divorce, I shut down. I didn’t go out, I didn’t hang with friends or even have any over. Some of my girlfriends tried to get me “out in circulation” again, but I wanted no part of it. If this was the love that everyone wrote poems and romance novels about, then they were kidding themselves. My galpals tried everything they could to get the old me back, but that part of me was dead.

I guess the change came shortly before my thirtieth birthday. I was working at my desk on what at first was a normal workday. I worked at a local bank in the New Accounts department. He came up and wanted to start a new account with the bank. I gave him my cursory smile and we set about getting him a new account.

As I worked to get his account going, he told me he was new in town, having just moved from the Brooklyn area of New York. I had never been there so I listened casually as he talked about how crowded and crazy it was there and how he wanted someplace smaller and more laid back.

He must have read my name off my desk nameplate. “Say, Nancy, how would you like to go to dinner with me tonight? I mean I don’t see a ring on your finger so I assume you aren’t married, and I could really use someone to tell me about this place and help me learn the town,” he said as I was finishing up his account paperwork.

“Oh, I don’t know Mr. Johnson...” I said. I wasn’t really up for a date – it had been a long time since I saw anyone socially. But as I spoke to him, I saw the girls in the teller line all waving their arms wildly and pointing and acting a fool. They all wanted me to say yes and I knew if I didn’t I would never hear the end of it.

“Okay, Mr. Johnson, I suppose one dinner couldn’t hurt. Sure why not! What time?” I said.

“I will come by your place about 8:00. That should give you time to get home from work and get ready. Where do you live?” he asked.

I wrote my address down on a slip of paper and handed it to him. I lived in a secure building where you have to be buzzed in to get in the building so I wasn’t worried about him coming by and harassing me and I didn’t give him my phone number, so I felt fairly safe.

As soon as he left the bank, the girls all came out from behind the teller line squealing and clapping and carrying on. You’d think I’d just won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes or something!

At first, I didn’t think much of it. In fact, I was only agreeing to it to keep the girls from pestering me to death. But as the day wore on, those old feelings of excitement and the thrill of what could come of it started eating at me and by the end of the day, I was actually looking forward to a night out.

It turned out that first date couldn’t have gone better if I had scripted the night myself. Mr. Johnson – Jim – was a perfect gentleman and very good company. He did all those little things that make a girl feel special too. Things like holding the door for me, seating me first before he sat down, standing when I had to leave to use the ladies’ room and when I came back to the table. When he talked to me he looked me in the eyes and when I talked I knew I had his full attention. It was really nice.

At the end of the date, he walked me to my door and even that uncomfortable “do I kiss him or not” scene wasn’t uncomfortable.

“I hope you don’t mind Nancy, but I make it a policy not to kiss on the first date. We are just getting to know each other and I don’t want to rush you or pressure you into anything,” he said. How gallant is that!

The next day when I got to work there was a single red rose in a small cut glass vase waiting for me on my desk. The card said “Thank you for a wonderful evening!” and below it, he had written his phone number. Of course, the girls were all gaga over it and wanted to know every detail, but I gave them just enough info to make them crazy!

After that, we began seeing each other pretty regularly. We started off slowly, but as we got to know each other, we started going out more often. We were having a wonderful time the two of us and I actually started thinking maybe Steven was just a bad decision I had made.

Then one day, we were walking along a nice shady bike path and we came to a park bench overlooking the river. “Have a seat, Nancy, I wanted to talk with you about something.”

My heart jumped into my throat. What could he want to talk about? We hadn’t been going together nearly long enough for a proposal. And I thought things were going good between us – although I had thought the same thing with Steven. Oh no! Not another Steven! I began shaking uncontrollably waiting for the bomb to drop and my world to explode once again.

My nerves were obvious apparently because Jim took my hands in his. “Look at me, Nancy.”

I was afraid to look him in the face because I might start crying. “I said look at me,” he said, more firmly. I looked up and he locked eyes with me.

“It’s not what you think, honey. This is not a breakup talk and I am not leaving you. But there is something about me I think you should know. You see I am an old-fashioned kind of man. Some might say a Neanderthal, although I don’t think I go back quite that far. But I believe things in this day and age have gotten far too complicated and muddied up.

“You know how I am always holding the door for you and how I make you walk on my left side and on the building side of the sidewalk? Well, it’s because I believe that a woman should be treasured and placed on a pedestal. A man should honor and respect women and most of all his woman.

“But more than that I think today’s society has gotten so gender-confused that no one really is sure what their role is anymore. I believe and man and a woman should have distinct and well-defined roles. Yes, they both work together to make a home for themselves, but by doing their part. Just like a coin has a heads and a tails, a home should have separate roles too. You understand what I am saying?”