Chapter 1

I'm a sixty year old man who had lost his wife two years ago. She was too young to die at sixty-three. Everyone said she rocked the cradle because she was five years older than me. Cancer has a tendency to cut a lot of lives short. We were a good couple. We were probably typical of most older couples. I did most of the outside stuff like mowing the grass or shoveling the snow. I took care of anything electrical. She had trouble setting an alarm clock.

She, on the other hand, was as artistic as they come, decorating for all the holidays, and there wasn't anything she couldn't cook. We were married for thirty-eight years. It was funny - well, maybe sad now - our kids were going to have a big 40th anniversary bash. That would have been this year.

We had a good life. We traveled somewhere each year. We also each did our own thing. We learned early in our marriage not to pressure each other into doing things we didn't want to do. So in that respect we got along fine.

Our sex life in our early years was the greatest. I guess that's the way it is with most everyone. Then came the children and the sex life diminished quite a bit. Again another expected consequence of raising a family. It is kind of sad though. If I had to do it all over I would have probably tried to make love more often. Don't let life completely take you over, have time for one another.

We both made our mistakes in life but I'm not going to get into that. It's nothing that can be changed now. I guess my problem now is I feel pretty healthy. I might be sixty but my libido seems to be working overtime. I wonder if that comes with getting older. Maybe I'm looking for a last hurrah or something.

As I mentioned earlier my wife was the cook. I can fry an egg or make a sandwich but if I want a real meal I go to the corner restaurant. I'm probably in there at least a few days a week. I also visit the kids and get a good meal. I have four that were kids at one time. They are all grown up and one even has a grandkid of their own. I try not to bother them much. I pretty much just do my own thing. Three of my offspring live over fifty miles away, my youngest daughter lives about twenty miles from me, so of course I'm lucky to see some of them once a month. Loneliness is my biggest problem, going to a big house that is always empty. I didn't even take the time to fill the pool this year. It still has the winter cover on it. But I kept our hot tub filled. It fells good to sit and relax in it as I think of old times.

Anyway one reason I eat out is for the company. It's nice to hear all the different conversations while I'm eating. I guess I'm like a fixture in the little restaurant. Roy, the owner and head cook, is a pretty nice guy. He said he goes through a lot of help. He keeps two full-time waitresses and two part-time plus his kitchen help. He told me he tries to give people a chance. Most don't want it and become pretty lazy.

Right now his two full-time girls were Marie and Stacy. Marie had been there going on two years. She was married and worked to help pay the bills with a second income. She was nice looking and a friendly waitress. I asked Roy about Stacy. She had been there about a month then and was one of the cutest and friendliest waitresses I've had the pleasure of waiting on me. I like waitresses because they work hard for their wages and some people treat them like shit. It pisses me off when a waitress is treated badly. Don't get me wrong. Not every waitress is a saint but the majority seem to try hard.

Roy said she lived up in the projects. That's what we call the housing development for the less fortunate. Most of the people who lived there didn't have jobs or didn't care to find one and of course some were the local dope dealers. Stacy didn't seem to fit that model.

One day when she was going to be on break I asked her if she would mind sitting with me. She seemed so nice and friendly. We talked about everything from her kids at school to what the special was going to be the next day. I started to eat there almost every day. I guess I was getting a little smitten with the young lady. Each time I would come in, I would sit in her area and after she served me she would sit and talk with me. She always held her break until she saw me. It made an old man feel pretty good.

Over time we began to talk about more personal items. I told her I was a widower and about my wife and kids. She in turn started telling me about her life. She said that for some reason she trusted me, that she liked me. I told her I probably reminded her of her father. She grimaced and said she liked me a whole lot more and trusted me more than she did her father. I found that surprising but didn't reply.

I asked her about herself and she told me she was twenty-five but went through enough life to be forty. She had two kids but wasn't married. At seventeen she got pregnant and her parents kicked her out. She did stick up for them saying she was rather an unruly child and went to what she called a children's prison for a couple of years until she was sixteen. She got her shit together and moved back home and tried to live a much more normal life.

She had gone to a party with friends and they gave her some kind of drug and used her. "I guess they weren't friends after all," she mused.

She got pregnant, considered abortion not knowing who the father was, but decided to have the baby. When the baby was born she had turned eighteen and thought of giving it up for adoption but it was part of her so she couldn't do it. She looked for work and was able to get children services to help her out. A year later she was dating what she called a rat's ass and had gotten pregnant again. The minute the guy found out, he ditched her and left town. She hadn't heard from him since. That was all around five years ago. Since then, she decided to try to make a life for her and her two children who were now ages seven and five. She told me that they were her life.

Offhandedly, she mentioned that she was on speaking terms with her mother again. Her mom and dad had gotten divorced about two years ago. She called her mom one day and they got back to being friends. She had a younger half-brother and a half-sister who still lived at home. She said that her mom watched her kids while she worked. Children services helped pay for the babysitting.

Stacy told me life was far from easy for an unwed mother of two but she was doing the best she could. She went from job to job. None lasted very long. For some reason the employers figured that sex with her would become part of the work package and so she would quit. She said it was awfully hard to prove sexual harassment when it was his word against hers and she was an unwed mother. She said that she had grown up and her priorities have changed. She had a family to think of. Her wild days were all behind her now.

She was really beginning to grow on me. I looked forward to seeing her everyday. I would come in the door and see the beautiful dark haired girl with the beautiful smile and dimples. Just seeing her made my day. One day I asked her if she would like to go to the movies with me. She looked surprised and asked if she could think about it.

I told her I understood. I was just a nice old man and she was trying to let me off nicely. That was okay.

"Oh, no, Charles, you got it all wrong. I would love to go with you but I have to find someone to watch Ben and Marti. I haven't been out in what seems like ages. My kids come first and Mom has them all day and I don't know if she will want to watch them in the evening too."

"You sure it's not my age, Stacy?"

"I'm positive, Charles. I look forward to seeing you in here everyday."

"Okay then, little lady, tonight you tell Ben and Marti that we are going to take them to the movies, if you don't mind. By the way, call me Charlie. Doesn't sound as old." I could see tears growing in her eyes.

"Charlie, you would take my two rugrats too? Then, of course, the answer is yes. Saturday afternoon, the children will love it, they hardly ever get to go anywhere other than to mom's and the apartment. Thank you, Charlie" as she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then she said she had to get back to work.

Saturday I pulled into the projects and looked for their apartment. I really didn't like the area. I was a retired cop and knew the types that lived up here. It bothered me that Stacy was trying to raise her kids right and it would be that much harder trying to do it living here. Way too many bad examples.

As I pulled up to their apartment unit I saw two little faces staring out through the screen door. As I got out of the car all I heard from inside was, "He's here, mom, he's here. Hurry up before he leaves."

I had to laugh - the kids were so afraid I wasn't going to wait. The little boy came running back to the door and said, "Mom will be right here, sir. I'm not allowed to unlock the door for strangers."