JoJo’s Mistress … ( another short story )

I am a widower with two full-grown married children, a son and a daughter, and I have three small grandchildren. My kids say it is time for me to run this personal ad. My wife of 29 years died unexpectedly last summer.

To give you some background, and to go back a bit, my wife and I were childhood sweethearts. I was President of the student council, and she was Editor of the school yearbook.

I will never forget that day when I walked into the classroom and saw her bent over those loose storyboards. The sunlight from the window gave her head a luminous halo. Corny I know, but true. As she looked up, it was clear that her mind was focused somewhere else. Women generally found me attractive at that age, I was the Senior President after all, and to see that she didn’t, well, it kind of got to me.

I spent the rest of that final term getting to know about her. I learned about her family, her friends, her haunts and her interests. The more I learned, the more I liked – she was a nice girl, from a middle-class family (her father owned two hardware stores), she was on the junior debating team, and moderately sportive. She played field hockey, left wing. Her friends were lively and flirtatious and normal. She liked to go to the cinema on discount-Tuesday and to the soda shop near the river after school on Fridays. She always spent the weekends with her family.

I never asked her out on a date because I knew she would have said no. But I waited.

At the end of the school year in my Valedictorian speech I made a subtle but direct allusion to the importance of the yearbook as a valuable keepsake in the years to come, “a talisman of remembrance to share with our children”. It worked. She came up to me afterwards. She looked at me as if she was seeing me for the first time and she told me how much she enjoyed my speech. Her face was glowing, her eyes wide open. I asked her out then and there. She looked down, smiled shyly, and said yes.

The rest, you might say, is history. We both went on to the same college. I took a business degree and she studied to be a librarian. We married in my graduating year and everyone we knew came to the wedding. It was a wonderful occasion. My older brother, Tom, was my best man. Jenny, her oldest friend, was her maid-of-honor. Jenny and Tom got married the following year.

We went on a week-long canoe trip to Algonquin Park for our honeymoon. At dusk we would stand on the shores of the lake, hold hands in an old-fashioned kind of way, and call out to the loons. Those haunting lovely birds would call right back. She was afraid later of the black bears in the night. I was too but I never let her know that.

I began to work as a junior accountant in the district branch of a large tax consulting office. I was quickly promoted to middle sales management, and was asked to move to Toronto. My wife, as a high school librarian, had managed to establish herself quickly too. I remember the morning that she told me that she was more than prepared to give up her first real job because she knew that my future in Toronto was going to get us further ahead than if we stayed put in town. She was right of course.

Our first apartment in the city was a size 6 shoebox in a run-down triplex, two small rooms with a windowless bathroom. But she soon made it comfortable and cozy. It was always a pleasure to come home, to know that she was there. She would cook up the most delicious hearty meals in that miniscule kitchenette on our meager budget. I would often bring home a bottle of cheap wine, and sometimes, flowers. On the summer weekends, Sundays, we would make a large picnic and take it over to Hyde Park on the streetcar. At the pond with the long-necked swans, she would sit down in the long grass, and carelessly flip the shoes off her pretty little feet. She would curl her tiny toes around the cool blades of grass and swoon in pleasure. Her face was the picture of ecstatic contentment. I loved her more than ever then.

Our first son was born in that little apartment. She woke me up and said, “I’m going to have the baby right now.” I tried to help her get up, dressed and to the hospital, but she just sat on the edge of the bed and said, “No. Here. I’m going to have the baby right here.” I called the ambulance and sat with her as the contractions got closer and closer. To watch her in that pain was just awful. That such pain could deliver such life was, and still is, a miracle to me. Anyway, the ambulance arrived and the paramedics took it from there – they cut the cord and spanked his bottom. He was a mighty yeller with a full crop of red hair and long nails. She was so happy she cried.

I was promoted again when our son turned three. I got a lot more money, much more travel, and greater overall responsibility. The CEO, at that time, said I could easily be President of the National office some day. At first, I resented the continued loss of family time, but there were definite advantages that we both could see. I was able to put a significant amount of money up front for the purchase of our first home that included a small backyard for the kids. And I was able to bring back items that I found while traveling that filled her eyes with pure delight. I remember once that I brought her a small perfect seashell that I’d found on a beach in Vancouver. She loved it so much that she said she wanted to wear it. I secretly bought a gold chain for it, threaded the shell, and gently slipped it around her neck one evening when she was standing at the sink doing the dishes. When she turned to hug me, the water from the sink sloshed all over the floor, my shoes and my new blue suit. But it didn’t matter. Her eyes were beaming.

Our daughter’s arrival saved our marriage. We had tried for a second child soon after our first, but the doctors had said there might be complications. Something about a scarred uterus. They told us to wait for five years. We did, though we were reluctant to wait for so long. When the doctors told us it was safe we tried and tried and tried. Some of those nights were tiresome chores let me tell you. It all became so scientific that all the fun fell out of it. That was a really bad time for us as I recall. We both got kind of snappy and short-tempered with each other. I would take weekend sales assignments just to get out of there. She would use our son as an excuse to make me come home again. It was a difficult thing to talk about. We wanted the family, we loved each other, we loved our life together, we just could not adjust to the fact that life was not going to work on our schedule. Our daughter was born at Christmas, a bundle of joy, with eyes and a smile just like her mother’s. Like I said, our daughter saved our marriage.

We moved to Oakville in the fall of 1987. I bought a big house on the lake with a white gazebo and a dog kennel. We had two cars, and my wife bought me a small sailboat. We called it ‘Joy’, and christened it with a bottle of expensive champagne on a sunny day in June. I would take the kids out in the evenings and we would watch the sun set over our new home. She would stand on the shore and wave us in, holding the flashlight steady as we tied up at the dock.

The kids were growing like weeds and she told me that she wanted to go back to work a few days a week. I didn’t object. She needed it to keep her mind working she said. She also organized a book club. A clutch of intelligent women would come on Thursday nights on the third week of every month. I quietly joined the Golf Club and would go and swing a few clubs, and have a few drinks with Tom and the boys. I agree that our dinner conversations did get more interesting. We both got increasingly interested in politics. I was Conservative and she was a Liberal. We would argue playfully and make up quickly if it got too intense. (We never did agree about Trudeau.)

My son joined the debating team at school, and my daughter began piano lessons. They were friendly, well-adjusted children and Jojo, the puppy, became my wife’s third child. We all just seemed to chug along contentedly. I hired a gardener to mow the vast lawn. My wife had a large flower garden with peonies. She so loved their aroma that every year she would get the gardener to add a new patch. The lawn got smaller and smaller.

My son broke his shoulder in his final year of high school while playing football. It took a long time to heal. He was so discouraged and depressed. But she never let him forget his potential and she would spend hours with him discussing homework and life and even his love life. When my daughter started dating I thought I was going to have a coronary. My wife said I terrified those young men who came a-courting. I soon learned that she and my daughter would conspire to make arrangements behind my back. I played the role and loved her the more for it.

On our 25th anniversary I told her I wanted another honeymoon. The kids were delighted. I was taking her to Europe, they were staying at home. I bought the tickets and we went to Paris for a week, then on to Venice, and finally London. She insisted we take a day trip out to Stratford to see Shakespeare’s birthplace. I remember we had an impromptu picnic on the south shore of the Avon River. When she removed her shoes and curled those tiny toes through the long blades of grass I told her I wanted us to have another child. She just laughed and laughed. I could have held her in my arms forever.

After our son married she cried for two solid days. She kept insisting she was so happy but I knew it was breaking her heart to finally see her little baby go. She took Jojo down to the water and walked up and down the dock until Jojo sat down and wouldn’t walk anymore. I was watching them from the kitchen window. She sat down beside Jojo and looked out over the waves. She stayed like that for several hours until I called her in for dinner. I made her favourite meal and we watched her favourite video, “Out of Africa”. She cried through most of it.

When our son had his first daughter she cried again for two solid days especially when he told us they were going to name the child after her. My daughter became engaged too at that time I remember. Her young man was a fine strapping young fellow who, my wife said, reminded her of me. I don’t know about that. He is a nice kid and everything, but not really much like me. My daughter says we have the same dry sense of humor. I think he’s rude sometimes, not funny. But everyone likes him, so, in the end, they too got married, and I have learned to tolerate him. They had Adam two years ago. Now there is one fantastic kid. He has red hair too.

I formally retired from my business three years ago at 65 years of age. We had more than enough money and I still manage a healthy stock portfolio that will carry on long into the next generation. My wife and I started playing a lot of golf and tennis together to keep ourselves fit. Her handicap was better than mine, though I could hit the ball further. She always beat me on the putts. Her tennis game was also better than mine, she was more agile on her feet. Though, truth be known, my serve was unstoppable.

When I first developed the knee trouble she began to take old Jojo out for his short morning walks. She even took out the garbage. I never asked her to, she just did it. When I finally had the surgery she brought in a big bowl of freshly cut peonies for the hospital staff. I think my doctor developed a bit of a crush on her. He kept calling her at home, asking about me while I was still in the hospital. I was bed ridden at home for three months after that and had to have intensive physiotherapy to learn to walk all over again. There were days when I was so frustrated I thought I would kill myself, but she would come out onto the verandah and just sit with me. I enjoyed her company but started to worry that maybe I was becoming a burden to her. I insisted that she go and play a few rounds of golf, maybe have lunch with Tom and Jenny.

And that’s when it happened. They had gone together for a short 9-hole game at the Club. It was hot and glorious day in the middle of July. The freak thunderstorm came up out of nowhere. They had run for cover under an old oak tree. Jenny said that as they were running my wife dropped something and turned back to get it. The rain was pelting down and visibility was non-existent. They called to her but she kept looking around frantically on the ground. The lightening struck her in the back of the head and she fell to the ground. No one doubts that she died instantly.

When Jenny gave me the necklace with the shell on it, my heart broke.

My children think I should run this personal ad now to try to find a new friend. They may be right. All I know is that I doubt I will ever again find such a dear sweet darling wife with such tiny perfect feet.

Kindly reply to Box 3045.

Thank you.