His handshake made me believe in love again.
From that day on, I no longer felt alone.
James was still a lame man, still more silent than talkative, but he was the strongest shoulder in my life.
Every morning I made him bread and he made me coffee.
We never said the word “I love you,” but every little gesture was filled with love.
One day, while I was watching him repair an old radio for a neighbor, I suddenly realized:
Love doesn’t have to come early, it just has to come to the right person.
And perhaps the most beautiful thing in a woman’s life is not to marry someone in her youth, but to find someone who makes her feel safe – even if it’s late.
Ten years after that rainy evening
Time passes like the wind through the maple trees.
It’s been ten years since that rainy night when I – Sarah Miller Parker – held that lame man’s hand and started my life over.
Today, the small wooden house on the outskirts of Burlington, Vermont, is filled with the golden colors of autumn.
Every morning, James still makes me a cup of hot tea – prepared his way: not-too-boiling water, a faint hint of cinnamon, a thin slice of orange.
He says:
“Autumn tea should taste like home: a little warm, a little bitter, and full of love.”
seeing his hair become even grayer and his gait still limping.
But I never saw a “flaw” in those legs – only a man who is always by my side, even when life is unstable.
For ten years, our lives have been simple:
He still works as an electronics repairman and I run a small pastry shop in the city center.
In the afternoon we sit on the porch, sip tea and listen to the maple leaves fall.
But this fall is different.