I used to think a locked door was just a locked door.<\/p>\n
Then I met a man who could make me feel loved while keeping half his life hidden from me.<\/p>\n
His name was Wendell.<\/p>\n
And for longer than I care to admit, I let myself believe I understood him.<\/p>\n
My husband, Dwight, had been dead long enough for people to stop asking whether I was doing all right.<\/p>\n
At first, everybody asked.<\/p>\n
They called to check on me. They brought casseroles I barely touched. They told me I was stronger than they could imagine.<\/p>\n
I thanked them because that was what a widow was supposed to do.<\/p>\n
Then the calls became less frequent.<\/p>\n
The casseroles stopped.<\/p>\n
And people began talking to me about ordinary things again, as if the world had finally decided I was allowed to be part of it.<\/p>\n
I was grateful for that.<\/p>\n
I was also lonely.<\/p>\n
There is a difference between being alone and being lonely, although I had never understood it until Dwight was gone.<\/p>\n
Being alone meant eating supper at my kitchen table with the television playing in the next room.<\/p>\n
Being lonely meant hearing something funny on television and turning toward the empty chair beside me before remembering there was nobody there to laugh with.<\/p>\n
I did that more often than I admitted.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I still bought the kind of coffee Dwight liked.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I caught myself planning meals for two.<\/p>\n
And sometimes I got angry with him for leaving me, even though I knew he hadn't chosen to die.<\/p>\n
That was the part I never said out loud.<\/p>\n
Grief made me unreasonable.<\/p>\n
It also made me ashamed of wanting something new.<\/p>\n
People seemed to expect a widow to carry her sadness neatly, like a purse she could set down when company arrived.<\/p>\n
I tried.<\/p>\n
I really did.<\/p>\n
But the house grew quieter every month, and I began to understand that surviving a loss wasn't the same as living.<\/p>\n
Then Wendell came into my life.<\/p>\n
There was nothing dramatic about the way we met.<\/p>\n
No thunderstorm. No spilled drink. No ridiculous story I could tell later to make our beginning sound like something from a movie.<\/p>\n
He was simply a man I encountered, and then encountered again.<\/p>\n
He spoke to me like I was still a woman with a future.<\/p>\n
Not somebody's poor widow.<\/p>\n
Not a person who needed to be handled carefully.<\/p>\n
Just Winona.<\/p>\n
I had forgotten how much that mattered.<\/p>\n
Wendell wasn't flashy.<\/p>\n
He wore old shirts, drove a practical vehicle, and seemed perfectly comfortable with silence.<\/p>\n
He didn't try to impress me with stories about money or accomplishments.<\/p>\n
He didn't pretend to be younger than he was.<\/p>\n
There was something reassuring about a man who didn't seem to be selling himself.<\/p>\n
Looking back, I realize how little it took to win my trust.<\/p>\n
A patient listener.<\/p>\n
A kind word.<\/p>\n
A man who remembered something I'd mentioned days earlier.<\/p>\n
I had been hungry for those things.<\/p>\n
And I mistook that hunger for good judgment.<\/p>\n
Our first few conversations were ordinary.<\/p>\n
We talked about the weather, the price of groceries, and the small frustrations that come with getting older.<\/p>\n
Wendell had a dry sense of humor.<\/p>\n
He could say something mildly ridiculous without changing his expression, then wait for me to catch up.<\/p>\n
I laughed more around him than I had in months.<\/p>\n
That surprised me.<\/p>\n
It surprised me even more when I began looking forward to seeing him.<\/p>\n
At first, I told myself it was harmless.<\/p>\n
A little company couldn't hurt anybody.<\/p>\n
I was not replacing Dwight.<\/p>\n
I wasn't trying to erase our marriage.<\/p>\n
I was simply allowing myself to enjoy an afternoon without feeling guilty about it.<\/p>\n
That was how I explained it to myself.<\/p>\n
The truth was that I wanted to be wanted again.<\/p>\n
I wanted somebody to notice when I changed my hair.<\/p>\n
I wanted somebody to ask whether I had eaten.<\/p>\n
I wanted to hear my name spoken with affection instead of sympathy.<\/p>\n
Wendell did those things without making a performance of them.<\/p>\n
He noticed when I was tired.<\/p>\n
He listened when I spoke.<\/p>\n
And when I mentioned Dwight, he never acted as though the name was an inconvenience.<\/p>\n
That mattered to me.<\/p>\n
A woman doesn't stop loving the man she buried just because another man makes her smile.<\/p>\n
I needed to believe that.<\/p>\n
Wendell never asked me to choose between the past and the present.<\/p>\n
He seemed to understand that Dwight would always have a place in my life.<\/p>\n
Perhaps that was why I trusted him so quickly.<\/p>\n
There was no competition.<\/p>\n
No awkward questions about what my marriage had been like.<\/p>\n
No attempt to make himself the center of every conversation.<\/p>\n
For a while, I thought I'd finally met someone who understood how complicated it was to begin again.<\/p>\n
Then I noticed something strange.<\/p>\n
Whenever I asked about his house, he changed the subject.<\/p>\n
It wasn't always obvious.<\/p>\n
Sometimes he would answer with a joke.<\/p>\n
Other times, he would ask me about something else, and the conversation would move along before I realized my question had gone unanswered.<\/p>\n
The first time, I barely noticed.<\/p>\n
The second time, I wondered about it.<\/p>\n
By the third, I was paying attention.<\/p>\n
I didn't ask to inspect his home.<\/p>\n
I didn't expect a tour or an invitation to spend every evening under his roof.<\/p>\n
I simply wanted to see where he lived.<\/p>\n
I had shown him my kitchen, my sitting room, and the little patch of garden I kept trying to make look respectable.<\/p>\n
He had sat at my table and drunk coffee from my cups.<\/p>\n
He had seen the photographs of Dwight that I kept on the shelf.<\/p>\n
He had been inside my world.<\/p>\n
But I had never crossed his front door.<\/p>\n
Whenever I suggested visiting him, Wendell became uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
He tried to hide it, but I could see the change in his face.<\/p>\n
His smile would tighten.<\/p>\n
His shoulders would rise slightly.<\/p>\n
Then he would explain that his place wasn't suitable for visitors.<\/p>\n
There was always a reason.<\/p>\n
Something needed repairing.<\/p>\n
Something had been left in a mess.<\/p>\n
He hadn't had time to straighten things up.<\/p>\n
I accepted those explanations because I didn't want to seem demanding.<\/p>\n
I was old enough to know that everybody had private matters.<\/p>\n
I was also old enough to know that a person could make excuses for almost anything when they wanted to believe the best.<\/p>\n
Wendell never seemed embarrassed about the condition of his clothes or his vehicle.<\/p>\n
He didn't seem ashamed of having an ordinary life.<\/p>\n
That made his reluctance harder to understand.<\/p>\n
If he had been living in a palace, I might have suspected he was showing off.<\/p>\n
If he had been living in a room with a broken window and a leaking roof, I would have offered to help.<\/p>\n
But I had no idea what he was hiding.<\/p>\n
And that was the problem.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether he was protecting his privacy or keeping me away from something important.<\/p>\n
I asked myself those questions late at night.<\/p>\n
Then I told myself I was being foolish.<\/p>\n
Wendell was kind to me.<\/p>\n
He made me laugh.<\/p>\n
He never asked me for money or treated me as though my loneliness made me easy to use.<\/p>\n
I had no reason to accuse him of anything.<\/p>\n
So I kept seeing him.<\/p>\n
We spent time together whenever our schedules allowed it.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we talked for hours.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we barely spoke at all.<\/p>\n
I began to recognize his habits, the little pauses before he answered certain questions, the way he looked down when he was thinking, and the quiet expression that came over him when he believed nobody was watching.<\/p>\n
I found those things endearing.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know more.<\/p>\n
That was the part that frightened me.<\/p>\n
Wanting more meant risking disappointment.<\/p>\n
I had already learned what it was like to build a life around someone and then have that life taken away.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether I had the courage to start over if Wendell turned out to be someone I hadn't understood.<\/p>\n
But I was already attached to him.<\/p>\n
I was attached enough to defend him against suspicions I hadn't even voiced.<\/p>\n
If a friend wondered why I never visited his home, I said he was private.<\/p>\n
If somebody asked whether he had family nearby, I said I didn't know all the details yet.<\/p>\n
I made his silence sound reasonable.<\/p>\n
I made my ignorance sound temporary.<\/p>\n
And I convinced myself that eventually, when he felt comfortable, he would invite me in.<\/p>\n
I didn't realize how much of my relationship depended on that one promise I had made to myself.<\/p>\n
Wait long enough.<\/p>\n
Be patient enough.<\/p>\n
Don't ask for too much.<\/p>\n
Maybe then he'd let me see the rest of his life.<\/p>\n
I had spent so many years being Dwight's wife that I had forgotten how to ask what I deserved from a new relationship.<\/p>\n
I thought patience was proof of love.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it is.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it's just fear dressed up to look respectable.<\/p>\n
I didn't understand the difference yet.<\/p>\n
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