Page 88 of David's Love

She gestures in the direction of Eleanor’s house.

“I knew her since she had rented that house for herself. Her place was not bigger than mine, but she liked the location. Her neighbors. The fact that she had a short commute to the office. She made an offer to the owner and bought the property soon after that.”

She quietly breathes a sigh before she goes on.

“Eleanor had always been full of optimism and passionate about doing things and learning and experiencing life. She’d been single her entire life and had never complained about it. She loved her life, and that’s what David––I think––loved about her. I know I did.”

She stops to drink some coffee while I expect her to elaborate.

17

ELIZABETH

I studyher before moving my eyes to him.

His features are striking, his blue eyes unique and mystifying even then.

He seems at ease, although he’s not smiling. But nothing in his stance speaks of tension or turmoil in his life.

Interesting.

I don’t know if I would have the strength to have his poise under those circumstances.

I check the rest of the pictures in front of me.

David when he was sixteen. David behind the wheel in his first car. David playing sports. David mowing the lawn.

She slides another stack of photographs in front of me.

“She always wanted to have his pictures in print,” she says while I study every photograph. “She was good to him. Definitely better than my parents,” she adds, softly chuckling, a hint of dark humor in her voice.

My eyes peruse the photographs.

David becoming a man. The eighteen-year-old David had a cocked eyebrow, a lopsided smile, and sculpted abs.

He looked like trouble. And the glint in his eyes is familiar to me as it has survived the passing of time.

He was good looking even then, his blood outbursting with life. I look at him with tenderness I never thought I’d have in me. There’s a small age gap between the eighteen year old David and me as a twenty something year old as I am right now.

I wonder how we would’ve been if we were about the same age and met then.

Elizabeth and David.

David and Elizabeth.

Two crazy people madly in love.

Too young to understand what was happening to us.

In all fairness, I like the real-life age gap between us and the man he has become. The life he has lived. The stories he had carved out of his soul.

I relish how whatever he has gone through makes him softer and more understanding when it comes to me.

I like David, the complicated man, the fighter, the drifter finding his way after losing his bearings.

I revel in how he’s made a stop on the impressive highway of joys and sorrows called a well-lived life and looked in my direction, taking that exit, slowing down, changing his destination.

“He was cute,” I say curtly and push all the pictures away.

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