Unremarried Widow Read Free

his quickness, his brightness. I thought about the way his skin felt beneath my fingertips. I waited for him to call.
    Monday came and went. And Tuesday. By Wednesday, I’d entered that place women go when we decide the world has contrived to keep us single for the rest of our lives. When my phone rang that evening, I’d nearly given up on the boy from the club. But there was Miles, and all that worry, all that irrational fear, disappeared.
    â€œI just thought I’d call and see how your week was going,” he said.
    I had the impression the line was rehearsed, that he had gone through several versions before calling, trying each one out, feeling the heft of them in his mouth.
    â€œIt’s going all right,” I said.
    Casual, too, as if I hadn’t imagined the conversation from every angle. We worked like that for half an hour, easing into the talk, seeing how we might fit together.
    â€œWhat are you doing this weekend?” Miles said finally.
    My stomach folded in on itself, the way it does when I’m nervous or excited.
    â€œI don’t know yet,” I said. “What are you up to?”
    â€œWe’re coming back down to Tallahassee,” he said. “Me and some guys from flight school. I was wondering if I could see you again.”
    I smiled, and I knew he could hear it in my voice.
    â€œThat would be great.”
----
    Miles came to my apartment the next Saturday afternoon. He carried two long-stemmed roses he had bought at a gas station on the drive down.
    â€œLet me put these in water,” I said.
    I turned away so he wouldn’t see me blush.
    We set out across town in his pickup, and I asked about his family.
    â€œMy dad’s a pilot for Southwest Airlines,” he said.
    â€œNo kidding? My dad was a pilot too.”
    â€œWho’d he fly for?”
    â€œEastern,” I said. “But that was back in the day. He died when I was five.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that.”
    I shook my head. “It was a long time ago.”
    Miles told me about growing up in the Texas Panhandle across the border from Oklahoma. I told him about my half siblings, two brothers and a sister, much older than I am and scattered across the country. He talked about flight school in Alabama where he was learning to fly Apaches, the Army’s attack helicopters. I understood only vaguely that he was training for war. We drove to a park north of the city and pulled alongside an empty pavilion. The sun had lowered in the sky by the time we found a footpath that ran through the woods. Dry leaves had fallen across the trail and they crackled beneath our feet as we walked. Miles pushed aside a hanging branch and held it for me as I passed.
    â€œDo you go to church?” he asked.
    He let the branch go and caught up to walk beside me.
    â€œI’m a spiritual person,” I said, “but I don’t go to church.”
    Miles pressed. “Do you believe in God?”
    I could tell it mattered to him what I said, as if this were some minimum requirement.
    â€œYes,” I said. “My mom went to church every Sunday growing up. I was raised in a Christian house.”
    A hedge, but not a lie. I run more New Age light than biblical. Butit must have been enough because on the way back to the truck, Miles took my hand. He slid his fingers between mine as the last light of day seeped through the trees, and he held my hand the entire way home. Later that night, when his breath had evened beside me and he had relaxed into sleep, he held it still.
    The next morning I stood at the stove in my kitchen while Miles sat at the breakfast bar. He told me stories about Texas while I fried eggs in a pan. I salted a pot of boiling water for grits, and my roommates joined Miles at the bar. I dished out plates for everyone and all of it—the rowdy boys behind me, the grease popping on the stove, the butter melting in a dish—felt right. It looked nothing like the