A Real Story

I joined OurTime three weeks after my husband’s memorial, which in hindsight was either too soon or exactly the right amount of soon, I still can’t decide. My daughter set up the profile because I refused to type the word ‘widow’ into anything, so she wrote ‘recently on my own’ instead, which felt like a fair compromise. I picked five photos, all from a cruise we’d taken in 2016, because apparently I hadn’t been photographed since.

A man named Walt messaged me about the crossword puzzle book visible on my nightstand in photo four, not my face, not my dog, the actual crossword book. He asked if I did the Sunday New York Times in pen or pencil, and I said pen, obviously, and he said ‘reckless’ and I laughed out loud alone in my kitchen for the first time in months. We talked for two weeks before meeting, mostly about clues we’d gotten stuck on, before he suggested a diner near his place that apparently has bottomless coffee and a waitress named Donna who’s worked there since Reagan.

The first date lasted four hours and involved him taking his hearing aid out to show me the model, unprompted, saying ‘might as well get the embarrassing stuff out of the way early.’ I appreciated that more than any flowers he could’ve brought. We’ve done pancakes every Sunday since, six months now, and last week he brought his own crossword pen to leave at my place, like he was staking a claim on my kitchen table. I didn’t expect OurTime to work, honestly, I thought it was where you go to be disappointed politely. Instead I got a 68-year-old man with a hearing aid and terrible taste in crossword pens, and I’ll take it.