“You must have some kind of fetish for old women,” she teased him, “but I’m happy you do.” She was in good shape and her body was still beautiful, but seventy was not twenty-two. And at his age, he could have had any woman he wanted. Men his age were constantly marrying young women and having new families, but Peter had all he wanted in her. She was the only woman he had been with since marrying Emily thirty-six years before. They were faithful to each other, as they had been to their spouses, and they shared many of the same ideas.
And they made love again on Sunday morning before he left to play golf with friends. She had promised to have lunch with Maribelle, and after she kissed Peter goodbye, she drove to Long Island, thinking about him. It had been a lovely weekend. It always was. She wondered sometimes if it was better because they knew they couldn’t have more, so they appreciated what they had. There was none of the strife that happened sometimes with couples. They never fought. They just had a good time together, and before they knew it, ten years had gone by.
* * *
When Olivia got to Maribelle’s, she was just finishing a game of cards. She had been playing bridge all morning, and poker the night before.
“Mother, you’re turning into a card shark,” Olivia teased her as they went to Maribelle’s apartment for a quiet lunch. Maribelle liked being alone with her, without having her friends drop by their table every five minutes in the main dining room. Everyone wanted to meet Olivia. Maribelle wanted her to herself.
“I heard all about the trip from Liz,” Maribelle said happily. “It sounds fabulous. I looked up the yacht on the Internet. What a gorgeous boat. The owner is a very interesting person too.” When she wasn’t playing cards, she was exploring the Internet on Google, and telling everyone what she learned. Olivia smiled as she listened to her. Her mother was interested in everything about life, and anything that involved young people and what they were doing. She had read Liz’s book and loved it. She agreed with her agent and her mother, and said it could be a huge best seller. And what Olivia valued in her mother was that she was not only full of life, and had a positive view of things, but that she was a wise woman too.
“I had an interesting week,” Olivia said to her. She had decided to tell her about Phillip and his discovery of her affair with Peter.
“You always do,” Maribelle said to her, but she could see in her daughter’s eyes that there was something more she wanted to share with her.
“I had a big fight with Phillip a few days ago,” she confessed in a quiet voice.
“That’s not unusual,” her mother commented. He had been the original angry young man, and had not improved with age. He hadn’t mellowed much over the years.
“This was a bit unusual,” Olivia admitted with a sigh, and then plunged in. “There’s something I’ve never told you. I didn’t think it was important. I thought ‘discretion was the better part of valor,’ as you used to say, was the right course to take.”
“My grandmother taught me that. She was a very wise woman, and lived to be very old. So what were you being discreet about?” She was curious, although she had suspected something for years and was wise enough not to ask.
“I’ve had an affair with Peter Williams for the past ten years. We’ve kept it very quiet. We see each other once or twice a week. He’s a good man, and he’s been very kind to me. I love him, although differently than Joe, of course. We were married forever and had kids. This is not the same.” She wanted to make sure her mother knew that, out of respect to Joe.
“I wouldn’t expect it to be. You were a kid when you married Joe. And so was he. You two grew up together. It’s never the same with adult relationships, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love each other. Just differently. People get married here all the time. Everybody loves the idea of love, at every age. A couple got married last month, she’s ninety-one and he’s ninety-three, they don’t expect it to last forever, but they wanted to get married. Love is different at every age, but it’s still