“And then our relationship grew and changed. He knew I was struggling financially, and he kept giving me raises. I tried to give him advice about his business to justify them. I tried to help him turn things around and add a younger point of view. My suggestions were very modest, compared to what you’ve done, but it worked, and he was grateful. We worked very closely together for several years, and then we realized we were in love with each other. He told me he’d never leave her, he was afraid she’d kill herself if he did, and she might have. She was mentally very ill.
“At first, I felt terribly guilty for being involved with him, but we weren’t hurting anyone. We were careful, and respectful and discreet. He was wonderful to you. I just couldn’t find any reason to deprive myself of his love for me, just because it didn’t fit with the morality I’d grown up with. And he always said he’d marry me if he lived long enough to do so, and in the end, he didn’t. And no, it wasn’t the ideal thing. It would have been more respectable if we’d been married. But we loved each other just as much as if we had been. He was thirty years older than I was, and in some ways he was like a father to me, and a husband. He took better care of me than anyone ever had, and look what he did for me in the end. Was that so wrong? He stayed married until his wife died of influenza. He was kind to her till the end.”
“Why didn’t you marry him when his wife died? I always wondered about that.” It was the first time her mother had ever opened up with her in just that way. Olivia had had to wait until she was seventy to ask her mother the questions she had wondered all her life. It had been a long time coming, and Maribelle was forthcoming with her now.
“We were going to. But he wanted to wait until a year after his wife’s death. We even set the date. He had given me a ring, and we considered ourselves engaged, although we didn’t tell anyone, not even you. And then he died seven months after she did, so we never got married. But I loved him anyway.”
Olivia sat looking pensive. Her mother had just solved a mystery for her. And then as she looked down at her mother’s hand, she saw the ring and realized what it was. It was a band with three small diamonds on it. Her mother had worn it for most of her life. Maribelle nodded when she saw Olivia looking at it, and she looked wistful thinking of the man who had given it to her.
“Yes, that’s the ring. I never took it off again.”
“I just figured you liked things the way they were when you didn’t marry him. I never had the guts to ask you.”
“Of course I didn’t. It wasn’t respectable being the mistress of a married man in those days, and it isn’t now either. But sometimes you have no choice. If he’d had a viable marriage, it would have been an entirely different story, and I wouldn’t have done it. But he didn’t. His wife was certifiably insane. And it sounds like your friend has a similar situation. Would I have preferred to be married to Ansel? Of course. But I accepted the situation, just as you do. You’d probably rather be married too,” she said simply, but Olivia shook her head.
“Actually, no, I wouldn’t. At least I don’t think so. I like it like this. I’d like it better if he weren’t married. But I had marriage with Joe. I’m not sure I need that again at my age.”
“Well, I certainly don’t at mine,” Maribelle said, laughing, “although the oldest person to get married here was ninety-six. He married a youngster of eighty-two. I think he lived another three years, but I’ll bet they were happy years. And if they hadn’t gotten married, would they have been ‘immoral’? Was I? Technically, yes, and so are you. But technicalities are not real life. Life is about people, the decisions they make, and what they feel they have to do. As long as no one is getting hurt, the immorality is fine with me.” Her mother had just let her off the hook.