1. Taking Chances


    Date: 9/22/2015, Categories: Mature, Author: Sisyphus, Rating: 13, Source: LushStories

    accepting that this was just the way it is. She resented his dependence on her but ended up swallowing her disappointment and longing. Catherine loved romantic movies and often cried and dreamt of Robert Redford after seeing, “ The Way We Were ” and secretly wished Martin was more like him, or Cary Grant in “ An Affair to Remember ” and then realized how foolish she was being and tried accepting him as the dependable, good, kind man he was. But more and more, when he read the newspaper after dinner, or worked on his crossword puzzle, she’d notice his belly, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, the way he would tug at his ear, or scratch his thin graying hair while thinking or watching television, and again she’d sigh, closing her eyes, aware that intensity was missing in her life. Where was the passion and romance that gripped her when she turned the pages in the books she devoured? It was clear they loved each other, but Catherine no longer felt in love . At fifty-five, she missed the intensity she'd felt at twenty-two, the excitement of falling in love, the newness of discovering each other. Though she valued the peace and contentment of having everything she needed, the wonderful home, a loving husband, an interesting job and no financial worries, more and more she felt the sky was gray when she wanted to see a rainbow. So, when Thomas Quimby sat down on the bench across from her in the park, two days after she had celebrated her thirty-fourth anniversary, opened a ...
    black covered notebook and started writing, she felt a sudden spark that surprised her. She glanced at him while eating her yogurt. He seemed so intense, writing quickly, concentrating. He occasionally looked at the pigeons strutting and pecking by his feet, or he looked up at the sky as if searching for a word, then immediately he would go back to writing. She noticed the way he tugged at his short, gray beard and narrowed his eyes in concentration. She could tell he was crossing out words by his intense scribbling on the page, shaking his head as if saying a definite “no,” before he continued writing. She liked how oblivious he seemed to be of the people walking past him, the children running or wobbling on their bicycles, mothers pushing carriages, or teenagers walking through the park, carrying iPods with ear plugs, or talking on their cell phones, or texting. Nothing brought his gaze away from the page where he was writing. She noticed his wire-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose and his quick pushing them back in place. His partially white hair was somewhat wild and long and hung over his ears and curled up slightly at his shoulders. His beard was trimmed, but still, he had a slightly disheveled look about him, as if not much mattered but his writing. At the same time, he seemed distinguished, scholarly, or artistic, but definitely not ordinary. For some reason she couldn’t take her eyes off of him, but then, when he stopped writing for a moment and looked at her, she ...
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