How She Knew He Was The One

He made her sister's wish come true

Photo by Tai's Captures on Unsplash

"He wasn't the tallest. He wasn't the handsomest," Arlene told me about the man she married. "But he was the kindest."

She gazes out the kitchen window, takes a sip from her mug and collects her thoughts.

Arlene is a serene woman and one of the few I have known in my lifetime who has an enviable marriage. I can count those on one hand.

"We'd grown up with nothing. My parents were good, hard working people but they lost everything before we, my sister and I, were in high school.

"Mom and Dad worked and scrapped and did their best, but recovery was slow. We had a roof, water, lights, food but nothing more, even with both of them working."

"Ed lived in the neighborhood. He was always polite. 'A nice boy,' my mother would say. We liked each other but he worked throughout high school and though we 'kept company,' we didn't spend a lot of time together.

"Ed was there the day that my sister, Yvonne, came home from school, long faced.

"Why so glum?" I asked her.

She'd been invited to prom, she said. She liked the boy and she really wanted to go but she'd had to decline the invitation.
 
Why? Ed wondered.
 
I can't afford a dress or shoes, Yvonne told him. And that was that -- Yvonne was disappointed but she accepted it.

The next day, a delivery man showed up at the door. He was carrying a couple of boxes from Leon's, a high end clothing store for women.

They were for Yvonne: a beautiful dress and shoes to match. The note just said Enjoy the prom! but there was no signature.

"Of course, Yvonne is elated. She calls the boy back and asks if the invitation is still good. It is."

And we’re all wondering who Yvonne’s benefactor could be.

“The shoes didn’t quite fit so when Yvonne went to the store to exchange them, she asked the saleswoman who had done this? Who bought the dress, the shoes? But the saleswoman just smiled and said she wasn’t at liberty to say.”

It was well after the prom that they put it together.

“We’d gone through a list of possibilities: Dad? Mom? Aunt Betty? Uncle Joe? None of them made sense considering the turn around was so fast. And Mom, Dad, Betty and Joe all clearly denied it.

"It didn't occur to us that it could be Ed — it was such a generous act and there was absolutely nothing in it for him. But he was there, we remembered, when Yvonne told us about the invitation that she'd had to decline. Who else could it be?

"I confronted Ed and it took him a while but he sheepishly admitted it," Arlene told me.

She asked him why?

He just shrugged and said that he'd seen how disappointed Yvonne was. He knew how it felt to want something that much.

"It just makes you ache when you want something so bad," he said.

So Ed took his savings and bought the dress, the shoes. Picked them out with the help of the saleswoman who wanted to know how tall, her build; her hair color and shoe size, which they guessed.

"Ed did it anonymously," Arlene said. "He wasn't looking for accolades, to be a hero. He gave without a thought for return.

"And that is when I knew that Ed was the one for me," Arlene told me.

I have always been a sucker for good love stories-enduring love stories-the type of love where, even 30 years later, each still lights up when the other walks into the room.

Those few that are in those rare relationships all agree: they like each other. They're friends. And they agree that being with each other is easy. Being with each other makes life easier.