Eleanor was an eighty-four year old widow. The first time I saw her she was wearing a beige wool skirt falling just below her knees, a plain white blouse, a brown cardigan, heavy stockings and sensible shoes. She was a large woman, not fat but big boned, and tall.

Summer had come to an end, my two boys were back in school – high school now – and my husband had finally gotten that management position which meant he was spending more time at work. All this left me feeling quite useless. Nobody seemed to need me anymore. I had been a housewife (or homemaker, or domestic engineer, or whatever the current politically correct term was) for the whole twenty years of my married life, and now my fortieth birthday loomed large in front of me. Something was missing in my life.

On top of all this, my best friend Shelly had just started a part time job at the coffee shop down the street, putting an end to our weekly visits. She told me they were hiring and that I should apply but I didn’t feel ready. I thought about scrap booking classes, or yoga, or aerobics to decrease my ever-expanding middle, but I couldn’t get excited about any of it.

So, after perusing the local newspaper one day, I decided that I would do some volunteering at the senior’s complex.

I didn’t know quite what to expect from Eleanor. Would she be senile or coherent? Would she be fun to be around or a bitter old woman?

Eleanor’s face seemed to light up, her blue eyes glowed as told me stories about growing up during the depression and what it was like during the war. She had been a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in a small town in rural Alberta. That was how she met Rudy, she told me. “He delivered wood to the schoolhouse and he took a fancy to me and he would come early in the morning on school days and light the fire in the old wood stove. He was so nice to me. He was only supposed to deliver wood once a week, but he came every day to start that stove so I wouldn’t have to. And I didn’t mind, you know, he was such a good looking chap.”

After a short silence I prompted her. “And you fell in love.”

“Well, after a while, yes. I mean, I was lonely, what with the war being on. And he was too.”

“He wasn’t in the service?” I asked.

“No, they wouldn’t take him because he wore glasses. Lucky for me. That he wore glasses I mean. I wasn’t a pretty girl, you see, and the less he could see of me the better.” She gave a short laugh. “I don’t really know what he saw in me. There was such a shortage of men around and plenty of girls.”

I spent every Wednesday afternoon for three months with Eleanor. She told me stories about her and Rudy. She would tell me the same stories week after week changing little details here and there, but I always listened eagerly, realizing how boring my own life really was. Oh, it wasn’t that bad, I had a good husband, a typical accountant, I suppose, but not romantic like Eleanor’s Rudy.

“Rudy would bring me wild flowers from the field – and occasionally he would pinch some out of someone’s garden for me. I would jump on the back of Rudy’s motorcycle – he didn’t have a car. It was during the war, you know, and gas was rationed. And we would go for a picnic.”

“What did you have to eat with all that rationing of food?”

“Sometimes I would make sandwiches and sometimes we would have nothing. Ellie, he would say – that’s what he liked to call me – Ellie, he would say, you’re all the picnic I need.”

On another visit she told me:

“Rudy would take me to the pictures and we would hold hands and occasionally he would put his hand on my knee.” She told me.

And on yet another:

“We would go down to the creek and peel our clothes off and go swimming on a hot summer day.” Eleanor mused.

But the one she loved to relate the most was:

“The best outing was when we took the train to the city and he took me to a fancy restaurant to eat. Oh, it was grand!” I marveled at the way she could describe the restaurant in detail and exactly what they ate.

“How long were you married?” I asked.

She appeared lost in her reverie looking out the window. “What?” She asked turning towards me, pouring us another cup of tea.

“How long were you married?”

Ellie thought for a moment and replied. “Forty-five years.”

There was a lull in the conversation. Eleanor seemed to have become quieter over the last few weeks. “And you never had children?” I asked.

“Children? No.” She sighed. “Perhaps God was angry with me for what Rudy and I had done.”

“I’m sure God wouldn’t deny you children for Rudy stealing flowers from someone’s garden. Or skinny dipping in the creek.” I said. She didn’t respond. She looked out the window as if reminiscing about those days long ago. In the silence I asked gingerly, “How long has your husband been…gone?”

She thought for a longer moment and said, “I expect it’s about fifteen years now.”

“And you still miss him.” It was a statement rather than a question.

Eleanor took a sip of her tea, a puzzled look on her face. “Who?”

“Rudy. Your husband.”

“Oh,” She patted my hand, “Rudy wasn’t my husband. Walter was my husband. He was overseas in the army.” Seeing the puzzled look on my face, she leaned towards me and whispered, as if someone might hear, “Rudy was my lover.”

I never learned more about either Rudy or Walter, for Eleanor died in her sleep that night. It was as if she had bared her soul to someone (me) and she was ready to leave this world at peace.

updated by @carolinejensen: 11/24/19 06:16:51PM