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By Root 291 0

moral man with a good job was all a woman should reasonably expect. And maybe in the past, those were all the qualities that someone could expect. But Lexie didn’t want to settle for someone simply because he was kind and decent and had a good job. Who knows—maybe she had unrealistic expectations, but Lexie wanted to feel passion for him as well. No matter how kind or responsible a man was, if she didn’t feel any passion, she couldn’t help but think that she’d be “settling” for someone, and she didn’t want to settle. That wouldn’t be fair to her and it wouldn’t be fair to him. She wanted a man who was both sensitive and kind, but at the same time could sweep her off her feet. She wanted someone who would offer to rub her feet after a long day at the library, but also challenge her intellectually. Someone romantic, of course, the kind of guy who would buy her flowers for no reason at all.

It wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

According to Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Good Housekeeping—all of which the library received—it was. In those magazines, it seemed that every article stated that it was completely up to the woman to keep the excitement alive in a relationship. But wasn’t a relationship supposed to be just that? A relationship? Both partners doing everything they could to keep the other satisfied?

See, that was the problem with many of the married couples she knew. In any marriage, there was a fine balance between doing what you wanted and doing what your partner wanted, and as long as both the husband and the wife were doing what the other wanted, there was never any problem. The problems arose when people started doing what they wanted without regard to the other. A husband suddenly decides he needs more sex and looks for it outside of the marriage; a wife decides she needs more affection, which eventually leads to her doing exactly the same thing. A good marriage, like any partnership, meant subordinating one’s own needs to that of the other’s, in the expectation that the other will do the same. And as long as both partners keep up their end of the bargain, all is well in the world.

But if you didn’t feel any passion for your husband, could you really expect that? She wasn’t sure. Doris, of course, had a ready answer. “Trust me, honey, that passes after the first couple of years,” she would say, despite the fact that, to Lexie’s mind, anyway, her grandparents had the kind of relationship that anyone would envy. Her grandfather was one of those naturally romantic men. Until the very end, he would open the car door for Doris and hold her hand when they walked through town. He had been both committed and faithful to her. He clearly adored her and would often comment on how lucky he was to have met a woman like her. After he passed on, part of Doris had begun to die as well. First the heart attack, now worsening arthritis; it was as if they’d always been meant to be together. When coupled with Doris’s advice, what did that mean? Did that mean Doris had simply been lucky in meeting a man like him? Or had she seen something in her husband beforehand, something that confirmed he was the right one for her?

More important, why on earth was Lexie even thinking about marriage again?

Probably because she was here at Doris’s house, the house she’d grown up in after her parents had died. Cooking with her in the kitchen was comforting in its familiarity, and she remembered growing up thinking that she would one day live in a house like this. Weathered planking; a tin roof that echoed the sound of rain, making it seem that it was raining nowhere else in the world; old-fashioned windows with frames that had been painted so many times that they were almost impossible to open. And she did live in a house like that. Well, sort of, anyway. At first glance, it would seem that Doris’s home and hers were similar—they were built in the same era—but she’d never been able to replicate the aromas. The Sunday afternoon stews, the sun-dried scent of sheets on the bed, the slightly stuffy smell of the ancient rocker where her grandfather