Later in life, I agreed to marry a man with disability — there was no love between us
Honestly, when I reached 40, I wasn’t even sure if I had the right to expect much of anything or anyone any more. I started wondering if having someone kind to lean on was better than spending the next decades of my life alone.
I still remember that rainy autumn afternoon when I nodded to my mother’s insisting to marry James as it was yesterday. The wedding, which he waited to happen for so long and I was still hesitant about was a small one. In fact, it wasn’t like anything I have ever imagined when I though of what my wedding would look like. I didn’t even wear a white dress, so you can imagine how simple that wedding was. There were only a few guests in attendance, close family and friends who shared a quiet dinner. Honestly, nothing about that day resembled a real wedding, yet, it was as real as it could be.
Later that night, I lay in our bedroom and listened to the soft rain. My heart was pounding and I was overwhelmed with feelings of curiosity, fear, and temptation. And that’s when James entered the room with a glass of water.
“Here,” he said as he handed me that glass. “Drink this. You must be exhausted.”
His voice was soft and resembled a gentle wind rustling through leaves. He then pulled up the blanket, switched off the lights, and sat at the edge of the bed.
The silence was all over the place. It was so quiet that I could hear my heart pounding.
But then his voice interrupted the awkward silence. “You can sleep, Sarah. I won’t touch you. Not until you’re ready.”
James then rolled onto his side, his back to me, keeping a distance as though he was afraid to touch me because deep down, he knew it would hurt me.
At that moment, I felt my heart melt. All those years, I saw him as “my last chance,” someone I only turned to when everything else failed, and yet, there he was, showing enormous strength in gentleness.
When I woke up, I went straight to the kitchen. That day didn’t resemble the previous one at all. There was no rain, but a lot of sunshine streaming to the curtains. On the kitchen table there was breakfast. An egg sandwich, a glass of warm milk, and a note.
“I went to the shop to fix a customer’s TV. Don’t go out if it’s still raining. I’ll be back for lunch.” – James.
I read that note over and over. For twenty years, I had cried because men had betrayed me. That morning, for the first time, I had cried because I had been loved.
James came home that evening, smelling of engine oil and welding smoke.
I looked into his loving eyes and said, “Come here… Sit beside me. I don’t want us to be two people sharing a bed. I want us to be wife and husband… for real.”
He stood still, and he seemed shocked by my words. “Sarah… Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
James held my hand, and because of that seemingly simple gesture, I started to believe in love again.
My life with James was peaceful and filled with little pleasures. Every morning, I baked bread, and he made coffee. We never said “I love you” to each other, but every smile, every walk, every cup of tea we shared in the afternoon at the porch was packed with those words.
One day, as I watched him fix an old radio for one of our neighbors, I realized that love doesn’t need to come early in life, it just needs to come in the right place.
Ten years have passed, and our life had fallen into this rhythm of simplicity and happiness. Our small wooden home was bathed in the warm colors of autumn. James was still brewing me tea every morning, a cup ever so lightly flavored with cinnamon and a thin slice of orange.
“Autumn tea has to taste like home,” he said one morning. “A little warm, a little bitter, and full of love.”
I smiled at him, noticing the gray in his hair and the familiar limp in his step. To me, there was no imperfection in those legs, only a man who stood strong with me, even when the world seemed to be a bit shaky.
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