My husband, Walter, never once complained.

We met at a church picnic when I was twenty-six. He was a quiet, gangly man with big ears and a terrible singing voice. He worked as a pharmacist. He sat down next to me at the potato salad table and asked whether I thought the deviled eggs were safe to eat in that heat.

“I wouldn’t risk it,” I said. I had a napkin pressed against my mouth.

“Then I won’t,” he said. He looked at me. “You can put that down, you know. The napkin. I don’t mind.”

I’d been holding that napkin for two hours.

I put it down.

Walter kissed me good morning every single day for forty-three years. Whether I’d shaved or not. Whether I’d put on powder or not. He’d come into the kitchen in his bathrobe and kiss me right on the mouth, mustache and all, and say, “Good morning, Holly Jean.”

Once, years into our marriage, my cousin invited us to her daughter’s wedding. That morning, my upper lip looked particularly dark. I’d shaved it twice and it still showed through the powder. I sat on the edge of the bed in my good blue dress and told Walter I wasn’t going.

He didn’t argue.

He just went to the closet, got my coat, and held it out to me.

“Holly,” he said, “the bride invited you because she loves you. Nobody’s hiring you to model lipstick.”

I laughed in spite of myself.

I went to the wedding. I still checked my face in my compact six times during the ceremony. But I went.

Walter died nine years ago. A stroke, in his garden, among his tomato plants.

Afterward, I stopped thinking about romance completely. I was sixty-nine. I had my house, my roses, my church friends, and my granddaughter, Maddie, who came every Sunday. That was enough.

I could manage loneliness. I’d learned how.

What I couldn’t stand was the thought of another man studying my face and deciding whether I was acceptable.

I’d already had one man who didn’t care. I didn’t think I’d ever be lucky enough to find a second one.