Our elderly neighbor invited us to dinner, but minutes after we arrived, my husband rushed into the kitchen and insisted we leave. Then he showed me a wedding photograph on her wall. The groom looked exactly like him, but I wasn’t the bride. What was going on?
“We have to leave. Right now.”
My husband, Johnny, appeared in our elderly neighbor’s kitchen with a look I’d never seen.
I was arranging plates for dinner.
Margaret, our hostess, was checking something in the oven.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“Please, just come with me.”
He caught my hand and led me into the living room. His fingers were trembling.
He stopped in front of a photograph hanging beside the fireplace.
It showed a bride and groom standing under a flower-covered arch.
The groom was my husband.
Except I had never seen that wedding, and the woman beside him wasn’t me.
I turned toward Johnny.
“What is this?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
Before I could ask another question, Margaret appeared in the doorway.
She followed our gaze to the photograph, and her expression changed.
“Oh, Johnny,” she said quietly. “I hoped we’d have dinner first.”
Three weeks earlier, Johnny and I had moved into a neighborhood filled with old houses and enormous trees.
Margaret lived across the street in the prettiest house of all.
It was painted pale pink, with a carefully tended garden and little stone statues between the flowers.
Everyone called her the Pink Lady.
She was 75, widowed, and apparently comfortable enough to spend her days gardening, reading, and cooking.
She was also one of the few neighbors who welcomed us personally.
The afternoon after we moved in, she appeared with homemade cookies.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” she said.
Then she glanced behind me.
“Is your husband around?”
“Oh, Johnny? He’s at work.”
“No need to bother him. I’m just glad Johnny will get some cookies too.”
I briefly wondered how she knew his name.
But we had introduced ourselves to several neighbors, and I assumed someone had mentioned him.
A few weeks later, Margaret left a handwritten dinner invitation.
Johnny immediately refused.
“We’ll eat weird old-people food and listen to stories about how everything was better in 1974.”
“She’s lonely,” I argued. “It’s one evening.”
Eventually, he agreed.
Margaret greeted us at the door, hugged me, and shook Johnny’s hand.
She held his hand slightly longer than necessary.
“You look so much like…” she began.
Then she stopped.
“Come inside. Dinner’s almost ready.”
Her house was beautiful, filled with polished wooden furniture, embroidered cushions, and fresh flowers.
But something seemed missing.
There were almost no family photographs downstairs.
Margaret invited me into the kitchen while Johnny wandered toward the living room.
Five minutes later, he came to look for me.
And now we were standing under a photograph that seemed impossible.
