Happy Endings
You only get the chance to be happy a few times in your life. If you're lucky, you get it the second time out, and you get to spend your time with someone decent.
He flunked the first time around. Marriage to someone like Ardeth didn't suit Jay. Okay, I could say she was a crazy witch, and she was, but he can be annoying without even trying. Marty's a good kid, though, so I guess the end result was worth the aggravation they put each other through.
Alice Tompkins is the perfect second chance. She's been through enough pain with her ex-husband, and she's sweet, loyal, and caring. Everything Ardeth wasn't.
He seems to hesitate when he sits down in my chair; he's rolling something between his chubby fingers.
"Jay?"
"Oh, hi, Doris."
On a day like this, I wish he were my biological child. He seems lost, and a little sad, which is unusual for him.
"You seem a little out of it. What's going on?"
"Oh...well, you know that Alice and I have been going out for a few years now."
A few years? I supposed so; Penny was three when they met, and she's eight now. "Yeah."
"Yeah...I've been thinking of proposing to Alice."
I almost drop my comb. "Mazel Tov."
"But I don't know."
"Why?"
"Because of everything she went through with her first husband. What I went through with Ardeth,"
"That doesn't matter now. You know she's the one you love."
"Yes, and it isn't the kind of love as portrayed in last year's 'Porky's: In Love'." He shudders at the memory of that movie.
"And you know she loves you."
"I do!"
"Then why waste time? I used up half of my life, waiting for someone who wasn't going to come back. You both have a chance, and I don't want to see you waste it."
He thinks about this. "Doris, you're a wise woman." He leaves the chair.
"Wait! I didn't..."
"Never mind!"
I watch him rush out into the hallway, and then I hear him call Alice's name. The rest of their conversation is a mixture of garbled shouts of joy.
I wipe away a tear, despite myself. I always was a sucker for happy endings.