L.A. Affairs: At 77, I had a crush on my best friend’s widower. Did he feel the same way?
At 77, I had given up. After two failed marriages and years of unsuccessful dating, I accepted what seemed to be my fate: single for almost 40 years and single for however many remained. You don’t get it all, I told myself. I was grateful for family, friends and work. Life settled into what felt like order.
Until Ty.
As the husband of my best friend, he was no stranger, but he was usually peripheral. Then 10 years ago, my friend got lung cancer. I watched during visits, stunned at how nurturing Ty could be, taking care of her even though they had separated years before at her request.
I’m polyamorous; my husband and I date and have relationships with other people. I was holding my husband’s hand when I saw a man who caught my attention.
After she died, Ty and I stayed in touch sporadically: a surprise sharing of his second granddaughter a year after we scattered my friend’s ashes, an invitation to the launch of my book a year later. Ty attended, hovering in the back, emerging after everyone left to attentively help load my car.
Two more years passed. During quiet moments, I remembered his sweetness. I also remembered his handsome face and long, tall body. Confused about what I wanted, I texted Ty, who’s an architect, under the guise of purchasing a tree for my backyard.
We spent an afternoon at the nursery, laughing, comparing options and agreeing on a final selection. When the tree arrived, I emailed a photo. He emailed a thank you.
Another three years passed, broken only by news of his third granddaughter and my memories of how good it felt to be with him. Alert to his attentiveness, but unsettled by both his remove and my growing interest, I risked reaching out again, this time about remodeling my garage.
I was walking home when a handsome man stopped to pay me a compliment. In the days leading up to our date, I kept wondering if we would have a fairy-tale connection.
Ty spent several hours at my house making measurements, checking the foundation and sharing pictures of his home in Topanga. His sketches for the garage arrived two weeks later via email.
I was grateful for his help but unsure over what sort of friendship we were developing, at least from his point of view. I, however, was clear. I wanted him to wrap his long arms around me, tell me sweet things and make me his.
Instead, I sent a gift card to a Topanga restaurant to thank him for his drawings.
“Maybe we should spend it together,” he texted.
We dined in the dusk of late summer. Our talk was easy. Discomfort lay in the unspoken. Anxious for clarity, I repeatedly let my hand linger near the candle flickering in the middle of our table. It remained untouched.
And that was as far as I was willing to go. I refused to be any more forward, having already compromised myself beyond my comfort level with what seemed, at least to me, embarrassingly transparent efforts to indicate my interest. Not making the first move was very important. If a man could not reach out, if he didn’t have the self-confidence to take the first step, he would not, I adamantly felt, be a good partner for me.
Two weeks later, Ty did email, suggesting an early evening hike in Tuna Canyon in Malibu. The setting was perfect. Sun sparkled off the ocean. A gentle breeze blew. We climbed uphill for sweeping coastal vistas and circled down to the shade of live oaks, touching only when he took my hand to steady me where the path was slippery. At the end of the trail, overlooking the juncture between the mountains and the sea, we stood opposite each other and talked animatedly for almost an hour, both of us reluctant to part.
I had dated fun boys, toxic boys and all-the-wrong boys. But I wanted a partner who calmed my nervous system instead of someone who gave me a flurry of butterflies that dissipated.
Our conversation was engaging, but my inner dialogue was louder. When, I kept thinking, is this man going to suggest we continue the evening over dinner? We didn’t have to go out. We could eat at his house. It was 7 p.m., for God’s sake. Passing hikers even stopped to remark on our matching white hair and how well they thought we looked together. It was like a movie scene where the audience is yelling, “Kiss her, kiss her,” rooting for what they know is going to happen while the tension becomes almost unbearable. But bear it I did.
Each of us ate alone.
A few weeks later, at his suggestion, we were back at Tuna Canyon. This time Ty did invite me to end the evening at his house. Sitting close on his couch, but not too close, we drifted toward each other in the darkening room. His shoulder brushed mine reaching for his cup of coffee. My hip pressed his as I leaned in for my tea. Slowly, sharing wishes and hopes for our remaining years, we became shadows in the light of the moon. And in that darkness, in that illuminated space, he reached out.
This reticent man, this man who was so slow to move toward me, this sensitive man who hid himself behind layers so opaque I was unsure of his interest, released all that he had inside him.
I’m in my early 30s and I’ve never been married. Was dating a divorced man with kids asking for trouble? Some of my friends seemed to think so.
“I wanted you,” Ty repeated again and again. “I was afraid of ruining things. You were her best friend. I didn’t want to lose your friendship.”
Our pent-up tension exploded.
Stunned and thrilled, I leaned into the space he opened.
Three years later, it is a space we continue to share: a place where neither of us has given up, a place where he wraps me in his long arms, a place we hold carefully against our diminishing days.
The author is the owner of a preschool in Venice as well as a psychotherapist, photographer and writer. Her first book, “Naked in the Woods: My Unexpected Years in a Hippie Commune,” was published in 2015. Her newest manuscript, “Bargains: A Coming of Aging Memoir Told in Tales,” is seeking a publisher. She lives in Mar Vista and can be found at margaretgrundstein.com, Instagram @margwla, Medium @margaretgrundstein and Substack @mgrundstein.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
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