I never expected to find love again at fifty-eight, especially not while hiding from my kids’ well-meaning attempts to get me “back out there.” That’s how I ended up at this remote mountain cabin in the first place – seeking solitude, not romance.
The first time I saw Christy, she was cursing at her car, her silver hair whipping around in the mountain breeze. I’d been chopping firewood (trying to look like I knew what I was doing) when I heard the distinct sound of someone having a very bad day.
“Need some help?” I called out, trying not to laugh at her creative use of profanity.
She spun around, cheeks flushed from both frustration and the cold. “Unless you’re a mechanic disguised as a lumberjack, I doubt it.”
“Well, I’m an accountant disguised as a lumberjack, but I did change a tire once in 1992.” That got a laugh out of her, and something in my chest shifted when I heard it.
It turned out her cabin was the only other occupied one within miles. Her radiator had overheated on the drive up, and she was as eager to escape her children’s matchmaking attempts as I was. “They mean well,” she said later that evening, warming her hands around a mug of coffee in my cabin. “But if I have to sit through one more dinner with their tennis instructor friend…”
“Or their ‘totally perfect for you’ yoga teacher?” I added, and we both laughed.
Days turned into weeks, and somehow, we fell into an easy rhythm. Morning hikes where we’d point out interesting birds to each other (usually getting the species completely wrong), afternoon card games where we’d both accuse the other of cheating (we were both right), and evening conversations by the fire that lasted until the early hours.
“You know what’s nice?” Christy said one night, curled up in what had become ‘her’ chair. “Not having to explain everything. You just… get it.”
I knew exactly what she meant. We shared the same reference points, the same cultural touchstones. We both knew what it was like to have loved and lost, to have raised children, to have lived full lives that somehow still felt unfinished.
But it wasn’t all deep conversations and meaningful glances. There was the time I tried to impress her by cooking and nearly burned down my cabin. Or when she convinced me to try yoga and I got stuck in a position that required her to call the local emergency services. The young paramedic’s face when he arrived to find two people our age crying with laughter on a yoga mat – priceless.
“We’re ridiculous,” she said after that incident, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Completely,” I agreed, still lying on the floor. “Want to go get pancakes?”
The real test came when our kids found out. My daughter’s text message read: “Dad, are you seriously dating someone you met in the woods? Have you learned nothing from true crime podcasts?”
Christy’s son was equally concerned: “Mom, please tell me you’re not living out the plot of a horror movie.”
We met their worry with matching Facebook profile pictures of us wearing hockey masks and holding chainsaws. They were not amused, but we thought it was hilarious.
As spring began to soften the mountain’s edges, we faced a decision. Our rental periods were ending, and real life was calling us back. We sat on my cabin’s porch, watching the sunset paint the sky in impossible colors.
“So,” I said, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. “What happens now?”
Christy reached over and took my hand, something she’d done a hundred times by now, but still made my heart skip. “Well, I was thinking… my house in the city has a much better kitchen than yours.”
“Are you insulting my cooking skills?”
“David, you set fire to pasta. That’s actually impressive in its own way.”
“Fair point.” I squeezed her hand. “But my place has a better garden.”
“Is this your roundabout way of suggesting we might need to see both properties? You know, to make an informed decision?”
“I mean, it’s only logical. We are responsible adults after all.”
She laughed that laugh that had first caught my attention months ago. “Responsible adults who met in the woods like characters in a romantic comedy?”
“Exactly.” I pulled her close. “Want to scandalize our children by moving in together?”
“Absolutely,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder. “But first, promise me one thing?”
“Anything.”
“We come back here every year. Same cabins, same mountain.”
Looking at her in the fading light, I felt that same shift in my chest I’d experienced the first time I heard her laugh. “Deal,” I said. “But next time, let’s make sure your car works first.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” she asked, and kissed me as the last rays of sun disappeared behind the mountains.