Fix That, Would You?

Merging into a “relationship” at age 50 offers an eye-opener every day. I had (too much) experience in accepting a new person’s conditions and playbook — but I’d never known anyone like Dave. And he had two decades of management at “the college” behind him, as well as leadership roles at the local synagogue, but this seemed the first time he’d moved beyond a first date.

We knew we belonged together. Every day added more evidence.

Our opening moments of sharing good food at the River Run Restaurant and rapidly collecting good books for our new enterprise, while each of us devoured new information on networks of Vermont authors, mystery and crime fiction, and poetry, laid solid groundwork: We loved this. At first, the heady exhilaration of searching for and purchasing titles and going to author readings, to get our books signed, carried us even more vividly than the romance pulsing under the surface.

Dave felt very clever, that first summer: He had air conditioning; I didn’t. He had an air-conditioned car; I didn’t. Hating summer heat and humidity, he figured he held a great hand for luring me into spending days traveling in his car, and summer nights in his mysterious apartment.

Mysterious? Yes — because almost half the floor space belonged to boxes of books he’d already collected. Every conversation sparked another dive among them, pulling out marvelous items that connected our lives and interests. As someone who…