Catherine Sullivan
It had been the day from hell. I’d had to drive all the way out on Long Island to meet a client who’d been extremely late. To top my day off my cell phone had died, I’d left my checkbook at home and I’d put runs in three pairs of stockings.
Now it was after midnight and I was driving home through a near-blinding thunder and lightning storm and quite certain I was lost. Which was when the phrase “It could be worse” came to mind, and of course, it got worse.
The car started shaking like a landing plane and slowing down. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew what had happened. Flat tire. I pulled off the side of the road, put my head down and cried. It was probably the only option open to me.
I was so engrossed in my personal misery that I failed to notice the motorist who had stopped until he tapped on my window. I looked up to see a man standing there, features obscured in the dark, rain running off his hat like a waterfall.
I rolled down the window. His voice came through the wet.
“May I be of assistance, Madame?” French.
Something within me told me to trust this man, this stranger.
“I think it’s a flat tire.”
He nodded, once, and then walked around the car and back to my window.
“Madame, it would appear you have two flat tires.”
I stared at him in mute horror, not quite understanding.
“Collect what you need and go to my car, I will take care of things.”
I ignored whatever I had ever learned about safety and being a woman alone on a dark highway and followed his directions.
I climbed into his SUV. I was so tired. I closed my eyes for just a minute, then I heard him get in.
“You may sleep if you like. It will do you good.”
I nodded and drifted off.
When I finally woke he was carrying me into my condo. How we got there I had no idea, but he took me up to my bed. After placing me down he turned to go.
“No, stay,” I murmured, half asleep.
He turned back, leaned forward, and kissed me. The rushing sensation was the most passionate I had ever felt. Before my mind became fully aware of what my body was doing we were entwined in each other’s arms making passionate love together. And then I slept, curled against his chest, breathing the lingering scent of his cologne.
The sunlight was streaming through my bedroom windows and it occurred to me I was alone, I reached for him, and heard his voice.
“Hush, sleep, Madame, I will return.”
I drifted back off.
When I fully awoke several hours later I was convinced it was a dream. But then I noticed the rose on the pillow next to my head, and then, a silver ring, wrapped about an oval of onyx, on my wedding finger. His last words came to me, “I will return.” I hadn’t been dreaming.
Throwing on my dressing gown I checked out front, my car sat there, both tires fixed. On the passenger seat sat a wide-brimmed hat, still damp from the previous night’s rain. Tucked into the hatband was a note:
When our paths again cross, it will be forever.
I faithfully wore that hat everyday, the ring never came off, and the rose had been pressed into my Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. It was almost a year later before I found myself on that road at midnight under similar conditions. I simply pulled over and waited.
Then came the tap at the window.
“May I be of assistance, Madame?”
I smiled, “If you own this hat, and gave me this ring, you could assist by marrying me.”
He laughed, “Our paths have crossed, I see, Madame, then it is forever.”
Six months later we married.