At seventy, I unexpectedly reunited with Garrett, my high school sweetheart, more than fifty years after we had parted. Both widowed, we began meeting for coffee, and six months later, he asked me to marry him.<\/p>\n
His children, Margaret and Daniel, never accepted me. They accused me of replacing their mother and caring only about their father\u2019s fortune. Garrett defended me, but their resentment only grew.<\/p>\n
Then Garrett died suddenly from a heart attack.<\/p>\n
Minutes after his funeral, Margaret ordered me out of the mansion. She claimed the house belonged to a family trust and refused to let me take even one photograph of my husband. Daniel placed my suitcase at my feet, and I moved into my late sister\u2019s old trailer.<\/p>\n
Two weeks later, a limousine arrived.<\/p>\n
Garrett\u2019s attorney handed me a letter written in my husband\u2019s own hand. Garrett had predicted exactly how his children would treat me.<\/p>\n
He had left them the mansion, but years earlier, he had created a separate trust for me. It included lifetime income, a cottage beside a lake, every photograph they had denied me, and a diamond ring engraved:<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Eleanor, whom I promised behind the bleachers.\u201d<\/p>\n
I moved into the cottage, planted flowers, and wore the ring every day.<\/p>\n
Garrett had kept his promise fifty-three years late.<\/p>\n
But love kept late is still love kept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At seventy, I unexpectedly reunited with Garrett, my high school sweetheart, more than fifty years after we had parted. Both widowed, we began meeting for coffee, and six months later, he asked me to marry him. His children, Margaret and Daniel, never accepted me. They accused me of replacing their mother and caring only about …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8669,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8667\/revisions\/8669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}