George and I had been saving for almost a year for our birthday trip. We didn’t stay at a luxury resort and we didn’t eat at expensive restaurants. We rented a small room above a beachfront café, shared sandwiches on the balcony, and fell asleep listening to the waves hitting the rocks.
It was perfect.
On our last afternoon, George put a shopping bag on the bed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Open it.”
Inside was a bright red swimsuit.
I laughed nervously.
“You bought the wrong size.”
“I bought your size.”
“Then you bought it for the wrong woman.”
George’s smile is gone.
He sat down next to me and took my hand.
“Margaret, you spent half of our marriage hiding pictures from yourself.
“I’m not photogenic.
“That’s not true.
“My belly…
“Has borne our children.”
“My legs are covered with veins.
“They have borne you by my side for forty-three years.
“And those wrinkles?”
George gently touched my cheek.
“They prove that you stayed.”
My eyes filled with tears.
No one had ever talked about my aging body that way, not even me.
So I put on the swimsuit.
At the beach, I kept reaching for the towel, but George kept pulling it away.
A young woman who was passing by offered to take a picture of us. George put his arm around my waist and kissed me on the cheek just as I started laughing.
It was this photo.
My belly was soft. My arms were wrinkled. My hair was blown in all directions by the wind.
But George looked at me as if I were the only woman on the whole beach.
That evening, I posted the photo online.
“Forty-three years later, he still makes me feel beautiful.”
