He couldn’t help but smile again, this time at her maternal defense of him. “Not everyone sees me through your eyes, Mom.”
“I’m not just saying that because I’m your mother. Ask any of the Mums, they’ll say the same thing.” She shook her head in bemusement. “What is wrong with the youth of today? When a handsome young man like you has trouble getting a date…”
“I can find a date,” he assured her.
She dismissed his comment with a flap of her hand. “You don’t need to pretend with me. I know that you spend a lot of your free time alone.”
Guilt washed over him. He hadn’t been completely honest with Tessie over the years. He wasn’t often without female companionship, yet Tessie was unaware of his love life. He’d deliberately kept it that way, because he hadn’t wanted her getting attached to any of the women in his life, because he knew none of them would last.
“Mom, there are other places to meet women than through a dating service,” he said gently.
“I know that, dear, but I had hoped that my gift would be a lasting one,” she said on a sigh. “You’re thirty-five, Michael, and I’m eighty-one. Time is running out.”
He pulled her into his arms and gave her a hug. “Now you stop your worrying. We have plenty of time—both of us. Your birthday gift was unique and I haven’t given up on finding a special lady.”
She pushed him away. “You haven’t?”
“No. If there’s someone out there for me, I’ll find her. You know that.”
“You always have loved a challenge, haven’t you?” she said with a knowing grin.
Yes, he did, and he didn’t consider this one to be over yet.
Chapter Three
“We’ll discuss old business first,” Louella Gibbons addressed the Mums gathered around Betty Jean’s dining room table. “We’ll start with Dr. Mac, since Tessie has to leave early for a dentist appointment.”
“Thank you, Lou.” Tessie rose to her feet, clearing her throat. “By now you all know we didn’t get the desired results we hoped for with Dinner Date.”
The chorus of groans indicated that everyone was as disappointed as Tessie.
“Maybe we should try another one?” Edith suggested.
Tessie shook her head. “It’s not cost-effective. We need another plan.”
“I agree,” Mildred spoke up. “We are better matchmakers than those dating services. I say we make up our own list of eligible young ladies and do our own matchmaking.”
Several comments supporting Mildred’s suggestion came at once.
Louella clapped her gavel. “One at a time, ladies, please.”
“I think Mildred’s right,” Agnes said. “That’s what we did for Francine’s granddaughter and look at those results.”
“She’s happily married and expecting a baby and all because we sent her on a blind date with Betty Jean’s cousin’s grandson,” Louella stated.
“But Michael refuses to go on a blind date,” Tessie pointed out.
“Then we’ll just have to get to know this girl ourselves and invite her to a Mum gathering that Michael plans to attend,” Edith stated simply, as if it would be the easiest thing in the world to orchestrate.
“Do we have a young lady in mind?” Louella asked.
“I do,” Dorothy Sandberg said with a furtive twinkle in her eye. “Her name is…”
“IT IS AN HONOR to have such a beautiful display of art in our center.”
Cassie accepted the compliment graciously, smiling at the gray-haired gentleman. “I am the one who is honored, Emmet. I can’t think of a better place to exhibit my work.”
“But you could have gone to any of the galleries in town and had your opening. For you to allow us to show these beautiful portraits here…well, it is very good for the center.”
“And you have been good to me,” she acknowledged, appreciating the assistance the director of the senior citizen center had given her. From helping her find models to sit for her portraits to making the arrangements so that she could exhibit her work at the center, Emmet Sandberg had done everything he could to help her turn her dream into a reality.
“I’ve been looking at these pictures all morning and I still haven’t gotten tired of looking at them,” he told her, his eyes making another survey of the room.
The pictures he referred to were portraits sketched by Cassie. Eighteen pastels of married couples. Two sketches—one as newlyweds, the other as they currently were in the golden years of their marriages. She’d titled the exhibit “Everlasting Love.”
“Thank you. That’s one of the nicest compliments I could receive,” she said sincerely.
“Did you know that when you add up the total number of years all of these people have been married, it comes to exactly one thousand?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, but said, “Dorothy figured it out.”
Dorothy was the woman in portrait number four, Emmet’s wife of fifty-one years. At first she had been a bit reticent about posing for Cassie, but after sitting down to coffee and doughnuts and discovering that Cassie’s grandmother had belonged to the same Sons of Norway lodge as Emmet and Dorothy, she’d become one of her staunchest supporters.
“You could have called this ‘A Millennium of Love,’” Emmet continued. “Wouldn’t that have been a great title?”
“It certainly would be accurate, wouldn’t it?” she answered. She didn’t tell him that Dorothy had suggested the very same thing and on more than one occasion. With all the hype that had preceded the turn of the century, Cassie hadn’t wanted to use the word millennium in connection with her work.
“These portraits aren’t just about numbers,” she told Emmet. “They’re about people who have worked hard to keep marriages intact through loss and suffering. The faces in these pictures have had great joy, but they’ve also lived through wars and economic hardship. And despite all the social and political turmoil of the past century, their love has lasted.”
“Ah, that is so true,” he said, a gnarly finger propped against his chin as he studied the portrait of a couple who’d been married seventy-two years. “With those colored chalks of yours, you tell so much. The love, the joy, the wisdom…it’s all there.” He took several steps to his left until he stood in front of his own portrait. “I mean, look at my Dorothy. When I look at the picture it’s almost as if I can hear her saying ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Emmet.’ You have a gift, Cassandra. You show the best of people.”
“I only draw what I see,” Cassie told him. “The emotions expressed here are not mine. I’m just the instrument for showing who these people really are, and
