She was smitten with the urbane, handsome man twice her age. He was, after all, from Montreal, a salesman on his regular route working for a food distribution company, his refined presence and impeccable French music to her countrified ears, making her ashamed of her colloquial patois. That he paid attention to her, flirting with her, made her blush, but also gave her confidence, and she flirted right back. She was 16, he was 31, a married man with two young boys.

He told us many years ago that his sons, now grown with families of their own were only interested in a possible inheritance, so he saw no reason to bother maintaining contact with them. As for his former wife, she was a shrew, and he was more than happy to be rid of her. Life with a woman fifteen years his junior, a lively and intelligently attractive spouse suited him very well. As long as he was hale, that is. His personality made us wonder at times how she put up with him, his constant nit-picking, his superiority complex, his tendency to speak disparagingly of others under the pretext of honesty, and after all, he was just kidding, right?

Over the decades that we've known them his health slowly deteriorated. He is now 85, and she 70 and the age disparity hasn't closed, since she is in excellent health. That being the case, while he is almost house-bound she has for years gone off on trips abroad without him. He has taken to feigning illness to elicit sympathy from her, but she sees right through him. She warned him after her last trip that if she returned again only to find him languishing in illness that had no basis in reality she would lengthen her trip by a week each time this happened.

She doesn't much care that people think of her as unfeeling. She feels she's been manipulated by him more than enough over the years. And she is fed up and won't accept it any longer. She has a mind of her own, a finite number of years left to her to enjoy whatever is left of opportunities to see the world and give additional meaning to her life and she isn't prepared to surrender those opportunities on the whims of a man who had always dominated her.

When she was young and impressed with his surface sophistication, dependent on him for her views of the world, it was one thing. Now, with whatever is left of her life she intends to continue living it in a manner she believes is consonant with her rights as an individual. And that it's past time that he accommodated himself to her imperatives, not his alone.