Help Needed: A Fiction Short Story

I have a dire need for advice so I have written the following letter to my favorite advice columnist:

My wife, Martha, is having an affair. Worst yet, it is with a younger man. Why after 60 years of marriage should this be happening to me? I treat my wife with love and respect and watch over her each and every day. For example, I am helpful in finding her misplaced dentures each morning even though I have trouble doing that chore because of my poor eyesight, which necessitates my upcoming cataract surgery.

It is true that in my youth, well to be honest with myself right up to the present day, I have lusted after women, but I have never even had an affair with one. Not even one of those new so-called emotional affairs done through the internet. That makes it even more difficult to understand why my wife is seemingly having an affair with Henry, the 82-year-old new resident of Happy Acres retirement home.

Martha and I moved in here two years ago after selling our large house. I had long ago sold and retired from ownership of a prosperous contracting company and set up trust funds for my two children and each of their two children. I let Martha make the final decision on which retirement facility she wanted to move into and she chose the three-bedroom suite here at Happy Acres and the three-a-day meal plan so that she no longer would have to make meals for either of us.

Here are some of the reasons that I think there is an affair going on between Martha and Henry:

I recently saw Henry and my wife in a tight embrace in one of the spacious community rooms in Happy Acres. That evening in our apartment I confronted her with what I had seen that afternoon and she admitted that she was in Henry’s arms. But she said it was because they were dancing a slow waltz with the music being provided by a CD player.

She smiled at me and said, “Do you remember I told you to put new batteries in both of your hearing aids this morning at breakfast?” I admitted that I hadn’t but the scene I had viewed still made me suspicious.

Then the next Sunday morning right after breakfast I had gone down to the library to read the Sunday papers. I looked into the ballroom and noticed that Martha was there standing next to Henry and they were holding hands. Again that evening I questioned her on what I thought was an improper action on her part. She informed me that, if I were a little more religious and had attended the church services going on in the ballroom, I could have taken part in the circle of parishioners holding hands and singing gospel songs.

Then there was the new activity of Martha washing her underpants about three times a week when in the past it was done only once a week. When I inquired about her new washing schedule, she informed me that lately she had forgotten to use the diapers that the doctor had told her to use for her incontinence. I laughed at that but kept my cool.

The thing that started me thinking about writing to you is when last week she left the apartment around 6 p.m. and didn’t return until 8 p.m. accompanied by Matt, the security guard for Happy Acres. He informed me that he had found Martha walking alone in the outside garden looking a little bewildered, talking to herself, and then asking Matt if he knew where the Happy Acres retirement home was located.

For a while after this happened I wondered if maybe Martha had taken Matt as an accomplice in her scheme of having an affair and making me think it was all my imagination.

The final straw was yesterday when, at the breakfast table where Henry also sat for breakfast, I happened to take a look at Martha as she chose a banana from the fruit bowl on the table, said good morning to Henry, and then slowly and deliberately peeled that banana and, smiling at Henry, proceeded to run her mouth over the entire banana before biting off a chunk.

I am enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope for your quick reply on some sound advice for me.

Thank you,

Michael Napen

Albert Zimbler is a 92-year-old author of six humor short story books on Amazon of which MORE DATING AND MATING SECRETS OF SENIORS AND OTHER HUMOR SHORT STORIES is the latest. He also teaches senior improv.