Personal Essay
My Darling Companion
“Please believe me. I never expected to find someone like you,” Mehmet says, across the restaurant table. “I like you. I really like you.”
“I really like you too,” I reply, not sure where he’s going with this.
When his dark eyes fill with emotion, I know there is more to come.
“But…I have only one wife. I am sorry she is no longer with me, but she will always be my wife. You understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“You are my very good friend,” he says, warmly.
I reach for the bottle to pour myself another glass of wine and to have something to do with my nervous hands, but he stops me, gently, his hand on mine.
“It is the man who pours the wine,” he says, apologetically, before refilling my glass.
When we get home, we hug each other goodnight. Mehmet kisses me on both cheeks as is his habit. He is darkly handsome, charmingly European, and age appropriate. But he goes into his room and I go into mine, and I know I won’t see him until breakfast.
When Mehmet reserved a room in my Albuquerque BnB in October, 2019, he fit seamlessly into my life in a way no other man has. He insisted on serving me a Kurdish breakfast, eggs lightly scrambled in olive oil with fried…
