A New Story

*4*

Maria flipped through the program as she entered through the cafeteria doors into the exhibition. Each student was featured on a page with their work and she was attempting to find her own daughter's information. As she approached the first exhibit area, she finally found it and quickly became engrossed in reading as she walked around the corner. She didn't know what waited around that corner would change her life.

It was seconds after she ran right into the man that he squeaked out, "Wha—!?"

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Maria was already apologizing as she looked up to the man's face. She froze. "Oh!"

The man was frowning down at his broken reading glasses that lay on the floor. He reached down to pick them up as he grunted out, "Well, great!"

In a rare combination of nervousness at who she was standing in front of and humor at how ironic this situation was, a giggle escaped from Maria as she apologized again. "I really am very sorry."

Daniel looked up as he continued to frown. "Really? Then why are you laughing?"

"It's just coincidental, don't you think?" Maria asked with a smile on her face.

"Coincidental? I'm afraid I don't understand." Daniel peered at the woman through narrowed eyes.

"Yes, a coincidence—oh...you don't remember me, do you?"

"Remember you? Should I?" Daniel continued to stare.

Maria smiled. Suddenly it made sense why she had been carrying those old glasses around in her purse with her for the past two years. "Hold on, I think I can help you out..." She started digging through her purse, still quite in shock at the fact that this was happening. Here she was, standing in front of Daniel Statten—again. And again, it was because of a broken pair of reading glasses.

She pulled out the old black framed reading glasses and held them out for him. "There now—we're even."

Daniel looked between the glasses in her hand and her face. She could see that puzzle pieces were slowly falling into place in his mind. "Those glasses...you...wait...were these my mother's reading glasses? You...you're MJ Blakestone!"

Maria smiled. "Now you're catching up. But please, at this point—call me Maria."

**—**—**

Daniel looked again between the glasses and the woman who had handed them to him. She was still as attractive now as she had been then, but something had changed. "You look...different. Your hair—it's longer."

"Oh yes!" Her hand went to her hair. "I'd forgotten, my hair was very short back then." She shrugged. "It was a phase."

"You look great," he responded without thinking and watched as she immediately turned her gaze downward and blushed. He smiled again. "There's something else... yes, it's the glasses. You wear them all the time now?"

She nodded. "Oh, yes. It's a hazard of the work. I stare at a computer screen most of the day and my vision just keeps getting worse."

He looked thoughtfully at her now. "If you wear glasses all the time now, why do you still carry around the readers?" He pointed toward her purse.

"I can't really explain it—I just always had the feeling I should keep them with me. That they might come in handy one day."

"Well, I'm glad you did. You call it coincidence. Some might call it fate. My mother would call it 'divine intervention'. Either way, they certainly will come in handy. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get a good look at what they had to say about my daughter," he said as he held the program in his hand up.