One day when Angela was sorting out the transfer papers for the nursing home where she worked as the nursing home administrator she came across a familiar name that she didn’t hope that she would see for a long time. When she saw his name, she remembered that while she was in college she wrote him several times but he never wrote back to her. In spite of having a wonderful life, sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if she had married Joe instead of her husband Tom. She never had the chance to find out, since he never answered to any of her letters, but she was happy with Tom and had a good life with him, though they weren’t blessed with children. She looked at the transfer paper to see what kind of assistance someone her age would require. She was shocked to see that he had suffered from brain damage that required him to have a lot of assistance with his daily activities. She put the thoughts about him away while getting ready for the new residents of Happy Acres nursing home. She made sure that the rooms were ready for the new residents and that the required services were available for the new residents.

When she arrived home later that evening, she put all thoughts about Joe’s situation out of her head as she greeted her husband, Tom.

“Do you ever wonder what could of happened if we didn’t meet, or married other people?” she asked her husband curious at what his answer would be.

“No, since if we were supposed to be together, then we would of met,” Tom answered her sounding curious about what made his wife ask such a question.

“No, nothing I was just curious,” Angela answered him though while she wondered if he ever thought about what would have happened if he had married someone else.

She went to sleep wondering if Joe had ever married, and had children. When she awoke the next morning and left to go to work, she put those thoughts out of her head and worked at making the transition to the nursing home as painless as possible for the new residents and their families. She knew from experience that it was often difficult for the family members to place their loved ones in a nursing home. Though she was fortunate enough not to have that experience yet, but she did hear about it from some of her friends who had to place either one or both of their parents in long term care. When she finally met with Joe’s parents she found out the sad news that he’d been in various nursing facilities over the past twenty five years. She wondered when and how he’d been injured since she hadn’t seen him in twenty five years. She didn’t have a lot of time to really think about it today, since she had a lot of work to do in preparing for the new arrivals. Later on that day, when the new patients arrived there most of the prelim paperwork had already been filled out, so the only thing that had to be done was that their caretakers had to sign it. When she went back to her office, she pulled the files of the newcomers even Joe’s to see if any of her questions would be answered. When she opened up Joe’s she was surprised to learn that shortly after she left for college, Joe was in a car wreck that caused brain damage so severe that he couldn’t write to her, he even barely knew who anyone was. She wondered why no one even told her this, but then she realized that no one wanted her to worry while she was away at school. She remembered that her parents never approved of him, that they might have wanted her to think that Joe just wasn’t interested in her anymore after she went away. She wondered why nobody told her about Joe’s accident, and then she remembered that her parents didn’t approve of him and purposely kept this from her so that she would think that he forgot about her. When she came out of her office to meet the new residents and to help them check in, she was surprised to see the first arrival that he was the one who she always had in the back of her mind about what would have happened if they had stayed together. She greeted the rest of the residents and then later on she went to see if Joe was settled in his room. When she finally saw him after twenty five years, she received the shock of her life. He was basically immobile and required a special wheelchair to get around in. He couldn’t even communicate on his own, but used a communications board to communicate with. She was shocked at the condition that he was in, but she realized that this was why she hadn’t heard from him in twenty five years. It wasn’t that he had lost interest in her, but that he couldn’t contact her because of his injuries from a car wreck. Of course her parents would have made her think that Joe wasn’t interested in her anymore since she was away at college. If she hadn’t gone off to college she wouldn’t have met her husband, Tom and had the wonderful life that she had. Of course, she couldn’t help but think that if she had married Joe if she would have been able to have children. She couldn’t allow herself to think those things since she had a job to do and she couldn’t waste time on the what-ifs anyway. Over the next few days, she made arrangements for the necessary therapies for the new patients. She thought that she had put Joe out of her thoughts, but a few days later when she was at home she heard their song on the radio and nearly broke down crying.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Tom asked her noticing the tears in her eyes.

“Nothing, I just had something in my eye,” Angela answered him hoping that he wouldn’t guess what was wrong with her.

“Okay,” Tom replied sounding like he didn’t truly believe her.

Later on that night, Angela was angry that her parents didn’t tell her the truth about Joe’s accident, though she had a very good life with Tom sometimes when things got rough she wondered what would of happened if she had married Joe instead.