It was a day with a pogo stick's journey of errands... pick up one child, drop off two others, sit through a meeting, buy milk. When I arrived to fetch an item that had been repaired I had not allotted more than a few minutes for the task. But the man behind the counter spoke to me as I was writing out the check. 

 

"You have saved a lot of marriages. You understand that, don't you?"

 

I knew his name, and a little more through the grapevine. But I had not expected that he had a clue about me. 

 

"My marriage failed. We had no idea, really. We were so young. No one talked about problems."

 

I put down the pen. I looked into his weathered face. So many years etched into his temples. He had a room full of tools for his craft, precision instruments that cut and soften. I wondered if the wrinkles were proof that God has been working on him.  He opened the door to memories that were both rusty and raw. 

 

"I wanted it to work. But I made mistakes. I know that. I do not want to judge, but she did things too that I couldn't understand." He owed me nothing. On the contrary, the check in front of me was evidence that I owed him. Yet I sensed his need to tell someone that he had tried. That he still cared. That he is lonely.

 

"It is good what you do. You help couples before it is too late." He did not give voice to what I could hear echoing in the empty room behind us. "No one was there for me when our lives fell apart."

 

I left the store with more than a repair job. Perhaps I left with a mouthful of his pain, so that he can stretch into the space between his shoulders blades, where the blame sags low and heavy. Yet somewhere between his side of the counter and mine, the pain retooled to compassion. I care more for this man and the marriage that broke long ago.