Clara Bates had been gone only a few minutes when she returned to her table that night three summers ago to find the chairs rearranged and Charles Wingfield at her side.
They had gone their separate ways more than half a century before, but the conversation flowed easily between them as they talked about family, their school days at Lemon Street High, Mr. Scott, a favorite teacher, and the funny things they remembered him saying.
They even took a few turns on the dance floor.
Sometime around midnight, as another class reunion was winding down, Ms. Clara, 72, was starting to wonder about that thing stirring inside of her.
“My heart was palpitating,” she recalled recently.
It took her by surprise.
For the longest time, David Bates had been the only man who could summon that kind of response in her.
David was a football standout from Marietta's Lemon Street High School, where they each graduated. In 1963, he headed to Morris Brown College on an athletic scholarship and Ms. Clara followed.
Neither of them got very far, opting to drop out in 1965 to get married and settling in the same Louisville neighborhood that reared them. For the next half-century, they loved and took care of each other, raised two daughters, Clarice and Davette.
Their older daughter, Clarice, died in 1992, and just days after Christmas 2015, David followed.
Ms. Clara was pretty sure then that that was the end of her love life. There would never be another David.
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As she and Mr. Wingfield, now 74, headed out to her car that summer night in 2017, she was suddenly having other thoughts.
And then at the car, Mr. Wingfield leaned in and kissed her.
“It was just a smack,” she said, “but I think I was taken aback.”
Being a gentleman, Mr. Wingfield called to make sure she made it home safely, and they talked and laughed some more. It was 2 a.m. when they agreed to meet again and finally said goodnight.
“After that, we had a date every weekend,” Ms. Clara said.
In many ways, Charles Wingfield’s path to that moment mirrored Ms. Clara’s. They shared friends and while in high school, a love for the marching band. She played flute and he the bass horn and trombone.
But instead of heading to college after graduating from high school, Mr. Wingfield joined the Air Force, participating in various missions in Guam, Thailand, Hawaii and Japan.
He was honorably discharged in 1968, and he, too, settled again in Marietta and went to work for General Motors.
In 1970, he married Verdine Jett and moved to Doraville, where they raised their daughter Daliah Lavi Wingfield.
Except for a mild case of autism, Daliah was perfect. Their lives together were, too. Then on June 30, 2009, after nearly 40 years of marriage, Verdine passed, leaving Mr. Wingfield and Daliah to fend for themselves.
For 12 years, Mr. Wingfield said, Daliah was the lady of the house. Love was in the rearview mirror.
“She had her life and I pretty much did whatever I wanted to do,” he said. “But I never said never.”
By November 2017, Mr. Wingfield was pretty sure he was feeling some kind of way about Ms. Clara, too.
“She was so easy to talk to I said to myself I got to keep her,” he said. “I’m not a talkative person, but I could tell her everything.”
“And you did,” Ms. Clara added, laughing at the memory.
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Mr. Wingfield began plotting his course to the altar. Should he pop the question over dinner? Come to it gradually? What?
At her home one night, he took Ms. Clara’s hand in his and began.
I'm at a point in my life where I'm looking for a settle minded lady like yourself, he remembered saying. Will you marry me?
Ms. Clara thought for a moment.
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yes, she told him.
Weeks later at Christmas dinner, Mr. Wingfield declared his love once more. It was important that Davette and her husband Dwight McMutry know how much he loved Ms. Clara and that he get their seal of approval.
“I got a little misty eyed,” Mr. Wingfield remembered.
Actually, all of them did. They each sealed the deal with a hug.
Months later on July 1, 2018, the couple was married at Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Marietta.
“It was just beautiful,” Ms. Clara said. “I was so excited, and I felt so blessed.”
For two years after David’s death, her only wish was to meet someone with whom she could enjoy a movie or share dinner.
“I had no idea I’d fall in love again and with someone I know is a good person,” she said. “For the longest, I’d just pinch myself. He’s such a good man. Quiet. Giving. Soft-spoken.”
Last month, after finding a home big enough for the two of them, Mr. Wingfield’s massive train set and his daughter Daliah, they settled into their forever home on a quiet street in Powder Springs — happy and in love again.
Find Gracie on Facebook (www.facebook.com/graciestaplesajc/) and Twitter (@GStaples_AJC) or email her at gstaples@ajc.com.
