Uber driver brings a time machine

Marci Alboher is plunged into her tumultuous past when she gets a ride to the airport from a man intimately connected to her divorce

It made me wonder what photos from our previous marriages would have suggested about those lives. Did we feel as contented then as we both appeared to feel now? Would others have been able to see something shattering behind the smiles?

And that’s when we turned to a subject that once cut deeply for us both, though I can’t remember who asked first: Had our exes been physically involved before our splits? He didn’t know, and neither did I, though we didn’t think they had, at least not “technically”.

Most startling, though, was how it no longer mattered — to either of us. That once-scalding question had lost its potency. But it took seeing him and talking about it to make me realise that.

We quickly moved on.

THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT

I have been with my new love for 12 years, almost exactly as long as I had been with my ex. Two years ago we travelled to Italy. When I met the man who is now my husband, I was 39 and he was 46; our window for having children was nearly closed. I knew he didn’t want them, yet I couldn’t pull away. I started to admit that maybe there was a reason I chose men who were skittish about fatherhood. It was easy to assign the decision to someone else.

I still mourn that loss, but increasingly I’m at peace with it. My Uber driver, whose tie to me still yearns for a name — perhaps my ex-once-removed? — wanted to make sure I didn’t miss my flight. So we returned to the car and headed to the airport, where we hugged again and promised to keep in touch.

I immediately called my husband. We rarely talk when I travel, preferring to text and email. This time I couldn’t hold it in. “You’ll never believe who my Uber driver was!” I said. And then I spilt the whole story. We were on so long, I nearly missed my flight.

My husband was rapt, wanting every detail, even though he would see me in a few hours. And I was glad because, for years, he hadn’t wanted to hear about my first marriage, studiously avoiding the subject. But this had changed for him too, now that it was so far away.

“That could have been a scene in a movie,” he said. In the movie version, though, I would have had a fling with the ex-once-removed. In real life, I got closure from the most unexpected source.

I realised that connections at a distance, along with the passage of time, can offer telling reflections and a reminder that marriages can unravel in an instant. How could I ensure this new life wouldn’t break apart the way my last one had?

Months later, to protest Uber’s business practices, I deleted the app, but with a twinge of regret. In a strange way, Uber had helped me sort out my feelings about the most significant men in my life and moved my current relationship into a more honest place.

Who knew there was an app for that?