By SHEILA KOHLER

Published: April 16, 2006 In New York Times Modern Love section

MY second marriage, unlike my first, in which I became pregnant at 19 and married the man, was a love match from the start. I was introduced to my second husband by friends, a couple who took us both out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant. At the end of the meal my husband-to-be, a psychiatrist, who sat opposite me, turned green and asked, "Would you like to have a coffee with me?"

I stared back at him. There was a hushed and expectant silence at the table, all eyes on me.

You have to understand that my husband-to-be was, as I was, past 40, and we had each been married for over 15 years to someone else whom we had loved, and I had not dated anyone else in between.

"But how will I get home?" I asked, as though New York City had suddenly been transformed into the wild African veld of my childhood.

David Chelsea