The night was divine. The air was soft and sweet, with a slight cooling breeze. Laughter resounded everywhere, the buzz of voices was thick. The Mississippi Ragtime band was on break. Russell had done several sketches tonight of the patrons and had been handsomely rewarded with good tips. He never was sure if his work was that good or if people just felt sorry for the one-handed young man with the limp. It didn't really matter. He felt good about himself tonight.

The dress was what he first noticed. She had on a short yellow dress sprinkled with aqua flowers. She had a nice figure and good-looking legs. Her back was turned to him, so he couldn't see her face. Her warm brown hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders. She was with a group of people, and one man shoved her roughly in front of him as they made their way to a table. It was then that he saw her face, as she turned and looked up at the man with a slight frown. She was pretty. The tall redhead in the group was extremely attractive, but the girl with brown hair was pretty. The redhead had a haughty air about her and Russell took an instant dislike to her. The brown-haired girl looked sweet. She was sitting now, and she'd noticed Russell looking at her. He saw her eyes taking in his missing hand, then she looked into his face once more. She smiled, and Russell smiled back sheepishly, lowering his head as he started to sketch her. She was beautiful to him.

His reverie was interrupted. "Hey you, artist guy!" yelled one of the men at the table. Russell looked up to see the redhead's companion summoning him. He got up and hobbled over, painfully aware of their eyes on his uneven gait. He stood there as the man proposed he sketch Diana, which was the redhead's name. Russell pushed his stool over, propped his sketchpad on his arm stump and began to draw the woman. She had high cheekbones and beautifully shaped amber eyes, a pouty mouth and a thick mane of radiant dark red hair. The expression in her eyes was such that he felt cold while he drew her. He was good at what he did. It was a gift he had. He knew that the picture would reflect her coldness. He wasn't sure if they would like the picture or not. He was in luck. Everyone thought it was wonderful, and he got his money and another fat tip.

He smiled at the brown-haired girl's companion. "Would you like me to sketch your lady also?" he asked.

The guy gave him a glare. "No thanks. I don't need a picture of her. You can go now and leave us alone!"

"Jerk!" thought Russell as he moved away from them. He could feel the guy's eyeballs burning through the middle of his back.

Angela was miserable. She hated affairs like this. She was too quiet a person for this type of evening. She preferred quiet places. Boyd thought of himself as a mover and shaker. He talked too loud, drank too much and sometimes he looked pretty stupid. When he drank, he sometimes got a little rough. He’d had too much to drink even before they got here and it showed. He'd been impatient with her as they were being seated, and she didn't appreciate it. She glanced at the artist from time to time. He was nice looking. He had a kind face and she'd caught him looking at her occasionally. He had a thoughtful look. Their eyes met more than once. It gave her a wonderful feeling inside, a feeling of excitement. She wondered what had happened to him. His left arm ended about eight inches below his elbow and he had a very noticeable limp. From the way he sat, the way his foot was angled, she was sure he had an artificial leg. He appeared to be about her age, mid-twenties.

After about a half-hour, she excused herself to go to the ladies room. There was quite a line, so it took a while. On the way back, someone touched her on the shoulder. She looked up to see the artist who had done Diana's picture. "Hi! Are you okay?" he asked.

"Sure! Why do you ask?" she answered, looking into his eyes once more.

Russell was captivated with her. She took his breath away with her beautiful smile. Even her eyes smiled at him. He’d never felt at ease with a woman since his amputations, but this was different. He looked into her eyes, questioning the expression he thought he saw. Then he looked away as he said, "Well, you didn't look too happy, that's all."

She laughed slightly. "What an astute observer you are!" She sighed. "I don't like crowds. I prefer one-on-one things, quiet moments you know?"

"I'm like that too." He felt a warm glow spread over him and smiled at her with adoration. His heartbeat sounded so loud to him. He hoped she couldn’t hear it. "May I ask you your name?"

"Angela. What's yours?"

"I'm Russell."

"You're a good artist, Russell. That picture of Diana was beautiful. You certainly got her expression right too."

"You are more beautiful than your friend, Angela, far more beautiful. I would like to have done your picture for you."

Angela frowned as she looked up at him. "You're crazy, Diana is breathtakingly beautiful. I'm just a little mouse beside her!"

Russell's eyes took in all of her. "No, you're very wrong. Your friend is extremely pretty, but she doesn't have any real beauty. Beauty is a light that comes from within. She doesn't have that. You do."

Someone jostled them and for a few seconds Angela was pushed against him. He could feel her warmth and softness. He ran his hand across her shoulder. He tried not to touch her with the stump of his left arm, but with the movement of the crowd, he inevitably did. Her eyes broke contact with his and traveled to his stump when she realized it. "I have to go, Russell." The magic of the moment faded into reality as he released her. He watched her as she worked her way through the crowd and back to the table. She glanced back at him before she sat down. Her expression was troubled. He wished he knew what she was thinking. Her companion didn't even look up when she sat down beside him again. How could that fellow ignore a woman like that, Russell wondered. He shook his head in disbelief.

He did several other sketches during the evening, but in his slack time he sat there as if in a dream, working on the picture of Angela. She was so aptly named, he thought to himself. Suddenly he looked up and found they were settling up with their barmaid, paying their tab. Hastily he removed the picture from his tablet. They were getting up to leave as Russell limped over. He held out the sketch to Angela. "I want you to have this!" Angela smiled at him. Her face glowed as she glanced at the sketch that he offered. She took it in her hands. "It's gorgeous! Thank you so much. I really don’t know what to say."

Her companion noticed the interchange between them. "What the hell? I didn't tell you to sketch her!" The man grabbed at the picture Angela held, tearing the paper in the process. Getting it from her, he tore it in half, crumpled it slightly, and discarded it. Angela's hand covered her mouth and her eyes filled with tears as she saw it fall to the floor. She bent to pick up the pieces. The guy blocked her and roughly grabbed her by the shoulder, pushing her ahead of him. "Come along. We don't need that!" She lingered, turning toward Russell. Her companion grabbed her hand and pulled her away. Her head still turned, her eyes pleaded with Russell. He was frozen to the spot, feeling the pain, both hers and his own. There was nothing he could do: absolutely nothing. He wanted to go after her, rescue her from that oaf she was with, but at that moment he saw the ring on her finger and realized she was married to the sleazeball. Beaten, he bent down to pick up the pieces of the ruined sketch.

With the sketch carefully tucked under his maimed arm, Russell made his way back to his materials, packed them up and left for the evening. There was no way he could continue to work. He felt like his heart had been torn from him. All the way home he couldn't get the image of her face and her distress out of his mind. She'd really been distraught. He'd seen her silent plea and he couldn't do a thing. She was so very special. Why did she have to be with that asshole? Why must love at first sight be so cruel?

Boyd shoved Angela into the car in the parking lot. She didn't say a word. Boyd got behind the wheel of the car for the drive home, then turned to her. He had a sneer on his face. "I saw you flirting with the crippled guy," he said accusingly. "You like cripples? You must have talked sweet nothings to him so he'd do a picture of you. Is that right? IS THAT RIGHT? You'd rather have a one-armed gimp than ME?"

Angela kept her mouth shut. Nothing she could say would make the situation any better. When Boyd had too much to drink, there was no way to reason with him. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant end to the evening.

In the light of morning, Russell hopped around trying to do what he could to salvage the sketch. He placed the picture face down and ironed it to smooth it. It was hard work for the one-handed man to tape the drawing together, but he got it done. He left it where he could look at it for several weeks. Finally he carefully rolled it in tissue paper and placed it in a tube. Although he kept an eye out for her the entire summer, he never saw her again.

The drawing in the tube accompanied him on his moves throughout his adult life as the years went by. Periodically he would take the picture out, unroll it and stare at it lovingly. He traced the planes of her face. "My beautiful Angela. Where are you now? I hope so much that you've found peace and happiness. The moment I met you I was blessed. I'm happy with who and what I am. I just wish you were here with me. I had you for a few fleeting moments in my life, just long enough to feel you against me. That's all it took, a few moments and you became the love of my life, my lost love."

Angela sighed in happiness. She had lived many places in her life. It was so good to finally move back to her hometown. Things had changed. There were so many neat places to explore now. She'd left here to go to college, and she had never returned home until now, years and years after her divorce. She turned the corner onto the street full of flea markets, art galleries, and vintage clothing stores. The whole area had flourished. It was Saturday afternoon, so she had plenty of time to browse. This was going to be a ball! She found herself in a sculpture gallery, looking at a wonderful bronze of a Native American woman sheltering her child. She carried on a brief conversation with an older man who was admiring it also.

She wandered through bookshops, picked her way through shops with old linens, and clothes of bygone eras. She smiled as she entered a gallery full of very well done portraits. Some were pencil sketches and some were pastels. The style of them touched something in her. They had a warmth and familiarity to them and she didn't know why.

Two women were peering at a portrait she couldn't see. "Do you see this? It’s just a sketch and it looks like it was torn at one time and repaired? I wonder what happened to it? I wonder why it's named ‘A Portrait of My Love’?"

"Maybe they had a lover’s quarrel," said the other woman with a laugh, "and they tore it up?"

The women left the shop and Angela was alone. She gradually worked her way through the pictures and ended up staring at ‘A Portrait of My Love’ in astonishment. She reached out to touch it when she realized where she had seen it before. "Oh my God!" she gasped. She heard the uneven step behind her, the sound of a man with a limp. "May I help you?" said a soft male voice. She turned to look.

Russell's jaw dropped. There was no mistaking who was standing in front of him, in front of the sketch he'd done of her over 20 years ago. No words were spoken. It was instinctive. They were in each other arms immediately. It was like coming home. It was expected, yet unexpected. The kiss was instinctive too.

Angela started to laugh in embarrassment. "I guess I've made a spectacle of myself."

Russell shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I'm the one who's embarrassed. You've caught me unawares. I, ah, sort of put you on a pedestal, so to speak, and now you've caught me."

She felt the sting of tears in her eyes. "I've come home you know. This is my hometown and I just moved back after all these years."

"It's fate then. I always prayed I meet you again. You are very special to me, and I've never really figured it out. No one ever has come close to affecting me like you did that night, the night I drew that picture. Oh, another thing. This is my hometown too!"

She sniffled, then hugged him tight again. "You were so nice to me that night. I could tell you were a good person. You made me feel good about myself, and I don't think anyone else ever made me feel that way."

"A cripple like me made you feel good?"

"Russell, you're not a cripple. You're an artist. I’ve wondered all this time what happened that you lost your hand and all. Were you in an accident?"

As he walked toward the front of his gallery, he shared how he became an amputee with her. "I was a dumb kid dressed in black leather on a black motorcycle at twilight. I thought I was so cool looking. A car didn’t see me. Lost my leg above the knee and my hand and part of the forearm, as you can see. I was only 16. I’ve pretty much adjusted to living life this way, but I’ve only fallen in love once. It was you I fell in love with, I might add!"

"Me? I’m the only one?"

Russell stopped and smiled at Angela again. His heart was racing. She'd aged well. She was truly a beautiful woman. There was only one thing to do. He limped over to the door and locked it, and flipped the sign around so it said 'Closed'.

"You're closing your gallery in the middle of the afternoon?" asked Angela.

"Yes, I have more important things to do. Today is a very important day you know, second only to the evening I first saw you. It's like they say; it's the first day of the rest of my life. I want to make the best of it. I don’t intend to let you slip out of my life again." He stood there before her, expectantly. She came to him willingly and embraced him, her head resting on his shoulder. She didn’t hesitate. Her hand ran down his left arm, stopping when she reached the stump. Her hand closed over it and she gave it a slight squeeze. They stood there a long time, locked in an embrace, for any passerby to see through the locked door of the gallery.