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L.A. Affairs: After losing our spouses, we found love again. But were we cheating on our children?

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L.A. Affairs: After losing our spouses, we found love again. But were we cheating on our children?

We’d progressed from walking in the park to perching across from each other in my living room to sitting side by side on the family room sofa. It was grief that drew us. A year earlier we’d both lost our beloved, vibrant spouses to cancer. Though his wife and I had been in the same women’s book group, I’d known Eric only through the wry gripes we’d all made about our husbands.

Now he took my face in his hands. Here it comes, I thought. Was I ready for this? Looking deep into my eyes he asked, “Would you nap with me?”

Apparently, this was what dating looked like in one’s 60s. As he snored companionably, I wondered how I’d handle our next progression, whatever that would be. My husband had devotedly nursed me through my own illness, only to be hit by one far worse. We and our two sons had been the closest of families, their father their best friend. As much as I knew they needed me, I was racked by survivor’s guilt — ashamed still to be alive. If I was mortified just to breathe, how could I even think about loving another man?

For months, Eric and I lurked about. Although he lacked the sense I had that we were cheating on our spouses, we both felt we were somehow cheating on our children. That his one child and my two were often at our respective homes made for tricky logistics. So we leased new life from the city.

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Guided by Eric, we watched planes from the viewing deck at the Santa Monica Airport, where he explained Bernoulli’s principle. We wandered the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market, where he introduced me to the vendors he’d known for decades and taught me to top berry trays with tiny nets he’d made to hold the fruit in place. We saw L.A. Theater Works record plays at UCLA’s Melnitz Hall, where the primal storytelling of actors reading lines and Foley artists adding sounds riveted me more than a Broadway spectacle. On these outings, I learned not just about flight, farm-to-table and fabulism, but about Eric. He was a man fully engaged in life.

Guided by me, we took classes at Santa Monica Yoga, Eric treating himself afterward to a sandwich at Bob’s Market from the deservedly self-proclaimed Deli Lama. We walked our way through my L.A.-on-foot book, from Castellammare and Leimert Park to Pasadena, delighting in the architectural mashup Nathanael West derided in “The Day of the Locust” as “Mexican ranch houses, Samoan huts, Mediterranean villas” and “Egyptian and Japanese temples.” Eric especially admired the Witch’s House in Beverly Hills, the Shakespeare Bridge in Franklin Hills and the stained glass windows in Carthay Circle. He learned not just about poses, pastrami and parapets, but about me. I was a woman fully engaged in life.

We also learned we were both determined to seize the day after seeing the rest of our spouses’ days seized from them. My guilt persisted. But this good man had found a route from the sofa to the city to my heart.

We finally met each other’s children. The days we seized became weeks, months and years. Our sons, though forever brokenhearted, thrived. Mine had children of their own, all with names that begin with “A” to honor their father. The oldest, at four, understands from photos that she has another grandpa, understands that the man in the picture is her daddy’s daddy. Her parents and I tell her about him: his kindness, grace, humor, wisdom. “I wish I could have known him,” she says.

“I do too,” I say, “more than anything.” When the others are old enough, we’ll tell them, too, about him. They’ll feel his essence because their fathers are just like him. He’ll stay, this way, in and around us.

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Ever-gracious, Eric holds this space for him, as I try to do for his wife with their son. But becoming a grandmother only increased my guilt. My husband, consummate family man, was born to be a grandfather. Yet here I was, without him, flying high on the joy of grandparenting. What could I do besides love the children and grandchildren fiercely and be grateful for the privilege?

I could do this: recognize that if it takes a village to raise a child, the more villagers who love the child the better. My lucky grandchildren will feel their grandfather’s love by proxy and Eric’s love firsthand. They can even enjoy the love of Eric’s son, who patiently helps them build Lego worlds and cooks them their favorite soup.

Even as he holds space for my husband, Eric affectionately fills his own. He’s a tall man with a deep voice, an easy laugh and a warm embrace. He marvels at the latest evidence of the grandchildren’s genius, like any grandfather should, and spoils them with treats and toys. He’s so handy around their houses that my grandson greets him with, “What’re you gonna fix today?”

His most recent project involved the crib my husband and I had saved from our sons’ infancy with the hope that grandchildren would one day use it. Since the distance between slats was now deemed unsafe, Eric transformed the crib into blocks. “I wanted to honor the spirit of what you’d both wished for,” he said.

Then and now. Loss and gain. Selfless love.

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For years now, Eric and I have both lived in my house. There are still naps, but more bustle. Our sons live close enough that we’re together a lot, and my house tends to be the happy hub. The grandchildren play near photos of their grandpa. Their “A” names ring out in this home where we raised their fathers. Meanwhile, Eric pulls them around on a rug he rigged as a magic carpet and helps stack the blocks into towers. When the grandchildren leave, he hugs them tight. My guilt remains, like pain in a phantom limb, but the sofa holds us all.

The author is a law school professor, researcher and author of an upcoming book on the scientifically proven neural superpowers of grandmothers. She lives on the Westside. She’s on Instagram @rondafoxwrites, and her website is rondafox.com.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

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This rising painter reimagines Renaissance art in a cocoa plantation in Cameroon

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This rising painter reimagines Renaissance art in a cocoa plantation in Cameroon

Marc Padeu, a painter from Cameroon, draws inspiration from Renaissance art brought into an African landscape. The above painting is title “Sous le poids de la coupe” — under the weight of the cup.

Copyright The Artist/Courtesy Larkin Durey


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Copyright The Artist/Courtesy Larkin Durey

Cameroonian painter Marc Padeu says that being an African artist means “being the heir to an extraordinarily rich history.” But he also says it can mean “living and working on a continent where artistic infrastructure is virtually nonexistent.”

Padeu’s work often takes inspiration from religious paintings from the European Renaissance — but reimagines them, depicting people in Cameroon’s cocoa plantations. London gallery Larkin Durey is currently holding an exhibition of Padeu’s latest work.

Marc Padeu Bapteme

Marc Padeu, a painter from Cameroon, has a new show at the London gallery
London gallery Larkin Durey.

Courtesy of Larkin Durey

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Courtesy of Larkin Durey

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Oliver Durey, the gallery’s director, said: “Mark’s work is timeless. His visual style is simultaneously very contemporary but also deeply rooted in that old tradition — so there is something extremely fresh about it.”

Padeu is from Bafang in the West Region of Cameroon and is part of the Bamileké ethnic group. The 36-year-old now lives in Yaoundé, the country’s political capital. In an interview with NPR, Padeu explained his art — and what inspires him.

Can you talk about why you meld classic Western paintings with African scenes?

I wouldn’t say that I’m trying to fuse Western painting with African scenes. For me, it’s more a question of placing images that everyone recognizes within a setting that is familiar to me. I grew up in Cameroon, surrounded by plantations, villages and people who make their living from the land. That’s the world I know best, so it’s only natural that this is the setting in which I want to tell these stories.

At one point, I asked myself why certain images seemed to belong exclusively to Europe. Why should the Nativity, the Last Supper or Christ in Gethsemane always be depicted with the same faces and the same landscapes? Yet what they convey goes far beyond any particular place or era. They speak of love, sacrifice, fear, hope, family. These are profoundly human, universal experiences.

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How did you become an artist? 

It’s certainly down to genetics, first and foremost. My mother is a fashion designer. She doesn’t work much any more, but when I was younger, I used to see her fashion sketchbooks. So I inherited this talent from my mother. I was already drawing a lot at primary school and then at secondary school. I was the one who often helped teachers draw their demonstration sketches on the blackboard in front of my classmates. This often earned me a certain reputation at the various schools I attended.

Later on, I went on to study at the school of fine arts. I must say the timing was perfect in that respect. The very year I passed my A-levels, the Cameroonian government opened the country’s very first art schools. So I’m part of the very first ever intake of graduates from that school. It was a very traditional course, based mainly on the study of art history.

Marc Padeu, "La bague de Roxane"

“La bague de Roxane” — Roxane’s ring — by Marc Padeu

Private Collection, USA/Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Larkin Durey


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Is there one artist who inspired you most?

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The African American painter Kerry James Marshall. Marshall was a significant discovery for me, not because I wanted to paint like him, but because he showed me that it was possible to reestablish Black bodies at the heart of the great tradition of painting. He never merely added Black figures to an art history that had already been written; he demonstrated that they were an integral part of it.

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A tale of two very different horny movies

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A tale of two very different horny movies

Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner in One Night Only.

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Nicole Rivelli/Universal Pictures

A wise man once said, Sex is natural, sex is good / Not everybody does it / but everybody should.

Don’t take this declaration literally — have sex if you want to, or don’t have it if you don’t. It’s the sentiment that’s admirable, the notion that sex doesn’t have to be shameful, rigid or distressing. It can be fun! It can be freeing! It can be weird, but in a good way! That spirit seems to have carried over into this summer’s movie season in some big ways: The buzzy comedies I Want Your Sex and The Invite have been enthusiastic champions of unconventional sex and sexuality.

And this week brings two more films where desire and straight-up horniness are top of mind — Jane Schoenbrun’s excellent Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Will Gluck’s infuriatingly sex-negative One Night Only. The latter stars Monica Barbaro and Mr. Dua Lipa — er, Callum Turner.

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As the end credits rolled at my One Night Only screening, I thought to myself, Did they really put out a mainstream sex-negative rom-com, in the year 2026, arguing for the so-called “upsides” of living under an authoritarian government? Also known as “the sex Purge movie” — because it echoes the popular action-horror franchise – director Gluck and writer Travis Braun’s high-concept dystopian love story is about two hot New Yorkers who keep having awkward meet-cutes during the one 12-hour-period a year when Americans are legally allowed to have pre-marital sex. (When the movie begins, the country is three years into the congressional mandate, which is enforced via biosensors branded on the wrist indicating one’s status as single or married.)

It’s an inherently fascinating premise that could, in the right hands, be taken in creatively curious directions, interrogating right-wing policing of women’s and queer people’s bodies or even Gen Z’s supposed collective aversion to sex in most forms. That latter issue is of particular interest to Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, which sees Olivia Wilde’s freewheeling artist character enter an ethically dubious yet consensual sexual relationship with her much younger employee, played by Cooper Hoffman.

But apart from a throw-away line here and there, One Night Only is thoroughly uninterested in engaging with the politics it explicitly conjures beyond a few clever sight gags. Instead, it leaves you with more questions than answers, thanks to unclear and avoidant world-building. (For starters: What, exactly, qualifies as “sex”? How do queer people and visitors from abroad factor into all of this?) The movie merely gestures at resistance against the mandates, and does so only half-heartedly and insidiously; the one character we see defy the law is made out to be an all-around deviant with a long rap sheet.

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‘Wait Wait’ for August 8, 2026: With Not My Job guest Sally Field

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‘Wait Wait’ for August 8, 2026: With Not My Job guest Sally Field

Sally Field attends Netflix’s Los Angeles Premiere of “Remarkably Bright Creatures” in Hollywood at Netflix Tudum Theater on April 30, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Netflix)

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This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Sally Field and panelists Tom Bodett, Shantira Jackson, and Paula Poundstone. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.

Who’s Alzo This Time

One Giant Crash for Mankind; Mexico meets Mexican-ish; Who’s Watching the Baby?

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Panel Questions

A Murder of Best Friends

Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell three stories about a show that just couldn’t go on, only one of which is true

Not My Job: Legendary actor Sally Field joins us to answer our questions about the world’s dumbest animals

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This week, we’re joined by legendary actor Sally Field, who’s up for an Emmy for her role in Remarkably Bright Creatures. She plays our game called “Remarkably Dumb Creatures,” three questions about the dumbest animals on Earth.

Panel Questions

Righty Tighty, Lefty Also Tighty; No Encores, Please!

Limericks

Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Get Your Back Out at the Outback; The Worst Part of Waking Up; The Waaaaah-dyssey

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Lightning Fill In The Blank

All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else

Predictions

Our panelists predict, after the big crash, what’s the next story that’ll get the Moon into the news?

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