"How I Met My Husband" is a short story written by Alice Munro

Alice Munro

Alice Ann Munro is a Canadian short-story writer, the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction, and a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize...

, first published in 1974 as a part of her collection Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You.

Plot summary

The story is about a young girl, Edie, who is hired help for Dr. Peebles and his family. One afternoon while the family is away in town, she meets Chris Watters, a pilot who travels from town to town giving rides in his plane for a fee. Edie falls in love with him, but soon learns that he is engaged to another woman, Alice Kelling. One day while Alice, Mrs. Peebles and the children were away on a picnic, Edie goes to Chris's campsite to talk with him. He reveals to her that he plans on leaving, but promises to write her. They kiss, and he leaves town. Edie waits day after day at the mailbox for his letter, which never comes. Eventually, Edie realizes this and marries the mailman, who believes that she waited by the mailbox for him every day, although Edie never tells him that she had waited for Chris because she likes "for people to think what pleases them and makes them happy."