Over the next few weeks, I find myself coming back to Raven's site. I think I've read every one of the testimonials and everything I can find about the woman who calls herself a "marriage broker" that I can find on the internet.

"You already made up your mind," Helen mumbles as she kneels over the row of peas in her garden, "don't know why you're pretending to ask me my opinion on the matter."

The old woman deftly moves plants and immature pods aside and I watch her gnarled fingers sink into the top soil, grasping sprouting weeds and pulling them from her carefully tended row.

"What makes you think I made up my mind already?" I ask, a little irritated at her assumption but mostly curious as to why she seems so sure.

My neighbor straightens up on the over-turned 5 gallon bucket she's using as a garden stool. She dusts the moist soil off her hands and then wipes them on the faded denim of her late husband's overalls that she wears when she's working in her garden.

Helen sits up straight and turns toward me, her eyes narrowing in the afternoon sunlight as they study me for a full minute before the corners of her mouth twist in an expression that's somewhere between smirk and frown.

"Because you're askin' me for my opinion," she tells me, "and you never ask my opinion on something till you already know what yours is."

Helen is in her early 80s now. She's been on her own since her husband passed away 12 years ago-- a few years before I bought the land that butts up against the back boundary of her 2 and a half.

I watch her stand up enough to move her bucket a little farther down the row she's working on. She sits back down and leans over again, concentrating on the peas and the weeds and the bugs like she's forgotten I'm still standing here.

Her whole garden is technically on my land. I discovered that after I moved on to the property full time when my girls were still in high school. I wanted to put up a fence and found out Helen had been squatting on my land in the form of several rows of vegetables each year and two apple trees.

She started gardening when her husband fell ill and after hearing the old woman tell her tale-- about 50 times the first month I was here-- I didn't have the heart to make her pull everything out and move back 40 feet. Besides, she's the closest neighbor I have out here, she shares her harvest, and it's good for her to have someone to dote on.

"Well I think it ain't the craziest idea you've had," she tells the plants. "Nothing like the year you got it in your head to raise them ostriches--"

"Emus," I correct her.

She's right, the emu ranch was a little out there. The birds did make me some money but they were a lot more work than I was up for for a hobby business, so one year is all I invested in that venture.

Helen shakes her head without looking up and makes a noise that lets me know she doesn't care what they were, they were stupid.

I try to suppress my laugh.

"--and you've been single a long time." She turns her head and looks back at me, giving me a look like she's sizing me up before turning back to her gardening, "Men aren't built for being on their own, Lord only knows how you managed this long."

Before I can take exception to what I think is a pretty harsh judgment of my gender, Helen goes on, "I expect your girls are gonna have a say in this too? You're not gonna make me do this all on my own, are you?"

She doesn't look up, but her fingers stop moving between the plants while she waits for my answer.

"Yeah," I say, "if I decide to go through with this, the girls'll be on the team for sure."

Truth is, I'm not sure what the girls are going to say when I tell them I've decided to get married again, let alone when I explain that I need them to help my match-maker pick their new step-mother for me.

Helen sits up and holds her hand over her eyes to shield them from the afternoon sun as she looks up at me, squinting more from her thoughts than the sunlight.

"You're a damn liar, Nathan Wright," she tells me bluntly, "you haven't told those girls one word about this nonsense, have you?"

"I said I haven't made up my mind yet," I remind her.

"The hell you haven't! You get on your fancy phone there and make sure your girls are up for this before you drag me into your shenanigans."

Helen waves a dirt-covered finger toward the smart phone in my shirt pocket. She's scolding me with her best old-lady voice, but she can't keep a straight face for long before she breaks into a bright grin that tells me she's pretty excited about getting dragged into my "shenanigans."

With Helen on board, I feel like I'm committed to going through with the final steps of Raven's process. I don't want to let the old lady down after getting her all excited about helping me out. So after listening to her share a few more opinions of my plan, another story about how she met her husband, and a few choice words about the state of her fall garden, I head back to my house with my phone in my hand.

Half an hour later I'm about to say good bye to my surprisingly enthusiastic oldest daughter as she tells me again how excited she is that I'm finally going to start dating again and that she can't wait to tell her sister.

I try to break in to explain that I'm not "dating" again but Summer cuts me off.

"Yeah, Dad, I heard you the first kajillion times! OK, I get it, you want us to find you a wife, fine. I mean, it's not like you're just gonna sign up for this match maker chick and then marry who ever we tell you to, right? You're gonna date her first, right?"

"Well actually, Sweetheart," hearing her put it like that does make it sound pretty crazy, "I already signed up for the match-maker--" I may have conveniently left that part out of my conversation with Helen, not that it'll be news to her, "--and yeah, that's exactly the way it works. You and your sister are going to work with the rest of my team to narrow down Raven's choices. And that's who I'll marry."

Summer goes silent on the line for a moment. When she starts talking again she sounds far too grown up for my liking.

"Dad, are you sure about this? Marriage is a big step, and you haven't even dated in a long time. Why don't you just try to meet someone the old-fashioned way first?"

"You can't get much more old-fashioned than an arranged marriage, Pumpkin," I point out with a soft laugh.

Another laugh echoes mine at the other end of the line, "Yeah, I guess not," she agrees. "Have you told Dani yet?"

"Not yet," I tell her.

"Oh good! I wanna do it! Please, can I?"

And there's the kid I know so much better than the 21 year old young woman Summer's grown into. I breathe a sigh of relief, both for getting to think of my daughter as a kid for a little while again, and for not having to go through this conversation all over again with Dani.

"Yeah, sure, Sweetie, if you want to tell her, go for it."

"Awesome Dad, I can't wait."

After explaining a few details about the process and letting her know that Raven will be getting in touch with them soon, I get to set the phone down and relax.

Truth is, I did already have my mind made up. About a month ago when I sent in my application to Raven. I just didn't expect her to be getting back to me so soon asking about the people who are going to work with her to narrow down her final choices.

Now that I've got a team to help Raven pick my new wife for me, all that's left for me to do is sit back, relax, and wait.

Turns out, that's a lot harder to do than I'd expected.