My Darling Husband
Charlie and Kathy stories of gifts and surprises
by
Charlie Close
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Charlie Close on Smashwords
My Darling Husband
Charlie and Kathy stories of gifts and surprises
Copyright © 2011 by Charlie Close
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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For Kathy, my best gift ever.
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Table of Contents
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My Darling Husband
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My Darling Husband
I try to be a thoughtful husband. I really try. And yet, despite the fact that I’ve been married to Kathy for seven years, there are some things I still mess up over and over.
I could talk about how every time I wash my hands I cover the entire counter with water, or how I have never, ever cooked a meal, or how the covers always end up on my side of the bed, where, by the way, all the snoring comes from. The list of my shortcomings is long and I could talk about any of them, but it’s February, almost Valentine’s Day, so I want to talk about gifts and greeting cards.
Kathy loves gifts and she uses any holiday as an excuse to give and receive them. Before I got married the two gift-giving holidays were Christmas and birthdays. That was all we had when I was growing up, and it was all we needed.
The rules changed after I got married. You can imagine my feeling of uncertainty when, in our first year together, Kathy asked me what I wanted for Valentine’s Day. It had never occurred to me that I should get a gift. Maybe flowers and candy, but not presents. The idea was completely new to me, and frightening.
Of course I understood that her asking me what I wanted contained an implied message, that she wanted a gift too. How was I supposed to know what she wanted? I’ve never been someone who could buy things for other people that they didn’t expect but fell in love with. I didn’t like this change at all. I had had enough trouble buying Christmas presents for Kathy, and it seemed unfair to have another gift giving holiday so soon.
But I tried. I went to the mall and wandered heavy-footed up and down the stores, past the perfume she wears, past the leather purse she had her eye on, and past the books she wanted to read. Please, God, tell me what she would like so I can get out of this mall!
I was almost ready to give up when I drifted into Brookstone, a store that sells useful and imaginative items to urban professionals. Most of their products are digital in some way, or are made from glossy plastic or stainless steel. They are trendy and elegant, and priced accordingly. They were just the kind of things I was sure Kathy would like.
I didn’t buy the digital pedometer with the heart rate meter, and I didn’t buy the brushed steel shower curtain rod, and I didn’t buy the machine that plays ocean sounds – Atlantic and Pacific – to help you fall asleep, although all of those would have made excellent gifts. No, I bought a U-shaped pillow for her neck made from the most scientifically advanced foam rubber ever created. Her neck bothers her most of the time and I thought she would appreciate a pillow to help with it.
I still remember Kathy’s face when she pulled the pillow out of the paper sack I had wrapped it in. Her fingers dug into its soft sponginess, testing it, enjoying it already. I imagined the horseshoe shaped pillow looked like a smile.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, baby,” I cooed. “I love you.”
Kathy squeezed the pillow again, hard. “What is it?”
“It’s a pillow for your neck. You wear it to bed like a collar and it’s supposed to help with your neck pain.” I wrapped my hands around my neck to demonstrate the collar effect.
She blinked. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll wear it tonight,” and she put it on the coffee table.
“Awesome,” I said, “and I’ll try the clothes you got for me.” I had never worn a satin leopard-print G-string before, but I was willing to try it.
We went to bed that night and she tucked her head into the gap in the foam pillow.
Then I said something I shouldn’t have said. I whispered in her ear, “I hope it helps, sweetie, because that pillow cost eighty dollars.”
Kathy sat straight up in bed. She clapped her hands twice and the bedroom light came on. “What! You paid eighty dollars for this?”
“Well,” I said, starting to feel defensive, “yes.”
“It’s just a piece of foam rubber. Where on earth do you go to buy an eighty dollar piece of foam rubber?”
“Hey, that’s not nice!” I said. “I was thinking about your sore neck!”
“Very romantic, Romeo. This is a stupid gift, even for you.” She picked the pillow off the bed and threw it to the floor. “You can take it back tomorrow and get our money back.”
Now I was really mad. “Fine!” I said. “You can take this stupid G-string back. It’s not very comfortable!” I reached down below the covers and fought to take it off, which was not easy to do lying on my back. I pulled it out from under the covers and threw it in her face. “Take it. I’d rather be naked than wear it.”
“Fine,” said Kathy. She pinched the G-String off her face and tossed it next to the pillow, then clapped twice again and the lights went back out. She rolled onto her side away from me and tried to go to sleep, and I did the same, satisfied that I would have the last laugh when I snored all night and took all the covers.
I said I was going to talk about greeting cards, so why haven’t I said anything about them yet? Because I didn’t start to buy them until after the disastrous Valentine’s Day I just described. From that day on I was not asked to buy any more presents on my own, and we established a system where she tells me what she wants, then she buys it, and we both pretend it’s from me. Everyone is happy: I don’t have to shop and she gets what she likes.
The only thing I am still responsible for is the greeting card. She buys her own presents and I buy her a card. That’s the deal. Simple, right?
Yes, it’s so simple a moron could do it, and yet I still struggle with it.
I struggle with forgetfulness every holiday. I know I have to buy a card, and I have plenty of time. I have two months, then six weeks, then one month, then - BAM! - twelve hours. The last three weeks fly at me like a windshield flies at a bug.
I’ve gotten caught by surprise and screwed up more than once. It’s embarrassing but true.
Take the year I got Kathy two wedding anniversary cards for her birthday. That’s not as big a mistake as you might think. It so happens our anniversary and her birthday are one day apart. That means she gets presents for both days, and it means I need to buy her two cards.
I forgot the cards until the last minute. Thankfully I live near a Rite Aid and I was able to lie to Kathy and say I needed to get gas for the car when what I really needed to do was buy cards.
I made quick work at the Rite Aid. I was in a hurry and I must not have looked at the cards carefully when I bought them. That would explain why, after we all sang Happy Birthday and she blew out the candles on her cake and opened the card from me, it said, “I’m So Glad I Married You, My Darling Bride”.
Kathy set the card down and looked up at me. She tried to catch my eye and hold it, but I wouldn’t let her. I stared down at the cake and watched the smoke coming off the extinguished candles.
“Where’s my birthday card?” she asked.
“I love you, punkin’,” I said.
“Did you get me a birthday card?”
“Of course I did,” I said. “Hey, you ready to have some cake?”
Kathy considered what to say and must have decided there was no point in asking me any more questions. “Cake? Sure! I guess I’ll see my birthday card tomorrow!” We all laughed and ate some very delicious birthday cake.
She was wrong about the other card. I gave it to her the next evening, on our anniversary, and it wasn’t a birthday card. It was another anniversary card. This one said, “To My Wonderful Husband on Our Special Day Together”. It was covered with white roses and there were two champagne glasses sparkling under candlelight. It was so lovely I could hardly believe I had picked it out myself. I would have loved to receive a card like this one.
Kathy said, “It’s not a birthday card, is it?”
“Um, no.”
“And it’s not a card for a wife.”
Was that a question? I wasn’t sure. “Um, no,” I said just to be safe.
“Well. Happy birthday to me.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And happy anniversary. Give me a hug.”
Kathy deserved better. I promised myself I would pay closer attention to the calendar, and always get her cards on time, and make sure they were for the right event.
And I mostly succeeded for a few years.
That is, until we took a trip to my mother’s house on February 12th . Her house was five hundred miles away at the time, an all day drive. The morning of the 14th, just before we were set to come home, Kathy gave me my Valentine’s Day card and a box of chocolates. She had remembered the holiday and the fact that she wouldn’t be home, and had bought the card in advance. She had thought ahead and was prepared.
What about me? I was empty handed. I had not taken the trip into account and thought I was going to have two more days to get a card, so I hadn’t gotten her one. I asked myself the whole drive home how I had made such a stupid mistake.
I tried to make it up to her the next day, better late than never. I told Kathy I was going out to gas up the car.
“Great,” she said. “Could you buy a box of chocolates? I want to get something for Maryam. Maryam was a neighbor friend who had watched our home while we were gone.
“Sure,” I said.
“And...” she said, “we’re almost out of condoms.”
I said, “Oh reeealllly?”
“Forget it. I’ve got to clean the house today. It’s a pig sty.”
“Oh, okay.” I should have known better. The day after coming home from a trip is always house cleaning day. I wanted to rip the dustrag out of her hand and coat her face with kisses, but the look in her eyes said no.
Let me tell you, there aren’t many cards left at Rite Aid after Valentine’s Day. I can still see the thin dabbling of red, white, and pink on all those blue shelves. The quality was poor too. No more white roses or champagne glasses. No more Anne Geddes babies in heart shaped bassinets. No more soft focus couples holding hands on a beach at sunset. The choices were these: Elmer Fudd as Cupid with his bow and arrow, red bowling balls in the shape of a heart, or Dilbert offering a bouquet of roses to Dogbert.
My stomach tightened when I saw what I would have to bring home to Kathy, and I swore I would never, never mess up like this again.
Which one did I pick? I don’t want to say. I just don’t, okay?
I made a choice and the hard job was done. I went to pick up a box of condoms and a box of candy for Maryam, and I walked to the checkout line. I set my things down on the counter in front of a middle-aged woman wearing a blue vest and a name tag.
It was at this point that I realized the things I was buying might seem to tell a story to the clerk. It was the story of a loser who comes into a drug store the day after Valentine’s Day, buys a card and a seven dollar box of chocolates, and who thinks he’s so hot he still might get lucky.
And, I asked myself, even though the chocolates weren’t for Kathy, would the clerk have been so wrong?
The clerk made no comment on my purchase, but when I looked at her name tag it said this:
Hi!
My name is DORIS
You make me sick!
That
was the worst for awhile. More holidays passed and I mostly
remembered to get cards on time.
I did not fail again until last Christmas.
Kathy had already bought all the Christmas presents for family, for friends, for herself, and for me. All I had to do was get a card and some candy so that she could open them with presents on the night of Christmas Eve.
Flash forward to 1:32 PM on Christmas Eve. “Sweetie,” I said, “I’m going to gas up the car.”
At 1:40 I was standing in Rite Aid in front of the Christmas cards. It wasn’t the Rite Aid where I had met Doris, but I still had the same problem.
I was not the only one looking at cards. There were two other women there who I’m sure were shopping for Christmas cards for next year. I didn’t want to get in their way, so I picked a card quickly. Maybe too quickly.
Kathy, her sister Marti, and I opened presents in the living room later that night. Soft snow covered the ground outside. Nat King Cole sang Christmas songs on the stereo, and the lights from the Christmas tree cast moving shadows on our faces.
When it was my turn to
open the card from Kathy, it said this:
To My Darling
Husband on This Christmas Day
Many are the thoughts I’ve had of
you, my Husband, my Love
And of the Life we have built together
The Joys
And the Sorrows.
Our bonds of Love continue
To
Grow and Grow
And There is no one I would rather Share all my Days
with
Than You,
My Darling Husband
My Love
(signed)
I
Love You Always,
~~~Kathy~~~
OOO XXX OOO
What can I say? I was touched. Kathy and I have built a life together and it brings us both great comfort and joy.
Then Kathy opened her
card from me, the one I had bought earlier that day, and it read like
this:
Seasons Greetings!
(signed)
Merry
Christmas,
Charlie
XXX
Kathy didn’t say anything. She handed the card to Marti, who opened it and read it twice.
“Season’s Greetings?” she said.
“Um,” I answered.
“Season’s Greetings?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hellooo?? It’s a Christmas card.”
“It’s a lame card,” said Marti. “That’s what it is.” She threw it down on the coffee table.
What could I say? It was a lame card.
Now Kathy’s arms were crossed over her chest. “Yeah – lame.”
She looked at me, and I at her. She uncrossed her arms and looked away, and she tried to act like she was just annoyed with my careless gift, but I saw then that she wasn’t just annoyed.
I said earlier the list of my shortcomings is long, and it’s more than that. My list of this one shortcoming – forgetting things for Kathy – is also long. The only thing I have working in my favor is that there is always another holiday and another chance. I used to dread Valentine’s Day, or resent it for the presents I had to buy, but now I am grateful for it because it gives me another chance to make up for the mistakes I make at Christmas.
Valentine’s Day Surprise
In the past, I have had trouble with buying cards and gifts for Kathy at Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and other special occasions. I’ve meant to do the right thing, but there have been times when I have forgotten, run out of time, or not paid enough attention to what I was buying, and hurt and disappointed my wife. I have made so many mistakes that I have written them all down and held myself up as a bad example to other men. I’ve told them to learn from me and do better than I did.
Being an object lesson is not as easy as it looks. It means that now that I’ve confessed my sins and repented of them, and led the congregation of men in the singing of hymns to take better care of our wives, I had better not commit the sins again.
Which is why I was on the Internet on February 8th to order flowers for Kathy for Valentine’s Day. There was no way I could allow myself to forget. And, even though I was only doing the right thing, on time, like any responsible adult would do, I still felt a little proud of myself.
And I was still feeling proud that night when the phone rang and Kathy answered it. I could tell by what she said that it was the credit card company.
“Yes,” said Kathy, “I made that purchase. From England, yes. Yes, that’s fine.”
Two months ago Kathy had bought a teddy bear from a shop in England. It was an expensive bear and the shop had agreed to charge her in installments. Last month, after the first installment, the credit card company called us and asked questions about our purchases to make sure someone hadn’t stolen our card. It caught their attention when someone living in the United States suddenly made purchases in Britain. It was good to know that our credit card company was looking out for us.
Now they were calling again this month to check up on the next installment. Kathy told them this was a legitimate purchase. And, just to be sure, the agent at the credit card company asked other questions.
“Shell gas station? Yes, that’s fine.” She knows I buy gas on the way home from work.
“Il Restaurante D’Oro? Yes, that’s fine.” Kathy nodded. We both like Italian food and we ate there last week.
And then she looked at me and stood up on her toes, and smiled with the phone still pressed to her ear. “Well, I don’t think I’m supposed to know about that, but, yes, I think that’s okay.”
Oh, damn! They must have told her about the flowers. Those were supposed to be a surprise! Couldn’t I keep a secret for even eight hours? Didn’t they train these people not to give away Valentine’s Day purchases to people’s spouses?
Kathy did not see any of these thoughts. I just smiled back at her, glad to see her glad. Happy February 8th, sweetie. Love you!
The agent, however, was not finished, and Kathy’s expression turned a little more confused. “Victoria’s Secret? Red satin camisole and tap pants? Um, absolutely.” She looked at me, and I winked. Sometimes flowers aren’t enough.
“Love butter? Love butter? That’s Victoria’s Secret, too, right? Oh, good. Yes, that too.”
Well, I thought, if they were going to give away my Valentine’s Day surprises, they might as well do them all.
“Four pounds of Max the Muscleman’s Extra Potency Protein Powder?” Now she squinted. I lifted both biceps in make-a-muscle pose to show her the purchase was for my new strength training regimen that I hadn’t told her about yet.
“McDonalds? How much? Forty-three dollars? What the hell did he eat at McDonalds for forty-three dollars?”
Kathy listened to the agent say she didn’t know the answer to that question, and I called out that it wasn’t just me. I took a coworker too. And you couldn’t eat the Protein Powder by itself. You had to mix it with something, like Diet Coke.
“Three ticket’s to the Godz of Hard Rock summer tour? Well I hope he doesn’t expect me to go. It sounds awful. And who’s the third ticket for?”
The agent didn’t know that either, and I cursed her again for ruining another surprise that I was going to spend all spring laying the groundwork for.
“Well let me ask you,” said Kathy, “what would you think if your husband bought three tickets to a show he knows you wouldn’t like? Wouldn’t you want to know who the third ticket is for?”
I started to speak up to answer this question. I had thought Kathy’s sister Marti, or her friend Wendy would want to go.
But Kathy turned her back to me and I could not get the words out. Now she was listening to the agent talk.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh. They do the dumbest things, don’t they? Did I tell you that one year he bought a foam rubber neck pillow for Valentine’s Day? What kind of gift is that? Oh, yeah, oh, yeah? You do? Really? Well, sure.”
Kathy walked over and held out the phone to me. “She wants to talk to you. Her name is Suchita.”
My eyes went wide and I shook my head no. Kathy held the phone closer and I pulled away. “I said no!”
Kathy stuck her tongue out at me and put the phone back to her own ear. “No, he won’t do it. Yeah, figures. Anyway, all those purchases are legitimate. Why yes, the bear is very cute. I just love it. Was there anything else you wanted to tell me today? Okay, thank you so much for calling. Bye-bye.”
The phone went beep when she pushed the off button. She looked at me. “Protein powder? Workin’ on those muscles, are we?”
“No, I just like how it tastes. It comes in strawberry.”
“Kind of like the shakes at McDonalds.”
I shrugged. “I like strawberry.”
“Mm,” said Kathy. “I see. Could I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“Carry more cash with you.”
I nodded. “That’s a good idea,”
She stepped up and wrapped her arms around me. “Thank you for the flowers. I’m sure they’re going to be beautiful.”
I hugged her back. “You’re welcome. Sorry they messed up the surprise.”
“That’s okay. I’ll dry them so I can still look at them when you’re taking your two mistresses to The Godz of Hard Rock.”
“I was going to take you and your sister, but now that you mention it, do you suppose Suchita would want to go?”
Kathy lifted her head off my chest and looked up. “I doubt it. She already knows you too well.”
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The End.
# # #
Books by Charlie Close
Charlie
and Kathy Stories
Burning Embers and Other Stories of
Marriage, Work, and Family (ISBN 978-1598588187)
My Darling
Husband, Charlie and Kathy stories of gifts and surprises (Ebook,
ISBN 978-1-4657-2882-1)
Love and Hug Therapy, Charlie and
Kathy stories of living with a fool (Ebook, ISBN
978-1-4658-4679-2)
Blissful Morning, Charlie and Kathy Stories
of living with a writer (Ebook, ISBN 978-1-4657-5307-6)
Lightning
Drive, Charlie and Kathy stories of family, love, and fear (Ebook,
ISBN 978-1-4661-9071-9)
Stories of Growing
Up
Jeffrey’s Last Trick or Treat, Autumn stories of
growing up (Ebook, ISBN 978-1-4657-6843-8)
Very Short
Stories
Kites and Weddings, Very Short Stories (Ebook,
ISBN 978-1-4581-9629-3)
Rough & Beautiful, Very Short
Romance Stories (Ebook, ISBN 978-1-4580-7075-3)
Other
Books
Ask the Page, Three stories for frustrated writers
(Ebook, ISBN 978-1-4657-8193-2)
The Book of Shotguns, 129
Names for Your Rock Band (Ebook, ISBN 978-1-4661-2333-5)
Visit Charlie
Twitter: @CharlieClose