Be Mine, Valentine

by Jennifer Johnson

  Whenever she visited her mother, she still expected to see him prowling about the large house he had built for his Margaret Annette forty years before.

  Now that Daddy was gone—completely, irrevocably—she felt lost. Dana had been grieving for months, and it wasn’t all sorrow over losing her father. Dana loved Mike, but she had never let go, had never really transferred her trust and dependence to her husband.

  Now she had done what she never intended to do—brought up her concerns about her own family to her mother, who had enough worries.

  “In what way is Michael inferior to your father?” her mother asked softly.

  How could Dana answer that. Mike was….

  She had loved him from the beginning, when he’d been jogging through the city park, tripped on a tree root, and literally fallen at her feet. His MBA and her introduction had gotten him a job at the bank where Clark Stephens worked. She still loved him, but things were so crazy now. His excellence in his work brought increased responsibilities there. Her small antique business was expanding, requiring more time and more attention. There was no peace in their house, just rushing and yelling at one another in passing, sometimes yelling some unpleasant things. She couldn’t stand the thought that one of those remarks might be the last thing either of them—or one of the children—would have to remember.

  “Dana,” her Mama said slowly, patiently, “Michael has three children and a demanding job, bills to pay, and other family obligations now that his mom’s Alzheimer’s has been confirmed. He takes all those things seriously. That takes stamina and emotional endurance. Sometimes those things run low.”

  “Well, so do I, have all those things, and keeping the house and doing most of the running the kids, and I take them seriously, too.”

  “Yes, and neither one of you can keep up that pace without blowing off steam occasionally. How loving and nurturing do you feel by the time the two of you are alone?”

  Dana closed her eyes. The question hit too near the mark for her to answer it. Their fight this morning was only a continuation of a similar one the night before, when they had both just stopped arguing from sheer exhaustion and slept badly on their respective edges of the king-sized bed. She couldn’t remember the last time they held each other with tenderness, made love out of anything but frustration. She could not say that to her mother.

  “We were talking about you and Daddy.”

  “Yes—and you remember him as warm, loving, even-tempered, basically happy and positive—which is a wonderful memory to have. But I can remember times when he was not so warm and loving, and I wasn’t either. Times when both of us were behaving badly, and life was not so pleasant.”

  “I don’t remember any time like that.”

  “Then we were very lucky that you weren’t aware. Your older brother might say something different. Just remember we once were where you are right now. Give Mike some time. Move along in this sea of life with him and remember that the two of you, along with all your peripheral responsibilities, are in the same boat. The main goal is to keep the boat, and all it contains, afloat—and to do that you have to trust each other and row in the same direction. Then you can worry about going somewhere.”

  A bell dinged three times in the kitchen.

  “Well,” her mother said, “that’s quite enough sermonizing for today. I’ll get the cookies and put another batch in the oven.”

  More than ready to change the subject, Dana felt the knot in her stomach relax a bit. She looked at the tie box on the table, and started to replace the lid when she noticed the corner of some sort of card beneath them. Curious, she lifted the tie and saw a colorful card beneath it. A Valentine. A red foil heart surrounded by real lace edging with script letters that said ‘To my Dearest Love on Valentine’s Day.’ There was no envelope, no evidence of an address.

  Dana picked up the card, stupid tears welling again at the thought of her mom sending it, her dad reading it. They had been outwardly affectionate with one another, and Dana had always been grateful for the example they had set. If they fought, as her mother had implied, it wasn’t in front of the children, at least not by the time she was old enough to remember, and it didn’t intrude into their everyday lives.

  Then she opened it.

  The words, written in vivid red ink, tightened around her heart like links in a chain, bruising it, crushing it, changing her world forever.

  My darling Clark,

  Sweetheart, on this special day of all days when we honor our love for one another, I cannot tell you how my heart grieves for you, knowing the sadness that the woman in your home brings you. You don’t have to tell me what terrible things she says to you, how demoralized you must feel after she has said to you the things she says.

  I know I promised not to discuss her, and I won’t, no more.

  Only know that I am so happy we can be together tonight and I can erase all thoughts of her and her unkindness from your mind. I have included a special gift for you—Valentine accents for you to wear with your stuffy dark suits to your boring board meetings to turn a few heads! I have a second set, just like these, here in our secret place. When you come tonight, I’ll be wearing them.

  Only them.

  You may, of course, imagine where I will be wearing them. And how you will remove them.

  Oh, hurry, my love. We have so little time together that I resent the worlds that keep us apart. Happy Valentine’s Day!

  Until later,

  Nettie

  Dana was torn between fascination and disgust. The former kept her reading to the end of the letter. The latter made her want to throw the tie, the handkerchief, and the card into the fire.

  It made her want to scream at her father to come right back here and explain just what he thought he was doing and how he could hurt her and her mother this way, and who this hussy was and why, after all these years, did he have to jump off his charger in such an ungainly way and smear himself with mud?

  Dana hid the box with its horrible contents in the bottommost drawer of the buffet, made up an excuse to leave, and nearly ran to her car. She was already lying about the thing. What other lies would she have to tell?

  Dear God, she had almost showed the box to her mother, and what a shock that would have been. Tomorrow was Sunday, and her mother would be busy with church and the ladies circle all day. By Monday, maybe she could think of what to do.

  She should have taken the box, she realized, closer to home. She should have burned it.

  She needed to talk to someone, but who?

  The answer came easily.

  Mike. She could talk to Mike. If Mike was still talking to her.

  Then she cried. For herself. For her mother. For all the Danas and Margarets who took too much for granted. If her father had been unfaithful, then no man in the world could be trusted. And if her wonderful mother had lost the love of her husband, what hope was there for someone like her—Dana—who could not even manage her own life, much less a family?

  Michael took one look at her face and asked only if she was physically hurt. At her tearful ‘No,’ he took control and somehow in the thirty minutes it took Dana to change clothes, he had farmed out Susan and Maggie, their fourth and fifth graders, to spend the night with school friends, taken three-year-old Carol to his sister’s for a special night out, and was now driving Dana to their favorite informal restaurant. On the way he reminded her of their rules for serious discussion.

  “We used to do this all the time, but I thought I’d just go over the guidelines since it’s been a while. First…”

  “Mike, you don’t have to keep talking. I’m okay. I love you so much for doing all this—I can’t even tell you what it means to me, especially tonight. I truly needed to know you were still willing to even talk to me after the bitchy way I’ve been acting.”

  He swerved the car off the two lane road into the empty parking lot of a tiny church. Before she could anticipate his intention, he set the gearshift in park and leaned across the
console to capture her against the passenger door. With both hands he framed her face, then pulled her gently forward into a kiss that soon involved hands burrowing for bare skin, bodies straining to be closer. They might have progressed to the back seat had his cell phone not rung, a wrong number that brought them above sea level long enough to laugh at the honest passion they had suppressed for too long.

  Mike brought the SUV back onto the highway and looked at her hungrily.

  “We’ll eat fast,” he said, “and talk faster and drive home the fastest we ever have.”

  They had done this before, many times, turned an unpleasant discussion or major decision into a special occasion. Dana watched Mike’s large, capable hands on the wheel as he drove and thought about how competent and secure they made her feel. Something her dad had said at their wedding rehearsal dinner—‘I’m putting my daughter in good hands.’ He had trusted Mike. He had thought Mike would make her happy. And in this rare moment, she realized that she could not imagine being more content with anyone else. Not even Clark Stephens.

  The rules for their discussions were simple enough: no mention of the subject until they had finished a bottle of wine—the driver could not drink after dinner—and were both stuffed with something wonderful to eat; each could say as much as they wished without being interrupted; each promised to listen and consider the other’s point of view; and they would not make any decision until they had made love at least twice or the next day, whichever came first.

  Their hunger satisfied, Mike listened while Dana described the tie and handkerchief and recited the message written on the card nearly word for word.

  “I can’t believe it of my father, but there it is,” Dana concluded. “He had a mistress. I have no idea who she was. I’m not even sure I’d want to know. I don’t know what to tell mother. This changes everything.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Mike, my father was unfaithful.”

  “Did it hurt you or your brothers or your mother?” Mike took out a pen and began to write on a napkin.

  “It would have if we had known.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t know. So until today, did his actions in any way hurt his family or his career?”

  Dana wished she could find an argument to counter the point he was making, but dammit, he was making it well. “No, not that I know of. Are you saying it was all right for him to do it?”

  “Men look, Dana. Some men do more. I’m sure women are the same.”

  “Have you ever?”

  “Looked? Sure.”

  “Done more?”

  “No.”

  “Would you tell me if you had?”

  Mike went into his silent, thinking mode that had driven her crazy for months until she realized it was exactly that careful consideration of things that made her feel secure. He didn’t fly off the handle or jump to answer her with what he thought she wanted to hear. His answers, when they came, were as honest as he could make them.

  “I think there are three reasons normal men, or women for that matter, are unfaithful. I don’t like that word, by the way. Let’s substitute ‘why a man or woman might have a physical relationship with a person other than his or her partner.’”

  Ever the politically correct language, Dana thought, smiling in spite of herself.

  “Okay,” she said.

  He drew the number ‘1’ on the napkin.

  “Some people never mean to commit to being with only one person, never intend to limit their sexual activity, and they’ll continue to have casual sex because it truly doesn’t mean anything to them other than recreation. Whatever they’ve promised to a partner verbally, in their perception it doesn’t include monogamous sex. Probably they were raised that way. Maybe it’s genetic. For some people sex is purely recreational, and that doesn’t change when they marry or go into a relationship, no matter what the romance writers say. A player isn’t easy to reform and does not usually make the best mate. And they will lie about it because they’ve become very good at lying.”

  “Daddy wasn’t a player,” Dana said deliberately.

  “No. I knew him pretty well, honey, and he was definitely not a player. If he gave his word, he intended to keep it in every area of his life. There was nothing sham or pretend about his feelings for your mother.”

  “Thanks for that. I’m not sure I agree after this afternoon, but I’m glad you have a good opinion of him. What’s number two?”

  He drew the number ‘2’.

  “People get bored.”

  “Oh, come on, Mike, that’s no excuse.”

  “I didn’t say these were excuses. They’re reasons. Not the same thing.” He waited to see if she would protest further.

  Dana shook her head, indicated by pointing to the ‘2’ that he should continue.

  “Boredom sounds simplistic, I know, but men and women get bored with their lives or frustrated or burnt out, and one way to relieve that is to find something new and exciting and different. Sometimes that’s a hobby. Sometimes it’s a new person. If you’re rich enough or relatively mobile or you don’t have a lot invested in your current relationship emotionally, that calls for a divorce. If not, then an affair—maybe a whole series of them—and lots of lies. Life becomes a balancing act, and the cheating itself becomes exciting.”

  He paused again until she nodded understanding.

  “I see it all the time in my friends,” Mike continued, “and they always manage to find a willing woman, so I guess wives get bored, too.”

  “Do you think my dad…”

  “Not a chance. He was too busy to handle the kind of time and truth-juggling I’m talking about. He wouldn’t have been able to stand the deception and he really loved being a part of a close family. Like I do.”

  She picked up his hand and kissed it. “Go on. What’s the third reason?”

  “Love.” He drew the ‘3’ larger than the other two numbers.

  “Love? No, not—”

  “You asked my opinion. Hear me out. Then you can throw things if you want to.” He seemed to draw inside himself for a moment before he circled the ‘3’ with the index finger of the hand she wasn’t holding. “Love. I believe it’s possible to truly love more than one person. At the same time.”

  The hand she was holding tightened around her fingers. “You know about D.J.; I know I was only eighteen, but I was pretty sure about my emotions even then. I loved D.J. with all my heart. No sense denying that. If she had lived, I have no doubt we would have married, and I would have committed myself to her.”

  Dana nodded. D.J. and Mike had dated through middle and high school. In her junior year, D.J. was driving to school on a snowy morning when she slid into another car, killing both drivers instantly. Mike had waited years before getting involved in another relationship. With Dana.

  “You were probably emotionally mature at six. No quarrel so far.”

  “Had she lived, I believe we’d have married and been very happy. I couldn’t imagine anything that would have stopped my loving her. So what would have happened the night I fell at your feet in the park and looked up and recognized a soul mate? What could I have done? What would I have done?”

  “Maybe we never would have met.”

  “Maybe we would. I’d like to think you and I would have become friends immediately like we did, and just never taken things to another level.”

  “That’s what we would have done if you’d been married…”

  “But part of that instant attraction was that I wanted to be on top of you and inside you the minute our eyes met. That never happened to me before—even with D.J.—and it hasn’t happened since. It felt like fate. Like the will of God or the gods or…like something meant to be. If D.J. hadn’t died—if I’d been married to her, would that attraction not have been there? Would I have been strong enough to ignore it? I hope so, but…”

  “I understand,” Dana said.

  “Well, what I’m trying to say is things like that do happen. People who are commi
tted and love their partners do fall in love with someone else, and it doesn’t always lessen their love for the partner.”

  “So… If that happened to you—the sudden recognition of a ‘shared destiny’ or whatever…”

  Dana paused, suddenly reminded of a customer who had come in three months ago. She had taken a look, locked eyes with him, and waited on him herself. He had been the soul of propriety, but she couldn’t say what would have happened if he’d made a move. Yeah, she could relate to that.

  “Would you tell me, Mike? Would you tell me about it?”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “Not the same thing, I think you said.”

  “No. If nothing came of it I probably wouldn’t mention it. It would involve another person who was totally innocent. And it would be secret. Sharing it would cheapen it.”

  Dana agreed, thinking of her customer. She had not told Mike about him.

  “So, you think Daddy had a secret passion for someone else?”

  “It makes more sense than anything else, and I can’t think of another explanation.” Mike shook his head. “Unless— Could it have been a joke, honey? Some office prank?”

  Dana thought about it. It was a possibility, but really a stretch, considering the atmosphere at the bank. Any why would he have kept something like that if it had been a meaningless joke?

  “I don’t think so.” She took a deep breath. This was the real question. “Should I tell Mother?”

  Mike shrugged. “Would you want to know something like that about me after I’m gone and can’t defend myself—can’t even tell you the whole story?”

  “I don’t know.” It was an honest answer. She hadn’t a clue what to do.

  “Just think about it a long time, Dana. Those words—that image of her husband with another woman—it can’t ever be erased once you throw it out there. And we really have no proof.”