My Husband Bought Two Valentine’s Day Gifts and Only Gave Me One

And still.

Terrence and I have been married 13 years. He’s a corporate trainer, does workshops and development programs for companies. Good at his job, good with people, the kind of person who makes everyone in the room feel heard. Which in retrospect explains some things.

Valentine’s Day was on a Saturday this year. Terrence had a card and a box on the kitchen table in the morning, the kind of setup he always does, nothing elaborate but consistent. Inside the box was a necklace, a delicate gold chain with a small pendant, simple, exactly to my taste. The card had his handwriting in it, a paragraph about what I mean to him, the years, what he hopes for. I teared up a little. He hugged me. We had a nice day.

February 15th I went to the grocery store. When I got back I opened the trunk to put the bags in and there was a small pink gift bag sitting to one side. I thought it was something Terrence had picked up and forgotten about, or something of mine I’d left in there.

The card tucked in the side of the bag said “Simone” on the front.

I took the card out. I opened it. I read it.

It was similar to what he’d written to me. Not identical word for word, but the same rhythm, a lot of the same phrases. “These years with you,” that was in both. “What I want for us.” He’d copied some version of his feelings for me onto a card for someone else, or the other way around, or maybe he wrote one and edited it for the other, I don’t know which direction it went and I’ve stopped trying to figure that out.

I stood next to my car with bags of groceries at my feet for probably three or four minutes. A neighbor drove by and waved and I waved back automatically.

I took the card.

I put my groceries in the trunk. Closed it. Went inside. Made dinner. Terrence was in his home office and came out when dinner was ready and we ate and watched TV and went to bed like it was a regular Saturday.

I kept the card in the zippered compartment of my winter coat. I’d look at it sometimes. I built up an understanding, or what felt like understanding, of the situation over those two months. Simone. Eight months, maybe, based on what I could piece together from nothing. Corporate contacts, probably. He travels for work. The math wasn’t hard.

His birthday is in April. I decided that was when I’d give it back.

I made him a card for his birthday. Inside my card I put Simone’s card, folded in half, and didn’t write anything extra about it.

He opened my card at dinner with our daughter Yolanda and her boyfriend. He unfolded the other card. He knew what it was in about one second. He said nothing immediately, just folded it back up small and held it. Yolanda didn’t notice what happened.

Later that night he was angry. Not the quiet I-did-something-wrong angry. Actually angry. He said I’d kept it for two months without saying anything, that I’d done that deliberately to save it for his birthday, that this was manipulative. He used that word. Manipulative.

And I want to be honest with you: for about 20 minutes I felt crazy. Because his anger was real and he was articulate about it and I found myself starting to explain why I kept the card, starting to justify myself to the person who’d bought two Valentine’s Day gifts, and I had to just stop and stand still for a second and remember which direction this had come from.

He told me about Simone. Eight months, roughly, which was what I’d guessed. He said no more trips together since around March, after I’d apparently been distant, which he may have taken as a sign. I was distant in March because I knew, since I was carrying his other card around in my coat pocket.

Yolanda found out. I didn’t tell her but she’s smart and she put things together and she called me and I told her what had happened. She’s been quieter with her father since then. I haven’t told her to feel anything about it.

I still do Terrence’s bookkeeping, which is its own kind of strange. We haven’t separated. I haven’t decided. The birthday dinner wasn’t the ending I’d imagined when I was planning it. It was just more complicated than that.

My assistant at the salon asked last week why I seem tired. I said it’s just been a long few months. She nodded. She’s heard a lot of those, too.