My father loves telling this story of me when I was five:
It was Valentine’s Day morning on a Sunday. He woke me up early to help him bring breakfast to my mother in bed. He did the heavy lifting: fried ham, eggs over easy, toast, juice, and coffee on a breakfast tray. My help was nominal: I carried the rose. He basically just wanted to include me in the little celebration.
Nevertheless, I was really proud to be of assistance, he said. After he had carefully lowered the tray on my mother’s lap, I just as ceremoniously gave her the rose. But then he pulled out his Valentine’s present for my mom from the pocket of his robe: a small box wrapped in red foil. My mother opened it and was really happy to find the necklace inside. My father said I was smiling as I looked up at him and my mom from the side of the bed – in sympathetic joy, he thought, but the next words I said let him know that my happiness was, in fact, expectancy.
“What did you get me?” he said I asked.
My father and mother exchanged glances. My father said, “I’m sorry, Ray. It’s Valentine’s Day, so I only got a gift for your mother.”
My father said I was pouting as I said, “But you gave me gifts, too, last time.” “Last time” meaning Christmas, a couple of months before.
“Well… Valentine’s Day is different. Only certain people get gifts on Valentine’s.”
“Like who?”
“Oh, husbands and wives. Sweethearts. People who have boyfriends or girlfriends.”
My father said I looked unconvinced – and a little like I’d been betrayed. “Gina from school is my friend. She’s a girl.”
“Umm… okay?”
“So why didn’t you get me a gift?”
(July 2012)
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