“Um, thirteenth.”
“No! Really?”
That was almost half the month gone and I hadn’t ticked off any of my February writing goals. I needed to get cracking and … Hold on. The thirteenth of February? That meant it was St. Valentine’s Day the next day and I hadn’t got Him anything.
Oh, well, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t mind. The last time we were in town we couldn’t help noticing that almost every shop was decorated in pink and red. Everywhere we looked it was ‘Buy this for Valentine’s’ and ‘Buy that for Valentine’s’. We both had a good old moan about how the whole thing was too commercialised, and how all this romance nonsense had nothing to do with real life – or real love.
But I’d always given him a card (usually a jokey one) and he had never forgotten …
“Just going to post this,” I said, waving an envelope at him as I scooted out of the house. As soon as I was out of sight, I stuffed the empty envelope into my pocket and hurried to the village shop. The one, small card rack was still filled with half-price boxes of Christmas cards.
“Don’t suppose you’ve got any Valentine cards?” I asked.
“Only these.” The shop owner pointed to a box on the counter. It contained a dozen cards all with the same design, a rather tired looking bunch of red roses. “The missus and me don’t bother with stuff like that any more,” he confided. “Well, you don’t when you get to our age, do you?”
I put on what I hoped was my enigmatic smile, selected the card that looked the least shopsoiled and paid for it without saying another word.
When I got home, I was surprised to find Him pulling on his coat. “Thought I’d go for a walk. My knee’s stiff again. A bit of exercise usually sorts it out.”
“Don’t go too far,” I said. “Looks like it’s going to rain soon.”
“No, just round the block.”
I watched Him limping up the drive. He was right about the exercise doing him good. As soon as he turned onto the road he was able to break into a jog!
The next morning, there were two red envelopes on the kitchen table. We both pretended to be surprised as we opened them.
Snap!
“Well, it’s the thought that counts,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
We put the two cards on the windowsill in the front room to show the world we hadn’t forgotten.
***
Did you remember? Did Someone Else forget?
3 comments:
Good for you - both of you. I thought I had been forgotten, but hubby went shoping in the afternoon and I got flowers as well as a card.
Ha, neat post, Linda. You'd better watch out though, it's a small step from matching cards to matching cagoules (actually, I think we have them)
That is so sweet. It is the thought that counts.
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