Note to my readers: I seem to have mixed up the timeline in this story a bit. Because I skipped ahead in years to keep the story flowing, I mixed up my years a little. So, because I don't want to go into 20K word stories that are already published and tweak things around and then resubmit them for review, I'm going to cheat a little. So here's where we are. Connor is going to Annapolis in 2000, class of 2004, and he's 17 at the time. That makes Rachel 7, going into third grade, a year ahead, like her brother, skipping a year. In 2000, Eva and Jon are 39 and have been married twenty years in February. They've worked at Wayne Day School for nine years, going into their tenth year in September, the final on their contract. We pick up the story in February of 2000, Connor's Senior year. I'm sorry for any confusion and I promise to be more careful in the future. Thanks, and enjoy!
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It was mid-February, that special time of year for us, the confluence of Valentine's Day, Eva's birthday two days later, and our anniversary the day after that. A very special anniversary, our 20th. Twenty years of real wedded bliss. The 17th, our anniversary, was a Thursday that year. Eva's parents were driving down Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with us. We were planning to go to dinner with them, Cammy and a man she was seeing, and some friends at Larry and Patty's steak house. A nice, smallish party, about sixteen people.
Eva and I had agreed instead of gifts each of the days (two for me from her and three for her from me) we'd do the One Big Gift for each other for the first and only time. The kids and I cheated on Valentine's Day. I gave Connor money to go into town after school and get a dozen roses for me and he and Rachel chipped in to get another dozen from them. Rachel saved her birthday and Chanukah money over the years and she had a small stash of cash besides the bulk of her money in a bank account. She was a saver by her nature.
When we gave her the flowers, Eva of course hugged and kissed our children and thanked them, but she tried to give me a stern look for breaking our deal. "Jon, we agreed, no gifts today or Wednesday."
"Connor and Rachel wanted to get you flowers. I couldn't let them make me look bad, could I?" I said with a sly smile. "Besides, you deserved these today of all days. Our twentieth Valentine's day. I had to, Angel. I love you so much, and more and more every single day. Oh, and I sent your mom roses from all of us the other day."
"I sure as hell can't be mad at you for this." Eva kissed me, a long, slightly sexy kiss, as sexy as she could with our kids nearby. "Thanks for thinking of my mother. And just wait for tonight. I'll make it up to you. And by the way, I'm crazy in love with you too, Bear. The best husband imaginable." She didn't lie; we had a great time that night once we were alone.
Thursday night we went out for our anniversary and Eva's birthday, alone. Connor watched Rachel for us; they would be with us Saturday night when we all went out. This was the night for us to be by ourselves. We even took off Friday so we could make a real night of it.
Over cocktails and a fine French dinner of duck (Eva) and braised veal shank (me) we talked about our twenty years together. How lucky we had been overall. Every marriage has it's ebb and flow, its good years and tough ones. So we heard. But we both agreed there were very few bad times in our shared life. We knew couples who barely talked to each other. Who barely tolerated each other. Who stopped being intimate with each other. Not us. We were closer then than we were at the beginning. More in love with each other. And we still desired each other. All the time. Not just on special occasions. All the time.
Before we exchanged gifts over dessert, we held hands across the table, and the candle was glowing in Eva's eyes. She was still the most beautiful woman I knew, even more beautiful than when we started dating at `eighteen. She was aging like a great wine. I asked her "Angel, if you could change one thing about our lives, anything at all, what would it be?"
"I really don't like those kind of games, because you can't change the past, Bear. But I guess if we could go back and change something, it would be to have had Rachel sooner and to have had at least one more child. One more of your children, my loving Bear. I would have loved to have another of your children. Maybe even two." She smiled, a little bit wistful. Our fingers were dancing together on the table. "What about you? What would you change?"
"You won't believe this, but I was going to say the very same thing. I wish we had more children. The two we have remind me of you. They're so smart and beautiful. And they both have these huge hearts that could have only come from our love for each other. I wish we had been able to have one or two more of YOUR children."
We cried softly together, not caring who saw us. Our fingers tightened, holding on as if for our lives. Then I told her "But I don't regret that we didn't take that chance. Because I never would have wanted to risk losing you, my love, my life. We took that chance to have Rachel. But trying for more would have just pushed our luck. Losing you would have been like losing everything I am. I couldn't have raised our children without you. So yeah, I would have loved two more children. But not at the risk of losing you."
Eva was silent, unable to answer. me. Finally she said "Bear, forget dessert. Get it to go and take me home. We'll exchange gifts there. I want to be alone with you and love you all night, or as long as we can." I apologized to our waiter who gladly packed our desserts to go. We spent the rest of the night loving each other until the wee hours of the morning. Oh, and we exchanged our gifts around 2 in the morning. I got a gold Rolex, engraved 'For my Bear, my love and my life, Love, your Angel', and I gave Eva a platinum ring for her right hand, with five small emeralds in a circle, one for each of the most special people in her life, all surrounding a diamond, representing our love for each other. We cried softly as we kissed and made love another time. it was that kind of night.
Two nights later, Saturday night, with Eva's parents and Cammy and Lee (her date), we headed to Penn Prime, the restaurant, but instead of the sixteen total we expected, there were about 40 people, a semi-surprise party for us, including Eva's brothers and their families, and Aunt Annette and Uncle Phil. They were all spending the night afterwards at The Wayne Hotel. It had all been put together by her parent's, and it was touching and fun, our family and our friends. Eva and I drank a little too much, but it was our party, and it was another great memory, with lots of pictures taken for our latest scrapbook. We had a couple of dozen of them, filled with our pictures, our memories, from twenty years of our lives.
That night in bed, buzzing along nicely but not actually drunk, we were kissing romantically. We were kind of tired for sex, but we still were feeling the desire to just cuddle and kiss. Eva touched my chest and said "Hey, Bear, do you realize we've been together for over half our lives? We're together for more years than we were alive before we started this life."
"Well, after twenty years, I think your warranty is over. I should trade you in on a new model, perhaps a nice twenty five year old redhead. Or two twenty year old brunettes." I smiled lovingly at her and she spanked me playfully.
