This is my take on
this intriguing story
. I want to thank George Anderson for giving his permission for my efforts and thanks for inspiring so many authors to embellish on his wonderful original story. The beginning is from GeorgeAnderson's opening as to set the stage properly and I placed it in italics as to differentiate his words from mine. I begin my ending after
"You're the good guy."
This is a work of fiction and dramatic license supersedes any real-world issues with law. All errors in structure and grammar are my own.
It always does, unless you live in one of those places that doesn't have winter. Every February sucks, but that particular February out sucked all the others put together, and the March that followed was worse.
The Worst February Ever started with two weeks when we literally didn't see the sun. Grey overcast, high temperatures in the 20s and an occasional inch or two of snow. Everyone was looking forward to Valentine's Day as if it was their hope of salvation. It fell on Thursday that year, and so many people were taking the next day off that the editorial writers were saying we might as well shut the whole city down on February 15
th
.
Linda and I had big plans for Valentine's Day, just like everyone else. Like everyone else, we awoke to two inches of new snow, with more falling rapidly. By mid-afternoon we were both sent home from work while we could still get somewhere: the whole city was shutting down. By the time we should have been getting dressed for our night on the town, all the roads were closed to non-essential traffic so we changed into our cozy sweats instead.
The great Valentine's Day date, the dinner-movie-dancing one that was supposed to make up for the previous two weeks of unrelieved beastliness, was frozen pizza and "Frozen" with the kids. The only dancing we did was dancing Emma (age six) and Tommy (age four) up to their bedrooms amid protests of "You know there won't be any school tomorrow."
After the kids were asleep, I sighed as I handed Linda her glass of wine. "I'm sorry, Linda," I said. "This isn't how it was supposed to turn out."
"It's okay, Jim. It isn't your fault, and it was fun looking forward to what you had planned for us. Besides, if nothing else, I got a new party dress out of it."
"Which I haven't seen yet."
"You know the rule: you don't see it until you take me out in it." I looked at her, trying to imagine what she had bought, and how she would look in it. Linda isn't classically beautiful, but she has an innate sense of style: everything she wears not only looks great on her, it reflects who she is. She started making her own clothes in middle school, and still does from time to time when she can't find "just the right thing" in the stores. She makes many of Emma's dress-up clothes, too.
Anyone lucky enough to see her when she's dressed up would think she's the most attractive woman in the room, but would have trouble figuring out why, because there would be hotter women there. They would be thinking, "There's just something about her, I'd like to get to know her," not so much "Boy, I'd give a month's salary to get a piece of that." I saw that when I first met her, and I've had no reason to change my mind. I looked at the diamond I'd placed on her finger almost ten years before, as it flashed in the firelight.
"Thank you for saying yes, Linda. I love you." I raised my glass. "To us."
"I love you, too. To us," she responded with a smile. We sat for a moment, comfortably silent.
"Linda, I'm sorry I've been so touchy these last few days. It's nothing you or the kids have done, and you deserve better from me. It's just this damn February, and this..."
"I know Jim. I'm sorry too. I've been just as bad. I think the hibernating bears have the right idea. We really should be sleeping until spring. We've all been on edge, even the kids. The people at my work are a lot worse than you, though. What about your work?"
"The same."
"Well, look at it this way, Jim. We have each other, we have the kids, we have our home, we know where our next meal is coming from..."
"Yeah, Wendy's."
She laughed. Our first date was a running joke between us. I had met Linda in college. My parents had had to cut off my support to pay my dad's health bills, and I refused to take out loans, so after tuition and books I literally had no money. Linda was a little better off, and had offered to treat me or go Dutch, but I wasn't having any of that, so I was saving up to take her someplace nice. She had told me I was silly and said the object was to spend time together and get to know each other, and we could do that just as easily at Wendy's. So that's where we had gone, and the rest was history. We've moved up in class since then, but we still get Wendy's now and then for old times' sake.
"Seriously, though," I said. "How do people get through times like this if they don't have love?"
"Sometimes they don't." Linda shuddered. A high school boyfriend of hers had killed himself with booze and pills on Valentine's Day night a couple of years before.
"Well, we do, and we will." I put down my glass and took both of her hands in mine. "Happy Valentine's Day, my love."
"Happy Valentine's Day, my beloved husband." We gazed into each other's eyes for a moment, then decided we really should move this to the bedroom.
We ended up getting the three-day weekend the editorial writers thought we should have, courtesy of about two feet of snow instead of the predicted eight inches. Everything was closed, of course, but hardly anyone lost power, and enough people had snowmobiles that anyone who really had to get somewhere could. All right, so the kid from up the street probably didn't have any places he had to be or any other excuse for making all that racket and throwing rooster tails everywhere, but he ran out of gasoline Saturday afternoon and his parents wouldn't give him any more. He didn't bother anyone after that.
Our kids, of course, were ecstatic. Mom and Dad were both home all day, there was snow to play in and pizza to eat and movies to watch, not to mention no school. What more could they want? Linda and I were pretty happy about the situation, too. There was no pressure to be anywhere or do anything, and we could enjoy our family to our hearts' content. Food wasn't a worry: Linda and I both grew up around here, so we always made sure we had plenty in advance with some to share, just in case.
Emma and Tommy tired themselves out enough that they didn't even make a fuss about going to bed and slept like logs. Which allowed Linda and me to content our hearts in ways for which we usually had to send the kids out of the house. There were only a couple of things wrong that weekend, as far as I was concerned. We had hundreds of movies in the house, but the kids would only watch one. Frozen. Over and over and over again. Okay, it's a sweet little story, and has some good songs, but come on! And Linda still wouldn't model the dress for me, or even let me see it.
"Taking me out in it means out, not in," she said, with a flirty little smile.
"What if I promise to take you out of it? Is that close enough?"
"Nice try, but nope." She wouldn't budge, darn it.
The real world returned early Sunday evening when the plows came through our neighborhood. School and work were on for Monday, and there was sighing from both kids and kids at heart as we got ready. Just before bedtime, Emma and Tommy marched into the living room, freshly scrubbed and in their night clothes. Big sister was the spokesperson, of course, standing as straight and tall as she could.
"Mommy, Daddy, this weekend was the best ever! Thank you for playing with us, and watching our movie with us, and all being together for three whole days in a row. We love you." With that, Daddy's girl climbed into my lap and Mommy's boy into Linda's. After giving us the sweetest kid-hugs in the world, they switched parents and did it again. I looked over at Linda and her eyes were as wet as mine.
"We love you, too," I managed to croak out. "We're so glad that you're our kids."
Linda and I didn't do anything extraordinary that night, unless making sweet love until we felt like we merged into one being counts. We couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces the next morning, and neither could the kids. Beastly February settled back in, though, and the three-day weekend faded into memory. Even our normally even-tempered kids were quarrelsome.
Linda and I had just collapsed against each other in the sofa in the living room after finally getting Emma and Tommy down for the night, when Linda's phone rang. I growled and muttered something.
"It's Dee, I have to pick up," she said apologetically. We had a loose circle of five couples that we hung out or went out with from time to time. We had all met as married couples, so there were no uncomfortable "back when you were single" moments. We all had the same ideas about fidelity: namely, you just did it, it wasn't questionable or negotiable.
That way when we went out, we could dance with each other's spouses if we wanted some variety, and know we were safe. We were closest to Dee and her husband Dave; she and Linda were almost best friends. Linda made an "I'll keep this short" gesture as she answered the phone.
I could see Linda getting more excited as she talked with Dee. She was all but glowing when she ended the call and plopped herself into my lap.
"So what was that all about?" My face couldn't help reflecting her smile.
"Well, dear husband," she smirked at me, "I know you think this horrible February has gone on just about long enough."
