Miss Julia's Gift: A Penguin Special from Viking (4 page)

I glanced quickly at her. “What does that mean?”

“Well, you know I’m not one to gossip, so don’t repeat this, but the talk around town is that Jim is having an affair with that secretary of his. I’ve had two different people call to ask my opinion about telling Janet.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it wasn’t my business with a strong implication that it wasn’t theirs, either. In fact, knowing Jim, I didn’t believe it. Until now. That bracelet looks for all the world like a guilt gift to me.”

“A guilt gift? I’ve never heard of that.”

“Well, I just made it up, but it says it all. I just hope it means he’s come to his senses. And if so, maybe he’s atoning for his sin so he’ll feel better. But then again, it could just be a way to throw her off the track so he can keep on with that woman. Because when a man spends that kind of money on his wife—
for no reason
—you can bet he has a reason.”

“Oh, my goodness,” I said, bowing my head over the steering wheel, “I hate to think that.” Even worse, I hated to think that Sam’s gift giving could be spurred by guilt. But no, Sam was not Wesley Lloyd and, besides, if presenting a gift was an indication of guilt, Wesley Lloyd had never felt a twinge. It was all he could do to manage a gift at Christmas, and I tell you, it had become harder and harder each year to appear appreciative for another flannel gown.

* * *

Nonetheless, the image that Emma Sue had put in my head about guilt gifts continued to trouble me throughout the afternoon, popping back up each time I thought I’d put it to rest. Once burned, twice shy, as they say, so I couldn’t help but consider the possibility that Sam might be headed down the same crooked road that Wesley Lloyd had trod and that the current showers of gifts, large and small, were precautionary measures against discovery. But so soon into our marriage?

Impossible. Or so I assured myself. I mean, when had he had time? Or the stamina? But what did I know? Call me blind or naïve—even when half the town had been neither, I’d never for one minute suspected Wesley Lloyd of leading a double life. He’d been much too active in church.

I had to admit, though, that even if suspicion of Wesley Lloyd’s activities had occurred to me, I wouldn’t have believed it. Who would have wanted him? Only someone at the end of her rope, someone like Hazel Marie Puckett. Which meant that I couldn’t and wouldn’t blame her, for who knew what I might do if I had absolutely nowhere to turn?

Yet now, even knowing that I wouldn’t have believed Wesley Lloyd capable of what he so obviously
was
capable of, here I was already wondering if Sam was guilty of the same offense. And doing it not only without a smidgeon of evidence, but merely because I’d once been betrayed by a husband who’d not been half the man that Sam was. And doing it because Sam had a generous soul for which I should’ve been thankful, but instead, was using that same quality to condemn him.

Lillian had pointed out that, contrary to Wesley Lloyd, Sam was always where he was supposed to be. But was he? I’d never deliberately checked on him. Whenever I’d had reason to call while he was working at his house, he’d always been there. And he was home with me every evening.

Still, I figured that a man’s eyes begin to roam before he takes actual steps, so maybe Sam was in the prestep-taking stage and was feeling guilty about it. Thus, all the gifts.

I gave myself a mental shake, wondering why I always slipped back into going over and over the same old thing. Well, of course I knew why—comparing husbands is what I was doing.

Which brought me back to the fact that Sam was nothing like Wesley Lloyd in looks, temperament, or morals—none of which, however, explained his propensity for offering a gift every time I turned around. To show that he’d been thinking of me? I didn’t believe that for a minute. Sam’s mind was so full of Abbot County judges and law cases and fish and Rotary speakers and local politics and Republican campaigns and Roman wars—when did he have time during the day to think of me?

Well, obviously he found the time because I was running out of places on shelves and in drawers to put his gifts.

I declare, by the time I’d reached this point in my thinking, I was about done in. Already entertaining suspicions of my sweet, generous husband and us not married a year. That’s what distrust—no matter how justifiably learned—will do for you.

Why couldn’t I simply accept whatever he offered and be grateful for it? Regardless of what prompted Jim McDonald to give Janet a diamond tennis bracelet, I had no reason to think there was a similar motive behind a diamond watch. Or a Chia Pet groundhog, for that matter. There were no deep, dark secrets in Sam’s life. He was an open book, even if I was having trouble reading him. That was my problem, not his. And my own insecurity was what it came down to—unable to accept a gift for what it was—just a gift—and unable to suitably express gratitude.

Well, that could be learned, and I
would
learn it. Instead of digging around and probing into
my
reactions to his gifts, I would study how he reacted to me reacting to him.

So far, though, he’d seemed entirely contented with whatever response I made, so I didn’t have much to go on. Then with a sudden insight, I realized that I did have a little something to go on—the reaction of giftees when
I
was the one doing the giving.

At that thought, I got up and walked across to the front window, looked out at the bare trees and empty street, then sat back down again, thinking. What I needed to do was to recollect the times when I had been on the giving end with someone else on the receiving end and try to determine which responses had been most appropriate.

* * *

I’d occasionally wondered if Wesley Lloyd had been any more generous to Hazel Marie than he’d been to me. Because he’d been a penny-pincher of the first order, I doubted it. Oh, I knew he had kept her, kept her with all that the word entailed—paying the rent on the rickety little house where she and Little Lloyd had lived and giving her an allowance for food and so forth. But I had seen no evidence of her having received anything over and above the basics, and I could never have asked. I saw no reason to rub salt in my own wounds, so I carefully avoided any discussion of our mutual benefactor. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, so did she.

As I thought of Hazel Marie, I began to get a glimmer of possible responses to someone’s generosity. I recalled the state of her wardrobe, if you could call it that, when she and Little Lloyd first moved in with me. The first thing I did was take her shopping for decent clothes, although I had to kindly instruct her on what qualified as decent and what didn’t. I mean, there are some things that one simply cannot wear to church, much less to a ladies’ luncheon.

The look of wonder on Hazel Marie’s face as I told the salesclerk we’d take it all had been most gratifying. The tears that sprang up in her eyes had touched me, so I’d added a couple of pocketbooks and made plans to go to a shoe store. To me, her response had been sufficiently satisfactory, if she’d left it at that. I’d known she was appreciative and, what’s more, that she would continue to be. It was a pleasure to do for her, but frankly, I could do without her tendency to throw her arms around me and sob on my shoulder. So see, there’s enough and then there’s too much, and that was what agitated me about responding to Sam’s gifts. Some people may like such demonstrative displays and be disappointed when they aren’t forthcoming.

Take Little Lloyd as another example. I can’t tell you how that child wrung my heart, first with bitterness because of what he represented, but then with an emotion so warm that I had to call it love. That first Christmas when I’d finally been able to stop piling the sins of his father on his skinny little shoulders had truly opened my heart. I will never forget the look on the boy’s face when he saw all the presents under the tree. He couldn’t believe they were all for him. The excitement, the joy, the pure pleasure he exhibited made the mere expression of thanks pitifully inadequate. Displaying the same reserve as I myself have, he hadn’t attempted to hug and kiss and go on and on thanking me. All he’d done was come close to my chair and whisper, “This was the best Christmas I ever had,” which I knew was both heartfelt and heartbreakingly true.

* * *

Out of all the thinking and recalling, an idea was beginning to grow in my mind, an idea of how I could show Sam my appreciation—not just for his gifts, but for him. Valentine’s Day was coming.

So what could I do? What would Sam like? It would have to be something spectacular. No, not spectacular, but rather, something thoughtful, something specific to him.

Something fishing related? Sam loved to fish, but I knew nothing of the sport or of what he had or what he would like to have. I knew there were different kinds of fishing—deepwater, fly, trolling, etc.—but I didn’t know the name of what he liked, which seemed to be the kind where you sit in a boat and hold a rod.

Maybe a book? He would like that if I’d known what he’d already read or what he wanted to read. Something Roman, maybe, except he seemed to have every book already written and I doubted there were any new firsthand accounts.

Roses and candy? No, for goodness’ sakes, that’s what he’d likely give me, although Sam wasn’t known for doing the likely thing.

A new shirt? A tie? No and no. Either was more appropriate for Christmas, not for Valentine’s.

So what was appropriate? The dictionary, which I consulted because it had been so long since I’d either given or received a valentine, said that a valentine was a token of love to one’s sweetheart.

Well, that put a different light on it. I mulled a
token of love to my sweetheart
over and decided to consult the dictionary again, learning that a token was a sign or symbol of something intangible.

All right, so whatever valentine I gave Sam should be a tangible symbol of the intangible feelings I had for him.

Well, goodness, I sighed, that wasn’t much help. A new fishing rod would serve that purpose. If I’d known enough to get the right kind.

Then that glimmer of an idea suddenly bloomed into full flower and I got up from my wingback chair and went upstairs. From the bottom drawer of my desk, I took out my keepsake box. Opening the box, I began to go through the folded notes, letters, and cards that had come from Sam before and since our marriage. The box was almost full, but near the bottom I found the note that I was looking for—the one that a few years before had turned Sam from a comfortable old friend into an exciting suitor.

I carefully unfolded the note and there was the stalk of faded, flattened clover, its little pressed lilac head almost papery in my hand. On the page was the poem I remembered. Now I am not what one would call a poetic person, rarely reading it for pleasure, but when Sam had stood there with that limp clover in his hand and
recited
—not read—that poem, well, poetry in general and Sam in particular took on whole new meanings.

Smiling to myself, I recalled how I’d asked for a copy of it, not having Sam’s ability to memorize, and he’d sat down and written it off onto the page I now held. Murmuring aloud, I read it again:

It’s all I have to bring to-day,

This, and my heart beside,

This, and my heart, and all the fields,

And all the meadows wide.

Be sure you count, should I forget,—

Some one the sum could tell,—

This, and my heart, and all the bees

Which in the clover dwell.

Excited now that I knew what I could do, I put away my precious keepsake, hurried down the stairs and turned alongthe hall.

Along both sides of the hall from the stairs back were bookcases partially filled with books of one kind or another. I say partially because Wesley Lloyd’s books—mostly on finance and biographies of financiers—had gone the way of everything else he’d owned. What was left were books I had bought over the years—some to read and some to fill the shelves because I’d read somewhere that every home should have books on display.

I was looking for a specific book,
American Poets
or
American Poetry
, something like that. I’d ordered it years before from the Book-of-the-Month Club, back when they allowed new members to check four books to receive free just for joining. I recalled selecting that specific book and three others, which all appeared to be reference books of some kind—books that would indicate a certain level of intellectual interest in the household to anyone who happened to notice them.

Sitting down with the book, I turned to the index, found the pages with Emily Dickinson’s poems, and began scanning the short lines. I was looking for a particular one of which I had a vague memory. When I found it, I read . . .

Wild nights! Wild nights!

Were I with thee,

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile the winds

To a heart in port,—

Done with the compass,

Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!

Ah! the sea!

Might I but moor

To-night in thee!

. . . and blushed. Did I dare give such a thing to Sam? I hadn’t remembered how immodest, even shameless, it was. I mean, of course, if your mind tended in that direction. If you were high-minded enough, it could be a poem about fishing on a stormy night.

I laughed aloud. Sam wasn’t that high-minded. He would recognize and appreciate the promise it made—even if, or possibly because, that promise was so indelicate.

So that was the valentine I prepared for Sam, hand copying it onto a Crane’s informal, then stopping short because I didn’t know how to sign it. Should it be simply
Julia
or something more personal? I thought of the little pink, heart-shaped candies that Lillian had placed in a candy dish on the coffee table in the living room. Each one had a message printed on it, messages such as
Be Mine
,
I Luv U
,
Be My Valentine,
and the like. Any one would’ve been more or less suitable, but not quite right. With a sudden flight of fancy, I almost signed it
From Your Not-So-Secret Admirer
, then stopped. I couldn’t decide, proving again how unoriginal and unimaginative I was. In my defense, however, I had had few occasions to sign a billet-doux. Or a valentine, either.