The Gift

There are certain nights when I go upstairs to climb into bed, and I just know that I must have been an especially good Wife to my Husband, or that Husband is still, underneath that ultra-cool exterior, a hopeless romantic, because there on my bedside table gleams a tightly-wrapped gift.

I will be the first to confess that the material value of the gift remains somewhat of a mystery to me. Is this balled-up package meant to be opened? My gut instinct and a killer nose tell me no. I have contemplated the idea of placing the gift underneath my pillow, just to see if the tooth fairy’s less fortunate cousin also deals in some sort of financial exchange, but again, something holds me back.

Even though I haven’t been able to penetrate the market worth of the gift, I’ve received enough of them by now to make me wonder about the symbolic value behind this delightful gesture.

I know that Husband is as tired as I am by the time bedtime duties roll around, even if my fatigue is far more legitimate and justifiable than his, because, who are we kidding, on an average day, he gets to drive to and from work (fun), go out to lunch in a restaurant (totally fun), and make a barrage of cold sales calls (earth-shatteringly fun), whereas I have to fix the breakfast (Cinderelly), wash the dishes (Cinderelly), do the moppin’ (night and day, Cinderelly)….but I digress…. I have worked enough jobs to know the psychological impact of punching the clock. Yet when Husband walks through our door, he’s more than ready to jump into the fray, pulling his fair share in the nightly ritual...from wrestling to reading, bathing to brushing, and from dressing to diapering.

I know enough about life not to take this trait for granted….when my mom tells the story about my dad’s former diapering skills, there is a tenderness in her voice that reveals she’s not just impressed at my dad’s superhuman ability to pin a diaper so tightly that even Houdini couldn’t have wriggled his way out of it—she’s admiring the fact that he changed a diaper at all, when there was absolutely no cultural expectation that he should have to. Certainly Husband works hard enough from 9 to 5 that he shouldn’t have to deal in dirty diapers, but he does do the doodoo, and that is a most precious gift.

So, is the gleaming package on the bedside table as quintessentially romantic as a mint truffle on my pillow, or a jewelry box that contains, um, let’s just say as an entirely random example here, a Christopher Designs pavé-set round diamond band, Style #G12AB? Probably not. Will Danielle Steel be adopting this literary topos for her next bestselling novel? All signs point to no. But the gift is a reminder of the verve and enthusiasm with which Husband has embraced fatherhood. It is emblem of his dedication, devotion, and diligence to his family…and, only to a far lesser degree, of his inexplicable inability to locate the trash can a few feet away.

I feel pretty sure that I’ve never even once thanked Husband for these periodic bedtime gifts. In fact, not only have I never opened the packages he leaves, I habitually toss them into the trash with an utter disregard for their contents. So maybe I’m not the sentimental fool I once was after all…