My son-in-law broke the little lock and lifted the lid, and what lay on top made me sit right down on the ladder step, because the suitcase was full of presents, wrapped and ribboned, and every one had my name on the tag.
There were dozens of them, small boxes mostly, the kind a man can afford one at a time. And on each tag, in Herberts careful hand, was a date. The oldest was from the first year we were married, back in 1982. The newest was from the autumn before he passed.
Herbert had bought me a gift every single year of our marriage, wrapped it, and hidden it away, because the boy who grew up with nothing could never quite bring himself to spend the money out loud in the moment.
I opened them there in the hallway, one a year, in order, with my son-in-law handing them down and my daughter come over to sit beside me. A little brooch from the year we had no money for a honeymoon. A pair of gloves from a winter I remembered being especially cold. A locket from the year our daughter was born, with a space inside for her picture that he never got to fill because he never got to give it to me.
There was a letter at the bottom, under all of them, and it explained the thing I had wondered about for forty-two years, which was why a good man who clearly loved me could never seem to celebrate anything.
He wrote that his own father had once saved for a year to buy his mother a Christmas gift, and had lost the money to a bad winter, and had wept at the kitchen table in a way that a small boy never forgets. Herbert wrote that he had grown up afraid of that exact moment, of holding out a gift and having it mean he had nothing left. So he did the only thing his frightened heart could manage. He bought the gift, and he kept it safe, where no hard year could take it back, and he told himself he would give it to me someday when he was sure, finally, that we were going to be all right.
We were always going to be all right. He just never let himself believe it long enough to hand one over.
The last line said, If you are reading this, then I ran out of somedays. I am sorry I made you wait. Everything I could not say for forty-two years is in this old suitcase. It was always yours. I was only ever keeping it safe.
I wear the brooch now, every day, the one from the year we were too poor for a honeymoon. And I have stopped waiting for somedays, all on my own. He taught me that in the end, the hard way and the loving way at once.