My knees near gave, because inside the base of that ten-dollar coffee pot was a small cassette recorder, the old kind, wrapped in a dish towel, and taped to it a note in Nadines hand: press play, you old grump. I had something to say.
My hands shook so hard I could barely work the tape towel loose. I sat down at the kitchen table, set the little recorder in front of me, and pressed the button.
And there was Nadine. Her voice, filling my kitchen for the first time in a year, warm and teasing and alive.
She had recorded it the week of our anniversary, meaning it to be the real gift once she had let me sputter over the cheap pot for a day or two, a message she never got to give me because a month later her heart stopped in the night.
She said, on that tape: Well, if you are hearing this, you finally figured out the pot is not just a pot. Took you long enough. I know you wanted that trolling motor. I know you thought this was a cheap gift. But I wanted to give you something you could keep longer than a motor.
Then her voice went soft, the way it did late at night after thirty-four years. She said: I wanted to give you my voice, so that on the days you miss me, and I know there will be days, you can hear me tell you what I told you every single night. I love you. I have always loved you. The grumbling never fooled me for a second.
I put my head down on that table and wept while my wife talked to me from a little tape, telling me stories from our life, laughing at my grumbling, reminding me of the day we met, the day we married, the day we brought our first child home.
At the end she said: Now go buy your trolling motor. The money is under the coffee grounds, you goose, I hid it in two places. Catch me a big one. And do not you dare sit in that pantry feeling sorry. I had a wonderful life with you. Every day of it.
I checked. There was money too, tucked under a false bottom of coffee grounds, just as she said. She had hidden her love in layers, the way she did everything, thoroughly, thoughtfully, teasing me even from beyond.
I bought the motor. I named the boat for her. And I keep that little recorder by my bed. Some nights, when the house is too quiet, I press play, and Nadine tells me she loves me, in her own voice, one more time. The cheapest-looking gift she ever gave me turned out to be the only thing that could give me back her voice. I will treasure that dented old pot until the day I go to meet her.