It was close to Valentine’s Day last year when I had told Dave I loved him. I sounded like a miming bird, whenever I’d see him, frequently and unabashedly repeating my declaration of love for the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Dave had arrived home from work, he was a legal assistant at a local attorney’s office at the time, working his way up the lawyerly ladder, and he handed me a colorful, aromatic bouquet of azaleas, irises, and daffodils.
I remembered his exact words to me as he unwrapped the perfectly cut stalks from their crackling cellophane. “It’s nice to come home to a happy face.” Which, at the time, was conflicting. I didn’t realize how unhappy Dave was at the time with work and home life.
Dave didn’t talk much about his work day, I remembered, and the subtl
