Make Sure They Know

The cafeteria was a roaring sea of pinks and reds. Heart-shaped boxes exchanged hands all over the bustling room. Candy and chocolates, tiny cards, squeals, and laughter; it was expected, but very nearly unbearable for the many students left empty-handed.

Aubrey was one of these students. She and her best friend sat at their usual table, ignoring the pastel gaggle of giggles at the same long table, just feet away, ooh-ing and aw-ing over a tiny convenience store teddy bear someone’s boyfriend had bought them. 

Aubrey rolled her eyes with her friend as she opened her lunch bag. 

Her heart sank. 

There, atop the sandwich and chips she ate every day, was an offensively pink, beady-eyed, smiling bunny. And clutched in its tiny, furry pink paws was a small heart-shaped box. 

In permanent marker, “I love you, Hunny-bunny!” was scrawled across the box in small chicken-scratch. Beneath it, “Dad.” 

“Oh my God,” Aubrey groaned, slumping.

Her friend of four years followed Aubrey's flat gaze and nearly choked, chortling loudly, “Your dad gave you a valentine again?”

A hush fell over the long table as the group of girls next to them paused their tittering to follow Aubrey’s gaze. 

One of the girls huffed a laugh, her light pink shoulders shaking. 

“Is that the only valentine you got?” Her voice dripped with contempt and she shared a haughty look with her other heavily made-up friends. “From your dad?”

Aubrey didn't have to look around to know that heads were turning all around her. Her face was growing hot and she knew she was turning bright red. To get up and walk away, though, would only attract more attention.

She stuffed the ridiculous gift back into her lunch bag and tried to ignore the stares and smirks, the murmurs, and the sidelong glances.

Aubrey met her friend’s sheepish smile. 

“I'm sorry,” her friend whispered. 

Aubrey forced a small smile of her own. “It’s okay,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders.

There’s going to be a family meeting tonight, Aubrey thought. Just like last Valentine’s Day.

Hours later, Aubrey’s hand-me-down Ford pulled into the driveway next to her dad’s SUV. The garage door was already open and she climbed out to head inside and find her dad.

The rest of the school day had been fairly uneventful; for the most part, people left her alone about her dad’s valentine. In her annoyance, though, she had been tempted to throw it away. Like she did last year. She had requested that he stop the silly tradition two years ago, but he had only rolled his eyes and walked away.

It wouldn’t be so bad, she thought, if he were to just surprise her with the valentine at home. Why he insisted on putting them in her lunch bag or her backpack was beyond her comprehension.

Just a weird Dad thing, she told herself as she stepped into the garage.

The ladder for the garage attic was pulled down and there were boxes stacked around the small space. Footsteps creaked above her as her dad moved around in the cramped dusty attic.

“Dad,” she called. “I’m home.” Her dad took valentine’s Day off every year for no apparent reason. He was just weird like that.

There was no response from the attic and Aubrey set her backpack down as she peered up into the dimly lit space. “Dad?”

The sound of feet shuffling on gritty plywood reached her, more creaking as he moved around.

“Aubrey? That you?”

Who else would it be? “Yeah, it’s me.” She glanced around at the stacks of boxes. She wanted to tell him about her embarrassment at lunch, about his part in it, but he seemed preoccupied. She shelved the conversation for now. “You want some help?”

The creaking paused and she could see her dad in her mind’s eye, his head back, sighing, his thinking face. 

“Oh, um. Yeah,” he finally said. “Yeah, I could use some help getting the rest of the boxes back up here.” With shuffling, sliding footsteps, a dull bang, and a muffled curse, he appeared at the top of the ladder, rubbing the crown of his head. “Go ahead and pass me one of those boxes.”

Aubrey picked up the one nearest her and climbed the ladder a few steps before lifting the box into her dad’s waiting hands. As it was taken from her and it disappeared into the attic, she moved to the next one.

This one was older and still open. There were multiple layers of packing tape across the top as if this box was opened each year, just to be closed again.

Aubrey looked around as she listened to her dad’s scuffing footsteps above her. A roll of packing tape lay on the workbench and she grabbed it. She gently closed the cardboard flaps and was ready with the tape, but the box wouldn’t close neatly. Something in the box was preventing the top closures from lying flat. Looking around, all the other boxes were closed and sealed, a thick layer of dust and attic funk covering their tape.

This box, though, had been opened and reopened many times over the years.

Aubrey opened the box the rest of the way and peered inside.

On top of everything, dust-free and bright red, was a heart-shaped box. It was about as big as her hand, a store-bought box, hand-painted bright red, small designs swirled across the top in pink and gold. A simple card was attached to the top of the box, a note scrawled there in small, familiar chicken-scratch.

“Happy valentine’s Day, Mom,” It read. “I love you, Danny.”

The shuffling in the attic had paused and the air in the garage was suddenly still as Aubrey looked up to find her dad peeking down at her from the attic.

His eyes dragged slowly from her confused expression to the old valentine before her. Minutes seemed to pass by, his expression graver than she had ever seen it. Her dad, the practical joker, lover of scary movies and slap-stick comedy, creator of “gourmet” hot-dog dinners, and singer of silly made-up song parodies. He just stared down at the small red box.

Her eyes dropped back down to the note. “Mom,” she read again. 

Aubrey had never known her grandmother on her dad’s side. She had died before Aubrey was born, she was told. That was all she was told. But her dad’s pained expression, his sorrow-filled eyes, the immaculate state of the heart-shaped box and note; Aubrey knew there was something more to this box. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. 

It had a small, intact sticker across the top and bottom of the box; it had never been opened. 

A creak sounded from the attic ladder as her dad slowly made his way down. When both feet were on the garage floor, he rubbed his head with his hands, his eyes downcast.

“I made that for my mom when I was nine,” he said, slowly stepping over to Aubrey. His eyes never left the small red box, the note. “I never got to give it to her.”

Aubrey could feel the dread coming off of her dad as he stood there next to her.

“Why not,” she asked quietly.

Her dad only stared at the valentine for a few heartbeats before he slowly took it from her fingers. He held it and sighed. 

“Come on,” he breathed, turning around and taking slow steps to the door. “Let’s take this inside. It's not a conversation to have in the garage.”

Aubrey followed her dad inside and watched him pause at the breakfast table, box in hand. As if he thought it would crumble, he very gently set the gift box down and pulled a couple of chairs out, gesturing for her to sit.

She had never seen her dad so distant. He was the corny dad, the dad-joke dad. She was convinced he didn't have a serious bone in his body. 

But this Dad—this Dad was different.  

“I made this at school during art class,” he started. “I don't think I had ever really made her a valentine before this one.” He huffed and smiled. “I wasn’t very artistic, as you can tell.” They both glanced at the painted swirls and misshapen hearts drawn on the note. “But I was excited to give it to her. She was a great mom. She took such great care of us.” He took a great, shuddering breath and sank into the chair. 

Aubrey could barely breathe, afraid of what he was about to say 

“I never got to give this to her,” he continued after a beat. “Because she killed herself the day I made it, while I was at school.”

Not a mote of dust moved in their small corner of the kitchen. Aubrey felt tears gathering on her eyelids as she gazed at her dad’s own glassy brown eyes. 

“She had swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills.” He spoke barely above a whisper. “The doctors said it was a chemical imbalance or something.” He waved the idea away, the only movement he had made since sitting down. “But I don't think she would have done it if she had known how much I loved her.”

Aubrey’s gaze drifted from her dad’s tortured expression, the tear slipping down his cheek, to the small heart-shaped box. 

Suddenly, she was back in the cafeteria. She was staring, horror-stricken, at her dad's love note. She was embarrassed, even mad at him.

But now, all that felt so stupid. 

“Dad,” she started. She didn't know what to say. 

He smiled at her even as he wiped a tear from the stubble along his jaw.

“I know I can be a little…much,” he admitted.

“I know you probably didn't appreciate the valentine surprise in your lunch bag.”

The valentine that makes so much sense now, she thought. Her dad had been harboring all that guilt, that pain, for all of his life. He never missed a chance to tell Aubrey he loved her. He told her every day, he showed her every day. He celebrated every good grade, every hobby, every friend. He spent time with her and talked with her. Like really talked with her.  

He never let Valentine's Day go by without giving her a note, a gift, a special dinner. He made her a Daddy-Daughter coupon book once, played hooky with her another time. 

And for the last few years, she hadn’t been the least bit grateful.

The tears stinging her eyes finally spilled over and down her cheek.

“Oh, Dad,” she sobbed, a painful lump in her throat. 

He rose from his chair and she gently kicked her own backward. In moments, his large arms were squeezing her shaking shoulders, his damp face in her hair as he stroked her back, a smile on his face.

“It’s okay, Aubrey,” he reassured her. “These years are some of the toughest of your life. But one day, you’ll be old and calloused like me.” He huffed a laugh as she croaked a low laugh into his shoulder. “You won’t care what the punks at school think.”

Aubrey pulled back, her eyes puffy and shining.

“And you definitely won’t care what your daughter thinks,” he said with a chuckle.

Aubrey snorted a laugh, taking another look at the decades-old heart-shaped box, never opened, never forgotten.

“I love you, Dad,” Aubrey breathed.

He looked at her. “I know. I love you too.”

Aubrey smiled. “I know, Dad.”