This would be the first valentine's day in twenty seven years we had spent alone together. The last of our kids had finally flown the nest, transferring to a college across the state in January. It had taken me a while to get the plans together, but my wife was going to be surprised as hell. I had arranged with the principle at the school she teaches to have Monday and Tuesday off. Her co-teacher was in on it as well, making sure that all the lesson plans were done and everything was ready for her to be gone, hopefully without tipping her off to the fact she would be gone. The plane tickets for late tonight were in my pocket and the suit cases were packed. All that remained was for her to come home and I would whisk her off for a four day weekend in Aspen.
We had always wanted to try skiing, and this was going to be it. I had a romantic suite booked, ski lessons lined up, everything was ready, and she had no idea that in less than an hour we would be headed on our way for what I hoped would be a romantic getaway. I looked at the clock getting nervous, she should have been home an hour ago. Even Friday evening traffic wasn't that bad. I was tempted to call her cell, but I didn't want to give anything away. I waited impatiently, checking and re-checking my mental list that I had everything taken care of. Finally I saw lights in the driveway. I pulled on my coat and headed out the door to greet her. I stopped; puzzled as a highway patrol car stopped in front of the garage... this wasn't my wife's truck.
My world crashed around me as he explained how a drunk weaving through traffic had side swiped her, sending her out of control into the median. Her truck caught one of the wires of the new center dividers that were installed to prevent vehicles from crossing into the oncoming traffic, causing her new truck to flip over, rolling several times before coming to rest on its side in the oncoming lanes of the interstate. The semi carrying a load of steel had no chance to stop before it plowed into the roof of her truck. He said he was sure she didn't suffer, as if somehow that would help.
The trooper was very sorry for my loss, and drove off, leaving me sitting in my living room in shock, my wife and love gone in an instant, my life a shambles.
****************************
I sat in my office, looking at a picture of my wife, mulling over the coming third anniversary of her death. Mandy came into my office, her usual smile on her face and her blond hair framing her sparkling green eyes.
"How's Mike today?" She asked in her usual cheerful way.
"As well as can be expected." I said, setting the picture down on my desk.
"I thought we weren't going to dwell on this any longer?" she said quietly as she stepped around the desk and picked up the picture, holding it for a moment before setting it down in the desk drawer and closing it gently. "You know Sue wouldn't have wanted you to waist away like this."
"Yeah yeah... I know. But dating at my age just isn't as easy as it sounds. Who wants an old fart like me?"
"Forty five isn't old!" She said with a grin.
"That's easy for you to say. You're only... what, thirty two...thirty four?" I asked her.
"You know I'll never tell." She giggled as she set the papers she brought with her down on my desk.
"Well, you don't look any older than that." I replied seriously.
"I bet you say that to all the pretty coeds that are tromping in and out of here every day."
"You know students are off limits." I said with a shake of my head. "Besides... twenty something is just too young. I have daughters that age!"
"So you do." She said, looking down at me with her laughing eyes. "You can drop these by later if you want or I can come back and pick them up."
"Either way." I said as I looked down at the stack I had to read through. Work as a professor is never quite done, and the paperwork is endless.
"I'll come back later then." She said, gently swiping a finger across the back of my hand before stepping around my desk and heading out of the office.
Mandy had been much more than a good secretary, she had been a life saver the last three years. We talked for hours about my life before the accident and how I was coping with things after. Her own divorce in the middle of it all meant we both had lots to talk about. Tina was a big help too, checking up on me when Mandy wasn't around. There wasn't a day that went by when one of the two good looking secretaries didn't stop by to see me or call me. Even weekends were covered. I secretly wondered if they had some schedule written down to make sure one of them had looked in on me.
They would show up unannounced on Sundays, sometimes together, sometimes alone, and sit with me to watch foot ball or a NASCAR race, or clean parts of my house while they cooked wonderful dinners for me. Apparently a man's version of clean doesn't quite match a woman's. I protested often that they didn't have to, but they always insisted "that was what friends were for" and I have to admit, two better friends didn't exist. I often wondered if her frequent stops by my house were partly to blame for her divorce, but Mandy always insisted that what caused her divorce had nothing to do with me. After a year of asking I had finally given up trying to figure out exactly what that cause was.
I would often return from a fishing trip to find that my house was cleaned, my clothes washed and the even the bedding changed. The two seemed to take pleasure in seeing that I was taken care of. On one occasion I even found a new Penthouse magazine tucked under my pillow. Both of them denied any involvement, but I was pretty sure Mandy was the instigator of that. I returned the favor by slipping a playgirl magazine into her desk drawer, well sealed in a brown paper wrapper of course. She told me I was dirty old man, but her smile and twinkling eyes told me she knew exactly what it was for, and I suspected that she wished we would carry it farther than we did.
