My Funny Valentine

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. No worries here. Bunny didn’t believe in Valentine’s Day. He thought it was a holiday--much like Mother’s Day (but not necessarily Father’s Day)—that Hallmark made up to sell cards. Or florists to sell flowers. There was some conspiracy afoot, he was sure.

Bunny was a lot of things, but romantic wasn’t one of them. When Jan’s husband proposed to her, he whisked her away to a quaint B&B and gave her a Valentine box. It was filled with little candy hearts that all read “Marry Me.” Bunny slipped an engagement ring on my finger when I was confined to a hospital bed, recovering from emergency surgery. Not the kind of proposal to write home about.

Julie gets flowers every time she sneezes too hard. Todd surprises her all the time with getaways and thoughtful little gifts. In all the Valentine’s Days from the time we were dating, Bunny gave me flowers exactly once. It was so shocking that I remember it like it was yesterday.

It was 2001, and he came in bearing a dozen red roses. I nearly fainted from shock! Joey nearly fainted from shock when I told him when he called later that evening. Bunny never said why he picked that year, in particular, but I started thinking about it today, and I believe I have the answer. As usual, there’s a backstory.

We moved to Atlanta in 1988. For the next 10 years, as we took turns going to school, we lived in a nice-enough house in a nice-enough, but crowded, neighborhood. I graduated from law school in 1997 and got a job making what, to that point, was the most money in a year than I’d ever made in my life, combined. At the same time, Bunny was climbing his own career ladder to middle management, and he was making the most money he’d ever made up to then. We stayed in that house for another two years, saving our money.

Finally, we started really house-hunting. I say “really,” because Bunny liked to house-hunt just for fun: model homes, open houses, tours of homes—just to look. We weren’t finding any pre-existing homes that we liked, when we stumbled upon a new neighborhood under development. I was only about three miles from our old one, but much less crowded. There were only three lots left, and we spied the perfect one: it was on a little higher ground than the others, and had several ancient, gorgeous oak trees dotted around it.

We went to the model home to see the agent, and the builder was actually there at the time. We looked at several floor plans, and picked one that had what we were looking for: master on main, large laundry room, bonus room upstairs. The builder told us that the floor plan we’d chosen wouldn’t fit on the lot without cutting down at least two of the trees. He suggested an alternative—he had a house that would fit perfectly on the lot, amongst the trees, in another subdivision.

We went over to look at it and fell in love. It had lots of sweeping arches and open spaces, and had everything we wanted and more. It really was our dream house. We signed the contract to build it on our lot that very day.

Over the next several months, we threw ourselves into the task of homebuilding. A lot of people warned us that building a house tends to put a lot of strain on a marriage. In fact, one of the couples who’d just built a home in our new neighborhood split up during construction. Strangely enough, building our dream house was the one thing we never, ever bickered about. We were on the same page in every detail, from the flooring choices to the fixtures. No contractor-grade materials here—we pimped that house out! It had more hardwood in it than any of the other houses in the neighborhood—the most hardwood flooring the builder had ever installed in one of his houses. All the years of penny pinching were finally paying off.

We settled on a Mediterranean theme for the interior. The new house seemed palatial compared with our old one, so we needed more furniture. Plus, some of our old furniture, which we had bought because of low price rather than quality, was on its last legs. We got new appliances, because we were selling the old ones with the old house. We picked out upgraded fixtures to fit the theme. The new house had a lot of windows, so we scoured Atlanta for the best (i.e., least expensive) place to buy window treatments.

Finally, we moved in and started enjoying our dream house. The master bath was like heaven—huge garden tub, separate shower, two sinks, separate throne room. It was quite an improvement from the one-sink-in-the-bedroom house we’d just sold. We entertained friends and family. Once, my entire family came for a long weekend, and we had enough room so that everyone could sleep comfortably and not have to fight for bathroom time. Looking back, it really was too big for just two people. By that time, Joey was on his way out, so the upper floor didn’t see much use. We figured the extra space would come in handy when the grandchildren came along.

Then the unthinkable happened—Bunny got headhunted by a company in Clearwater. He normally started job hunting toward the fall every year, and 2000 was no exception. I could always tell when hunting season had started, because we’d get a sudden surge in voicemails on the home phone. Every once in awhile he’d get an offer that he would actually think about, but usually he just stayed where he was—the same hospital he’d worked at since shortly after we moved to Atlanta. I used to tease him that he was like a dog chasing a car: he wouldn’t know what to do with it once he caught it.

Then finally, Fido—er, Bunny—caught the car, and he knew what to do with it: move to Florida. I didn’t take him too seriously at first, but then he moved down to Clearwater in late September. The plan was, I would stay until the new house—the dream house—sold. But by mid-October, he couldn’t stand being alone anymore, and there were no buyers on the horizon. (It would actually be 11 months before the house sold.) I had to move down over the Thanksgiving holiday. The job he had landed was too good for him to leave, he liked Florida, and the hospital he’d worked at was on the verge of bankruptcy. Plus, we were sick of the traffic in Atlanta, anyway, weren’t we?

After he’d supported me and my goals, how could I say no? Heavy-hearted, I started packing. The big-mouthed movers arrived ahead of me and told Bunny they’d never seen somebody cry so much about leaving a house. They also said they’d never moved so many books from one house. I tearfully left my dream house, car packed with fragile valuables, for the eight hour trip. The fragile valuables included three cats—Lilah, buzzing on Valium (prescribed by her vet, thank you); Tony, needing Valium but sans prescription; and Penelope, who just wanted Valium to drown out the noise Tony was making.

We arrived at our Palm Harbor apartment late at night. Bunny had already arranged the furniture, so when I opened the carrier doors, the cats popped out like they were horses at the Kentucky Derby. Aaaaayyyyyaaaannnnndddd they’re off! Each claimed his or her piece of furniture, happy to be on solid ground again. I wasn’t so eager--I was looking at the contents of a two-story house crammed into a three bedroom apartment.

Between unpacking, trying to get the house sold, finding a job, flying to Louisiana when Mama had her first near-death experience, starting the job, and—oh—studying for the Florida Bar Exam (no reciprocity here for lawyers) at the end of February, I was thoroughly overwhelmed. And miserable. My friends, my haunts and my son were in Atlanta. Many nights, I imagined how easy it would be to pack up the cats (after getting enough Valium for all of them) and go back to our house. Our dream house. The house where we were supposed to grow old and tuck our grandchildren into bed.

And then, that first Florida Valentine’s Day, Bunny came in with his roses. He knew how miserable I was (I certainly didn’t keep it to myself), and either: 1) he figured I was a goner, for sure, if he messed up this Valentine’s Day; or 2) he was making a gesture that went against everything he believed in, because he knew it would make me feel better. Either way, it worked. I settled in and now I couldn’t imagine leaving.

It’s odd how things work out. Even if we’d stayed in Atlanta, in our dream house, we wouldn’t have grown old there together. I’d be sitting alone in a house that was way too big, expecting to find snow on the ground in the morning. And I’d still be fighting that God-awful traffic.