Please Say I Love You

Rays have flooded into the space, spreading over the little green sofa and illuminating the coffee table. I don’t know how long now I’ve been sitting here and watching the sun rays grow longer and spread across almost half of the room.

Noise of clattering dishes being stacked together can be heard coming from the kitchen. I want to go in there and help her, but I feel so stiff today. I start to rock back and forth to get momentum, to get out of the chair.

“One, two, three,” I try to say, but instead it comes out in the sound of three low groans, that sound like a struggling engine. Ever since the accident, I have not been able to speak coherently. I can’t grasp anything well either. Everything slips through my fingers.

As I’m still rocking back and forth, a loud ringtone starts to play and it jerks me awake enough to push up all the way out of the chair. Slowly I make my way to the kitchen. I see my wife hunched over the counter with her hand on her forehead, talking on her phone. Her voice is monotone and slow. It sounds like the mortgage lender again. Since I have not been able to work, we’ve been having a hard time keeping up with the mortgage payments each month.

I wish I could help. There is something I need to tell her. What did I need to tell her, I ask myself. I walk over to the side of the counter, so that I am facing her. Her eyes always have the most beautiful sparkle in them. She hangs up the phone, placing it on the counter. I try to form the words, pushing them out one by one, with all my might.

“I...love...you,” I try to say, but it comes out all mumbled together. She looks up at me and gives a small smile. Looking back at her, I’m hoping she will say it back. Did she understand me? Did she hear it right? I wonder. Please say it back. Please say I love you. I want to hear her say it so bad.

We use to say, I love you to each other all the time, especially if life got hard. It was our way of saying that everything will be okay. I would say it matter-of-factly to her, and she would say it matter-of-factly back to me. We both knew that meant that everything will be okay because we loved each other.

Instead of responding to me, she drops her head down in a sigh, and turns to go back to her studies at the kitchen table.

She is in her last year of nursing school and has all her notes and books are spread around the table. Her favorite leather notebook is open beside her. She is obsessed with those notebooks and has half a dozen of them spread around the house. Each one is designated for a different purpose.

Looking again at the notebook, I remember that I have something important to tell her. But what is it, what did I need to tell her? I ask myself. It’s in the little black notebook. I have to find that notebook. Where is that notebook? My thoughts are all scrambled around. All I can think of is that the plain black leather notebook is her favorite kind.

My memory comes and goes now, it’s been that way since the accident, and it makes me really frustrated. I start to get tired again. Now that I am having trouble collecting my thoughts, I move back into the living room to sit down. I’ll look for the notebook tonight, I thought. For some reason, I always have more energy and clearer thoughts at night. I’ll do it while she is sleeping, so that I will not disturb her.

Late that night, I started moving through the house looking in every place that I think I might have hidden something. That notebook has to be around here somewhere, I thought. I remember I hid it from her, so that she would not find it and now I can’t find it.

By this time now, I have been in every room of the house and am back in the office again. The sun has just started to peek up over the neighboring rooftops and come into the window.

We bought this house three years ago. It’s a small, old, house, but perfect for us. Sometimes in the evening, after we’ve been lounging on the couch, my wife would pull out one of her notebooks that had the house to-do-wish-list on it. She would make notes about all the improvements and alterations that we are wanting to make. Unfortunately, that wish list may never fully happen if we lose the house.

The sun rays have now started shooting into the room, spreading across the top of the walls and ceiling and hitting the attic access hatch.

The hatch! That’s it! I move under the hatch and reach up to it. I am tall enough that if I stretch all the way up, I am able to just barely slide the hatch door over.

I hear in the next room that my wife is up now and moving about. I have to get to it before she comes out, I thought.

I continue to slide the hatch door over and it starts to tilt at a weird angle. Before my reflexes are able to respond in time and catch it, the hatch door flips sideways and falls crashing to the floor. A little black leather notebook comes falling down with it and lands right next to the hatch.

My wife comes rushing over, while she is simultaneously trying to tie her robe on. She stops at the open doorway and stares down at the notebook and hatch on the floor. There is a white envelope half sticking out of the notebook.

She bends down and picks up the notebook and pulls out the envelope. Opening it up she finds cash inside and kneels down on the floor in complete shock. Pulling out the cash, she finds a flyer with it for a sweepstake. I had written across the flyer with a big permanent marker the word SURPRISE, along with my stupid signature smiley face with the tongue sticking out.

She starts to count out the money and discovers that there is a total of twenty thousand dollars.

Cashing the winnings, I had kept it a secret from her. I was going to give it to her on our anniversary, putting it all inside the small black notebook that I had bought for her. But then the accident happened and that opportunity for me to give it to her never came.

My wife then opens up the notebook cover. Inside a date is written along with an inscription that says;

Happy Anniversary

I Love You

Tom

Tears start to stream down her face as she wipes them away. I’m standing in front of her and take a deep breath and try to verbally say, “I...love...you,” but it comes out hardly audible.

She looks up, but does not look directly at me. She is looking past me to the window.

“I love you,” she says, while holding the notebook to her chest.

My whole heart swells and I feel a warmth come over my entire body. She knows it will all be okay now. Rays of light start coming brighter and stronger in through the window, filling up the office.

Flashes of the accident come back to me. I’m riding my bike. A truck hits me. I am lying on the ground, and I can hear a deep, distant, voice calling me home.

I respond, “Please, I must tell her I love her. She must find the notebook. I need her to know it will all be okay.”

The office has now become fully illuminated with a remarkably intense white light. I can feel the light wrapping around me and it starts to lift me up. As I’m being pulled farther off the ground, I will never forget seeing the wonderful image of my wife’s beautiful eyes, with their unforgettable sparkle.