A Post-it note from when they were first dating. I love B_, red pen, yellow Post-it. Curlicues all around. The most artful of Post-it doodles. He’s an artist. She puts it in a frame, and it goes on her bookshelf. For always.
A crude wooden heart, with a scalloped edge, I love you carved into it.
Another wooden heart, pink stripes going out from a point at the center.
Another wooden heart, whittled, smooth, fits in her palm.
A heart made of plaster, pale pink. I love you.
A heart made of sand.
A heart cut from glass, etched with their initials.
A giant cardboard heart, painted pink, I Luff You.
She may have asked for some of them and doesn’t care that she had to. She is dissuaded from bringing the cardboard one in a move. Later he suggested that for display purposes she curate.
She made things for him too:
A banner, hearts cut from vintage wallpaper.
A banner, hearts cut from a Sears Christmas insert from 1969.
An embroidery, I love you so much you are the best hunny bunny for ever and ever.
A cross-stitch that reads wool or copper, for their seventh anniversary.
A vintage ledger of I love yous, in collage, her wedding gift to him.
He did not ask for these either, but he loved them all the same. He said he did.
Prior to this, the totality of gifts from the totality of boyfriends from the inception of having boyfriends in 1979 to the end of having boyfriends in 2003:
A wobbly plastic penguin.
A pair of vegetable-shaped bobby pins.
A pair of socks with bows printed on them.
A small wooden planter with a packet of seeds.
An Us magazine and a People magazine.
A tiny cactus.
A copy of Billy Joel’s Cold Spring Harbor, the original version, recorded at the wrong speed. That was a good one. He loved her. She was seventeen. She broke up with him shortly after that, of course.
So.
From the husband again:
A bookshelf. That he built. For her. The wood is fancy. It has a special shelf in the middle for the vintage typewriter that came out of her grandparents’ barn.
A window seat in their Brooklyn apartment. That he built. For her. With trim to match, like it was there from when the building was built.
A powder room, made out of what had been the hall closet.
A hall closet, made out of a sliver of space at the top of the basement stairs.
Floors refinished. Walls sanded and plastered and smoothed.
Another bookshelf, this one built in, a hidden surprise behind the bedroom door.
A bathroom gutted and remodeled. Subway tile, a vintage claw-foot tub. She wishes you could see the patina. Layers of blues and greens.
A kitchen gutted, brand-new wood floor, custom-built cabinets, new appliances except for a vintage stove. Fully functioning, not completely finished.