I stood there for a while, just staring at the thing. Part of me wanted to call Derek and demand he come back, and part of me wanted to grab a sledgehammer and reduce it to splinters. But the biggest part, the one that still sometimes felt like that giddy young woman who’d said “yes” in a little chapel in Vegas ten years ago, decided to play along.
Maybe this was Derek’s clumsy way of being playful. The gift box in the middle was quite large… maybe the gift inside would make all of this worth it. I put on some music, made myself a cup of hot chocolate, and got to work.
The first few nuts came off easily enough. I kneeled on the hardwood floor and worked methodically, placing each nut in a neat pile. But after an hour, my fingers started to throb.
The threads on some of the bolts were rough, and they scraped against my skin as I worked the nuts loose. By hour two, my knees ached from kneeling on the hard floor. I dragged over a throw pillow, but it didn’t help much.
Hour three brought sweat trickling down my temples and tears blurring my vision. They weren’t tears of sadness, though. I was crying out of pure frustration.
It was our tenth anniversary, for crying out loud. I should have been at a restaurant somewhere, clinking wine glasses and feeling appreciated. Instead, I was there on my hands and knees, almost wishing he’d given me a voucher instead.
But I kept working because hope dies hard. I kept imagining a thoughtful gift in the caged box: a bottle of my favorite perfume, the book I wanted, or maybe a piece of jewelry. That’s when I hit the nut that wouldn’t budge.
I tried everything. I twisted it until my fingers burned, but the damn thing sat there like it was welded in place. “Fine,” I said out loud to no one.
“If you want to play games, Derek, let’s play.”
I stomped out to his precious shed, the one place on our entire property that was always spotlessly organized. Funny how he could keep his tools polished and labeled but couldn’t be bothered to put a dish in the dishwasher or a dirty sock in the hamper. The shed smelled of sawdust and WD-40.
Tools hung on the pegboard wall in perfect rows, each outline drawn in black marker so Derek would know exactly where everything belonged. I found the penetrating oil easily enough — it was right where the label said it would be. But the wrench I needed was missing from its spot.
Suspicion flared in my chest like acid reflux. “He better not have hidden it to make this harder,” I muttered. I started rummaging through the desk drawers, looking for the missing wrench.
The first drawer held nothing but random nails, a few broken screwdrivers, and some Allen wrenches. But when I opened the second drawer, I froze. A small velvet jewelry box sat nestled among crumpled receipts, old paper napkins, and a stained rag.
My heart fluttered. Had this all been a trick? Was this my real gift?
Maybe all that nut-removing nonsense was just Derek’s elaborate way of building suspense. I opened the box. Inside was a gold heart-shaped locket with delicate scrollwork around the edges.
Now this was the kind of gift that meant something! I had all but forgiven Derek for his stupid, oversized flower press, but then I saw the lettering on the back. Engraved in flowing cursive was an inscription: “To M — Love always, D.”
M?
He planned to give some other woman this beautiful locket, but all I got was that contraption in the living room? I had to know who ‘M’ was. My mind raced through possibilities.
Maggie from his office, the one with the laugh that was just a little too loud at the Christmas party, or maybe it was Michelle, his ex-girlfriend from college, who kept popping up on his Facebook. It might even be Mary, his secretary. I opened the locket.
Inside was an older, slightly grainy photo of a woman who looked vaguely familiar… where did I know her from? I started going through the receipts in the drawer. He’d paid for dinners at restaurants I’d never been to, spa treatments, Tiffany earrings, a Chanel purse… I couldn’t even look at them all.
All these years of dutiful labor, of overlooking Derek’s faults and hoping things would someday get better, only to find out he’d been cheating on me. I was going to just walk out of there and start packing my bags, but then I spotted the angle grinder hanging from its hook on the wall. I grabbed it with both hands and stormed back into the house.
The thing was heavier than I expected, and the cord dragged behind me like a tail. I plugged it in next to Derek’s ridiculous contraption and pulled the trigger. The grinder shrieked to life.
Sparks erupted as the cutting wheel bit into the threaded rods, and the smell of hot metal filled the room. I cut through the rods on one side; the blade screaming its way through steel like it was butter. Within minutes, I was able to pry the wooden slabs apart and pull out the gift box.
My hands shook as I tore away the wrapping paper. Inside was a framed photo from our honeymoon. The two of us on a beach in Cancun, sunburnt and smiling, with the ocean stretching endlessly behind us.
A note was taped to the back of the frame: “We’ve come so far. Still my girl.”
Still his girl… yeah, right. I collapsed onto the couch and started laughing.
Deep, belly-shaking laughter that twisted into sobs, then into raw screams that I muffled with a throw pillow. I’m not sure how long I spent falling apart in my living room, but when I was all cried out, I knew I couldn’t just walk away after everything Derek had put me through. Oh, no… he deserved to suffer as much as I had.
I glared at the remains of the press he’d made and had a brilliant idea. I had just started securing the locket in the press when Derek strolled through the door. “Hey, babe,” he said.
“Did you get to open your gift? I can’t wait to see your…” he trailed off as he stared at me. “Clara, what are you doing?”
“I opened your gift,” I said, my voice calm as still water.
“With a grinder. I found the locket you bought for ‘M.’ Who is she, Derek? How long have you been cheating on me?”
Derek’s face went from tan to pale gray in about two seconds.
“Clara, that’s not what you think—”
I cut him off. “Oh? Does my name have a silent ‘M’ I never knew about, Derek?”
“No, Clara, ‘M’ stands for Mom.
I got her that locket for her birthday next week. Didn’t you look at the picture inside the locket?”
I froze. Oh my God, that’s why the woman looked familiar!
It was a photo of my mother-in-law taken when she was younger. “But the receipts… why were you keeping all that stuff in the shed?”
“I keep all those sorts of things in my shed,” Derek replied, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Did you really think I was cheating on you?”
“Yes!
Derek, you gave me a torture device for our anniversary.” I gestured to the press. “And still had the gall to tell me I had to work for a change. All I do is work: housework, emotional work, my job.
This so-called gift just makes me feel like you don’t appreciate me.”
Derek kneeled in front of me. “I never meant to make you feel that way, honey. I guess I never thought of it that way.
Honestly, I needed to keep you busy while I worked on the real surprise.”
Derek reached into his pocket and pulled out two tickets to a theater show I’d been nagging him to take me to for weeks. My jaw dropped. “I didn’t go golfing today.
Instead, I spent hours queuing for these. I know I’m not the most attentive guy, Clara, but we’ve been together ten years. That deserves a special celebration, right?”
“I’m still mad at you,” I said.
And I was, but not as much as I had been. He wasn’t cheating after all, and the gift hadn’t been as cruel as I thought it was. Derek’s real crime was that he just didn’t think.
Derek nodded. “I’m really sorry. If I’d realized how much this would upset you, or guessed that you’d find the locket and get suspicious…
maybe I should’ve just gotten the tickets earlier and given them to you, but I couldn’t get away from work.”
I took the tickets from him and examined them.
“Derek, you’re an idiot. But you’re my idiot. A couple of tickets don’t fix everything, but at least now I know there was a reason behind the madness.
But don’t you ever do this to me again, understand?”
“Never again, I promise.”
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