ShareThisMy husband is a good and caring father. And we've got the tomato-sauce stains on the ceiling to prove it.
We met, he and I, almost 20 years ago, when he came to work at the newspaper where I had recently started writing a column. For a time, he was my editor, a pretty good one, as I recall, though a little stingy with praise for my work.
I was married with three school-aged children. He was recently separated, with two little boys who lived with their mom, about three hours away.
From the start, what I liked most about him was the way his face lighted up when he talked about his boys. Every other weekend, he'd drive up to see them, then come to work on Monday with new stories to tell, new pictures to show off and the same old look in his eyes, a constant craving to see them again.
I knew that look. Growing up, I saw it time and again. My parents divorced when I was 2, and I went to live with my mother 40 miles away. My dad saw me every chance he could on weekends, holidays, summer vacations. And every time we said goodbye, he'd get that look in his eyes -- one that told me more than words could say that he never wanted to let me go.
As parents, we always try to tell our children what we think they need to hear, but we can't hide what they see in our eyes.
My children were out of high school, and I'd been a widow for two years when my former editor finally asked me out.
The first time I met his boys, they were 13 and 11. I rented a cabin one summer on a lake in North Carolina, and they flew out with their dad to spend a week beating me at cards and dumping me off a raft.
At the end of that week, the 11-year-old asked, "Are you going to write about us?"
"I don't know," I said. "If I do, what should I call you?"
He grinned. "Call me Stubby." Then he nodded at his brother, who was taller by a head. "And call him Stretch."
So I did. And still do.
In the years to follow, Stubby and Stretch beat me at cards and dumped me off rafts every chance they got -- except the day, four years ago, when I married their dad; they got all cleaned up and acted like the perfect gentlemen we always dreamed they could be.
The boys are now in college in California. We don't get to see them as often as we'd like, especially after our move to Las Vegas two years ago. But they both came for New Year's and stayed for a week. Luckily, we don't own a raft and, oh darn, I couldn't find the cards.
So we did other grown-up kinds of things -- talking, going to movies, playing video games and, yes, a whole lot of eating.
One day, their dad announced that he wanted to teach them how to cook, starting with an old family recipe he learned from his Italian grandmother.
The boys were good sports, if not exactly thrilled, shutting off computers and shuffling to the kitchen like condemned men on their way to a firing squad.
For the next two hours, while their dad did his best Emeril impersonation ("g-a-a-a-lic!"), they peeled and chopped and fried and simmered and stirred.
We ate it. It was good. Then we called in a hazmat team to help clean up the mess.
I don't know if Stubby and Stretch will remember how to make their great-grandmother's chicken fricassee; or that, for once, they didn't get to dunk me or beat me at anything at all.
But I hope they'll recall the look in their dad's eyes when he had to tell them goodbye.
That should bring them back soon. If not, OK, fine. I'll buy a raft and a deck of cards.
(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at www.sharonrandall.com.)
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