The Gift
︎︎︎ Calvin Atwood
︎ July 18, 2026
Her late grandfather, according to her, was just so proud of having never gotten involved with any of the women in France during the war on account of his concerns about hygiene and social diseases. He told this to his granddaughter, my wife, and now she was telling me, yet again. I can’t tell you how many times I’d heard this one. I tried not to take it personally but what was she really getting at? She wasn’t saying that I, given my life course thus far, had made all the wrong decisions. She just wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
I was only angry because I’d heard this one before, and having done so, I needed to find some young people that adored me but didn’t really know me. Lacking the necessary grace, I was incapable of concealing my rage over this seemingly benign comment. But why couldn’t she detect that I’d heard enough about it already? She had to suspect as much, and yet she continued to test me. This part was new.
“He had a girlfriend over there, and when he got home, he got a letter from her, but he didn’t even open it. He threw it away,” said my wife.
Now, I’m no detective but the man was perhaps homosexual, or maybe, he had never considered his own words, so nobody had bothered to call him out. Was I now being asked to sign off on the idea that her grandfather—unlike millions of soldiers, unlike me—had never laid a hand on any of the women in France; and that his, unlike all the others, had just been some variety of platonic courtship? Let’s just say that it was. After all, I had no evidence that this wasn’t the case.
In retrospect, I should have gone up to my office and sat alone in the darkness, listening to the rain, instead of engaging in all that righteous talk. If I’d done that I might still be married instead of sitting alone in my office, listening to the rain, waiting for something that would make it all seem worthwhile. Well, it finally came to me while I was out walking, and now it’s yours.
I was only angry because I’d heard this one before, and having done so, I needed to find some young people that adored me but didn’t really know me. Lacking the necessary grace, I was incapable of concealing my rage over this seemingly benign comment. But why couldn’t she detect that I’d heard enough about it already? She had to suspect as much, and yet she continued to test me. This part was new.
“He had a girlfriend over there, and when he got home, he got a letter from her, but he didn’t even open it. He threw it away,” said my wife.
Now, I’m no detective but the man was perhaps homosexual, or maybe, he had never considered his own words, so nobody had bothered to call him out. Was I now being asked to sign off on the idea that her grandfather—unlike millions of soldiers, unlike me—had never laid a hand on any of the women in France; and that his, unlike all the others, had just been some variety of platonic courtship? Let’s just say that it was. After all, I had no evidence that this wasn’t the case.
In retrospect, I should have gone up to my office and sat alone in the darkness, listening to the rain, instead of engaging in all that righteous talk. If I’d done that I might still be married instead of sitting alone in my office, listening to the rain, waiting for something that would make it all seem worthwhile. Well, it finally came to me while I was out walking, and now it’s yours.