Sahm I Am - By Meredith Efken Page 0,77
settled. Miserable, but settled. Also sounds to me like he’s starting to cool down and realize he made a very stupid decision! And now you’re both stuck with it.
Trust me, this has all been very educational for Jordan and me. We are taking pages and pages of notes—we call it our “Let’s Learn from Tom and Dulcie’s Screwups Notebook.” So, thanks to you, we should have an awesome marriage! :)
Okay, I’ll be nice now. You wanted my advice on Tom? You want to know why he got so upset about whatever was in that e-mail? Think about it, Dulcie. He grew up with an alcoholic dad that was always telling him how useless he was, how he couldn’t do anything right. A dad that up and split when Tom was 13 and I was 11. We didn’t hear from him again—got an obituary notice about ten years ago that he died of liver sclerosis. If you had that sort of experience as a kid, how sensitive would you be about someone you love saying you were in the way and didn’t know how to do anything right? He’s gotten to the point where the only thing he is confident in is his ability to program computers. Do you blame him for running away from the rest of it?
That’s about the best I got for you. Sorry it isn’t more.
Hugs,
Becky
* * *
From:
Dulcie Huckleberry
To:
Jordan and Becky
Subject:
Re: My brother
* * *
Oh, Becky! He never told me any of that. I never, ever would have joked about him if I’d known. All he would say about his dad was that he drank a lot and divorced your mom and died a while ago. I didn’t know. Honest…I just didn’t know.
Dulcie
* * *
From:
Jordan and Becky
To:
Dulcie Huckleberry
Subject:
Re: My brother
* * *
Yeah, well, it’s not exactly the sort of thing we like to put in our family Christmas letter or anything….
Give him another week or so. I bet he’ll come around enough so you can talk to him.
Becky
* * *
From:
J. Huckleberry
To:
Dulcie Huckleberry
Subject:
Flowers
* * *
Darling,
You’re so good with design. Look at the attached photos for me and tell me which color of amaryllis would look better in my bouquet. Do you like the fuchsia-striped ones, or the white ones with the red star in the center? Oh, maybe I should go multicolored and have one of all of them!
By the way, just for the record, I am not in favor of Tom going off to Alaska for a whole year. What was he thinking, leaving his family like that? It’s bad enough for him to have been home only on weekends, but this is shameful! I’m sorry, dear. I thought I raised him better than that. You poor thing. I’m sure the salary is very attractive, but really, there’s more to life than making money. I’ll tell him so, too, at the wedding.
Well, I’m off to work. Have a great day, honey!
Jeanine
* * *
From:
Thomas Huckleberry
To:
Dulcie Huckleberry
Subject:
Contact info
* * *
Dulcie,
Did you get the voice mail I left last week with my new office and hotel contact info? I didn’t get a reply, so I wanted to make sure you found it.
Anchorage is very pretty. A little smaller than Omaha. Chilly, too. Your mother wouldn’t have to worry about her flowers trying to come up early here. Everyone seems nice so far.
Let me know if you got that voice mail, or if I need to e-mail you my info again.
Thanks,
Tom
* * *
From:
J. Huckleberry
To:
Dulcie Huckleberry
Subject:
Music
* * *
Dulcie dear,
Do you think it would be better to have the whole band or just Shoji play “Ride of the Valkyries” for Morris’s processional? Shoji offered, but I have never heard a violin version before. Would it sound weird, do you think?
Jeanine
* * *
From:
Zelia Muzuwa
To:
Dulcie Huckleberry
Subject:
Adoption reference
* * *
Dulcie,
Would you be willing to write a reference for us for the adoption? I know we’ve never met in person, but you know me probably better than anyone else, except Tristan. Our case worker said it would be okay. If you’d like to do this, let me know and I’ll send you the information sheet on what you have to include in the letter.
I’m really jazzed—tomorrow is our home visit! But I’m nervous, too. I’ve cleaned the entire house, top to bottom. Tristan probably would have all sorts of fun teasing me about how suddenly obsessive I’ve become about picking up. But he’s still trying to recover from tax