I respected my husband’s wish for no birthday celebration. Three days later, my neighbor showed me an invitation with his name on it, and everything changed.
“Because the person who sent it is sitting right here at this party.”
I stopped.
Evelyn’s hand was still around my arm.
Behind us, my husband was standing near the bar with half our friends and family, convinced I had been cheating on him.
“Who?”
Evelyn glanced past me.
“Natalie.”
I actually laughed.
Natalie had known Graham since college.
She’d attended our wedding.
She’d eaten Christmas dinner at our house more times than I could count.
“You’re wrong.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I’m not.”
My name is Laura. I’m 48, and Graham and I have been married 24 years.
His 50th birthday was supposed to be simple.
For months, I’d asked what he wanted.
Dinner?
Weekend away?
Family party?
He rejected everything.
“Please don’t plan anything.”
“Not even something small?”
“No. I just want a quiet evening at home with you.”
I was disappointed, but it was his birthday.
So I agreed.
What Graham didn’t know was that I was already working on his present.
When he was nineteen, his father gave him a 1972 Gibson acoustic guitar.
It wasn’t worth a fortune, but to Graham it was priceless.
His father taught him three chords on it.
Graham played it through college.
He played it the night he proposed to me, badly.
He played lullabies for our daughter, also badly.
Then, eleven years ago, a pipe burst in our basement.
The case got soaked.
The neck warped.
The finish lifted.
A repair shop told Graham restoring it properly would probably cost more than the guitar was worth.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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