Is it really better to have loved and lost?

This is a musical doll I bought for the city-girl daughter
the first Valentine's Day without her father.

I love the innocence on her face and the song she plays: Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime.
I have memories of watching Dean Martin sing that on his variety show. My greatest memory is of a young man calling me on the phone when I was in the sixth grade and singing it to me. That was back in the day of extension phones and I had two sisters. I did right by the fellow, though. He was never identified to my two sisters, who teased me mercilessly nonetheless.

I still remember Valentine's Day the first year JB and I were married. He came home from work and handed me a dozen roses and a card. I'll never forget the way he had signed it:

Love,
your worse nightmare,
your husband.

Interesting, isn't it? That was when he always told me how marrying me was his greatest accomplishment. Nowadays, he tells me it was his biggest mistake--over and over and over again.

More often that not, he doesn't speak to me at all. But I actually prefer the silent treatment to the angry outbursts.

Our relationship has deteriorated steadily within the past year, so the best either of us could hope for this Valentine's Day is the absence of the other.