My Dad's Valentine

A Literotica 2022 Valentine's Day Story Contest Submission

Romance category of course, but no sex.

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This story is narrated in separate chapters by Bobby and his father, Luke. Tragedy hits the family, and Marta, the mother and wife, can't cross over until she's sure Bobby and Luke will be okay. The bereaved father and son believe she talks(written in Italics) to them, trying to save Luke's life.

No editor for this, not enough time, so it is what it is.

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Chapter One -- Bobby Begins

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My dad forgot my birthday cake, so Mom went to get it. She got hit by a big truck, and she died. Dad cried at the funeral and the cemetery. My grandma and pop are his mom and dad. One night he fell down, and I called Grandma.

"Bobby, talk slow, baby. What's wrong?"

"My dad was sad, and he was drinking from that Jim bottle. He was talking to Mommy, but I know he wasn't. He laid down on the rug and is snoring."

"Bobby, is he on his side or back?"

"His side."

"Lay on the couch and watch him, and if he starts choking, call 911. We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

She came and got me, and Pop stayed with dad.

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Chapter Two - Luke's in Pain

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"I'm sorry, Marta. It's all my fault. I forgot the cake. Please don't go."

Someone was shaking the bed. "Marta, is that you?"

"Luke! Luke, wake up. Wake up, son."

"Dad? Why am I on the floor? Where's Bobby?"

"He called grandma, and we came over. She took him home, so let me help you up." I crawled up to my knees, and with a hand on my fathers' shoulder, stood up.

"Good, now get cleaned up while I make coffee to sober you up. Then we'll go home so you can be there when Bobby wakes up. He needs his father."

***

After the intervention of my parents after the funeral, alcohol left my diet for good. I helped Bobby through sleepless nights, then bed wetting, and when he slept, nightmares. We talked to a grief counselor, and it seemed to help Bobby, not so much me. By May, he could sleep alone in his bed again all night long. I still had nightmares and woke up shaking.

Mom came over and watched him during the summer while I was at work. I am an architect, a very successful architect who has a two-year backup of design requests. I started my business with Marta, and seven years later, I am the owner of one of the up-and-coming architectural firms in New York City.

And I would gladly trade my success and work in fast food if I could have my Marta back.

***

After eight months of therapy, Bobby started 1^st grade in September. He goes to a public elementary school close to my condo and twenty minutes away from my parents' townhouse. I drop him off at school in the morning, and Mom picks him up after school and takes him home with her. I leave work at 3:00, get Bobby, and by 4:15, I'm cooking dinner for us. He is sleeping all night now and seems like a normal child, except sometimes when he's alone in his room, I hear him talking to his mother.

His grief counselor said he might believe he was talking to her but do not press him for details.

I was able to get about four hours of sleep at night now.

***

Two weeks after school started, I had a parent-teacher meeting after school, so I left work early to be there. After stopping at the office to check-in, I went to room 116 and entered through the open door. Bobby was standing by a desk, smiling and laughing with his teacher. I stopped in the doorway and watched the happiness on his face; a long time had passed since I'd last seen him so happy. His teacher looked up and waved me in. She's, uh, cute, um, very pretty.

"You must be Mr. Larson. I'm Miss Dalton."

"Please call me Luke."

"Then please call me Betty."

She spoke and I stared while she explained that Bobby had some problems reading. "If you would read one of the books, which are really short stories, on the first-grade list with Bobby at bedtime, it would help him a lot."

"Can I get a copy of this book list?"

"No need to have one. Tomorrow, he'll bring the first five home, and you have from Friday night thru Thursday night to read them with him. Send them back in next Friday, and I'll write them in a book I keep, so I don't send the same stories home twice, and he'll bring home five more. There are no grades involved in reading the books; that will show up in spelling, pronunciation, and understanding what the words mean."

"I am afraid I'll mess this up. Do I read, or do I let Bobby read?"

"Luke, don't worry. He can explain everything. He's a smart little boy. And if you have questions, write a note and let him bring it to school, and I'll call you that night."

"Okay, well, it's nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

As I turned to leave, a couple came in; they must have the next conference. Bobby was sitting at his desk drawing, so I called out to him, "Bobby, time to go."

He smiled and went to get his jacket as I waited by the door and I heard the voice for the first time.

'She's cute, Luke.'

My head snapped upright, and I looked around to see who'd spoken. There was no one near me.

"I'm ready to go, Dad." He was smiling strangely, almost like he knew something I didn't.

That night, when I went to tuck Bobby in, I thought I heard two voices coming from his room. The second voice seemed vaguely familiar.

"Bobby, who were you talking to?"

"Mommy."

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Chapter Three -- Bobby Manipulates

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I got five books and showed them to grandma. "Dad's reading to me."

"That's nice, dear. You take good care of your dad."

"We will."

Dad worked late, so Grandma fixed dinner; fish sticks and macaroni. Dad got home and ate with me. After a bath, he sat on my bed. I handed him a book and told him, "This one first. I read, and you creckt me."

"Creckt? Don't you mean correct, Bobby?"

"See, Dad, Miss Dalton said you could do it."

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Chapter Four - Luke Comes Back to Life

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So, reading with Bobby became an addition to our daily routine. Bobby also began fixing my cooking. My Mac-n-Cheese didn't taste right, not like Marta's. Friday night was Mac-n-Cheese night. Friday morning, I found a cheese grater on the counter.

I woke him up, showed him the grater, and asked him, "Bobby, why was this on the counter?"

"Mommy says you hafta use great cheese. That makes great cheese."

"You mean grated cheese, Bobby?"

My Mac-n-Cheese was always clumpy. So this time, I grated my cheeses, and after baking and tasting, I had to agree; it was just like Marta's.

I was setting the table when the phone rang, and it was his teacher. "Hello, Miss Dalton. What can I do for you?"

"It's Betty, Luke, and Bobby says you're a plumber?"

"I'm an architect, but not many people know I worked as a plumber to put myself through college. How can I help?"

"I have a leak behind the wall in my bathtub. Can you come over and see if you can fix it?"

"Bobby and I can come right over. What's your address?"

She gave it to me, and I went to get Bobby from his room. "Hey, Bobby. That was your teacher on the phone. She has a water leak in her bathroom and wants me to fix it. How did you know I could do plumbing?"

"Mommy told me."

I didn't tell Marta how I paid my way through college as a plumber's apprentice until a year ago. Maybe mom or dad did.

"Anyway, let's go help her."

"Can I go to grandma's instead?"

Since it was Friday night, I said yes. "Do you want me to bring the Mac-N-Cheese to grandma's?"

"No, she'll make me French toast. Why don't you take it to Miss Dalton's?" Again he gave me that strange smile.

'Yes, Luke, why don't you?'

That voice again? Is it too late to see a shrink?

We went to the garage, and I unlocked my large toolbox and took out my plumbing belt. I grabbed a torch and a couple of short pieces of copper pipe with some elbows and tees and put it all in the trunk of my car.

I dropped Bobby off at mom's and asked, "Mom, can Bobby spend the night?"

"No, Dad, the weekend, I want to stay until Sunday night so you can finish fixing Miss Dalton's leaky bathroom."

"Why do you think I need all weekend to fix it?"

"You hafta cut a hole, fix the pipe, plug the hole, then tile and ground."

"It's grout, not ground, and how do you know what I have to do?"

"Mommy told me."

"Of course, he can stay, dear. Who's Miss Dalton?"

"She's Bobby's teacher, and she has leak, and Bobby volunteered me to repair it," I said as she smiled.

"Have a good time, and maybe you can bring her over some time so we can talk."

'See, Luke, even your Mom knows what you need.'

Speaking out loud as I walked toward the front door, I said, "Oh yea, what do I need?"

Mom answered, "Well, I don't know what you need, son. Do you want to talk about it, or better yet, why don't you ask Miss Dalton while you fix her bathroom?"

Mumbling to myself, I drove to the address I had written down and parked, letting my mind drift to memories in my head of washing Marta in our tub, smiling at me as I moved my hand under the soap suds. Suddenly, the face changed to Betty's, and I sat straight up, wondering if I was going crazy.

'You're not crazy, Luke; keep an open mind.'

Where is that voice coming from?

Resisting the instinct to run, I grabbed my tools and the Mac-N-Cheese and went to the building entrance. I found the intercom panel and pushed the button for #401, E. Dalton.

"Hello."

"Betty, it's Luke."

"Luke, I'll buzz you in. The elevators are to your left."

I entered, rode the elevator to her floor, and was ready to knock on her door when she pulled it open. "Thank you for coming. My bathroom is back here."

She is pretty and has a great smile. "Um, Betty, I made this for Bobby and me, and now he's spending the weekend at my parents' house."

"I was going to make you something to eat; I'll warm this up and add it to the meal."

I followed her to her bathroom, and water was dripping from the tiles above the faucet.

"Where's the shutoff?"

"The next door over."

I opened the door to the mechanical room and found the water shutoff valve. I tried turning the valve wheel, but it didn't budge. I got a small pipe wrench and very carefully applied pressure. The wheel turned a 1/8^th of an inch, then froze. I squirted some WD40 on the valve and sat down to wait for a few minutes.

"So Betty, how did you become a teacher and end up at this school?"

"I grew up in the town of Monroe and wanted to teach first grade, so I went to NYU and began teaching at PS187 here in Washington Heights, and sixty miles is far enough away from home so that I couldn't commute."

"Parents trying to fix you up with somebody's third cousins' friend?"

"You nailed it."

"Let's see if I can move it now." I finally broke it loose and was able to open and close it by hand.

"It probably hasn't been closed since the building opened."

Back in the bathroom, I could see places where the grout was missing. "I need to open this up and see what's underneath. I think it's been leaking awhile."

She put her left hand on my shoulder and leaned over to see what I was looking at. Bobby used to say mommy smelled good; Betty smells different from Marta but also very nice, and her hand on my arm gave me the chills.

"Okay, I see what you mean. Can you do tilework too?"

"Jack of all trades, master of none, that's me. That's why I became an architect."

I dug out the dried grout in a square and cut through the soggy drywall with a drywall saw. After I pried out the square piece, I could see the leak had wet an oval area six inches high by five inches wide on the back of the drywall. As I expanded the square hole to remove all the wet blue board, I noticed Betty had left me to my work, and I could smell the aroma of food.

'She's cute, and she cooks too.'

I jerked and looked around, but of course, no one was there. I shook my head and went back to work.

I turned the water back on a tiny bit and found the leak, a pinhole in the pipe. I shut the water off again and noticed an open box of tile sitting against the wall. Inside the box was a mix of kitchen backsplash tile, bathroom wall tile, and bathroom floor tile. I cut out the bad piece of pipe and soldered in a new piece of pipe. With the water back on and no leak, I measured for drywall and went to the kitchen, where I smelt Mac-N-Cheese and hamburger helper.

"All done?"

"The leak is fixed, but I need to patch the wallboard and replace the tile."

"Well, dinner is ready, Mac-n-Cheese and Hamburger Helper."

"One of my favorite meals. I try to cook, and I am getting better. Bobby keeps telling me what I'm doing wrong."

"Why didn't you bring him today?"

"He wanted to stay with my mom and dad. Strange, he talks about you all the time. I was surprised he didn't want to come with me." I could have sworn I heard a woman snickering behind me.

We talked while we ate, and I learned her parents wanted her to be a lawyer like her father.

"What about you, Luke? Did you want to be an architect?"

"My dad was a construction foreman, and one day, when I was Bobby's age, he took me to a job site he was working at, building a school. He left me in the construction trailer and ordered me to stay there, and he'd be back as soon as he could. I was bored, and there was a table with plans laid out, so I looked at them. He returned three hours later with another man, and I bombarded them with questions about the plans. Later, he told me that man was his boss, and he was impressed with my enthusiasm regarding the plans and said he wished more of his workers paid attention to them. That's when I decided I wanted to be an architect."

After dinner, I showed Betty what I had done and explained what I needed to finish.

"If you need a shower to use while I fix it, you could use my guest bedroom and bathroom; I mean to use it to change, to shower and get dressed, well you could get dressed in the bathroom, and I think I should quit talking before I stick my foot in my mouth."

'Smooth, Luke, you still have that golden tongue you charmed me with.'

That was Marta's voice, so why is she in my head?

'I'll always be in your head, darling. Where did you think I'd be, six feet underground?'

"What's next? Luke? Hello, Luke? Is anyone in there?" Betty was waving her hand in front of my face when I came back.

"Are you okay, Luke?"

"A slight pain in my head, but nothing serious," as I pinched my nose between thumb and index finger. "Anyway, I need to cut a piece of blue board drywall for bathrooms, secure it with screws, tape it, mud it, replace the tiles, and then grout the joints. Easy peasy."

"Bobby is right; you can do anything." She looked up at me and smiled as she gripped my upper arm. I blushed and looked down.

"Is 9 AM too early to come over tomorrow?"

"Not at all. How about I fix breakfast for you? I make a great western omelet."

"Great, I need to pick up some odds and ends that I'll need, so 9:00 it is."

Then an uneasy silence took over our conversation, so instead of talking to Betty, I took the chickens' way out and stood up.

"I guess I'd better get home so I can wake up early. Good night." Smooth, if our ancestors used lines like that, the human race would have died out.

'Smooth, doofus, we need to teach you how to talk with a woman.'

I need to find that list of therapists.

***

Woken up by my alarm clock at 6:00, I realized I had slept seven hours straight, and the thought of going to see Betty had me jumping out of bed. So I ran to the kitchen, made coffee, and cleaned myself up. I even shaved and splashed some men's cologne on my face before heading out to borrow some supplies from Jim Murphy, an old retired friend of Marta's and mine. I remembered something I told him at the funeral of his wife, Lois, six years ago when he was suicidal. I told him over and over will he couldn't kill himself until he had no unfinished business in his life. I made it up, but people have told me if you say something over and over, eventually someone will believe it. He owns the construction company I recommend for residential projects. I knocked on his door.

"Luke! What's up?"

"I'm fixing some plumbing for Bobby's teacher, and I need a couple of things from your husband."

Ann turned and yelled down the hall, "Jimmy, Luke's here and needs some stuff. Come on in and have some coffee, Luke. Hmm, nice cologne, hot date?"

I followed her in, and no, I didn't introduce them to each other; that was all Marta. It took a while, but he finally broke down, let Lois go, and began to give his life to Ann. They got married four years ago, and Jim is back in the world of the living.

After Marta died, he kept me going to work with calls and visits until I was productive at work again. We still had lunch together once a week.

"Luke, my friend. How are you?"

"Good, no, much better, thank you. I need a small piece of blue board, five feet of mesh tape, a cup of mud, thin-set tile adhesive, and sandstone grout."

We went into his garage and pulled everything I needed in a minute flat as I explained what I was fixing. His garage was very organized.

"So, what's the teacher's name?"

"Betty, um, I mean, Miss Dalton."

"Nice cologne, what is it? I bet Ann would like to know so she could buy me some."

"It's Sauvage by Dior!" That statement came from behind the closed door leading to the kitchen.

His expression never changed, but his eyes smiled. He helped me load it in my trunk, sending me off with, "Don't forget to bring back what you don't use."

I was a little offended; he knew I wouldn't take more than I needed, but I was clueless until I saw his expression in my mirror and figured out he wanted details. I drove away happy and excited I was going to see Betty.

When she let me in with my supplies, she said food first and then work. She did make a great omelet, and as I chewed my food, I stared into her eyes, pretty blue eyes. Wait, she's waving her hand in front of my face again.

'Wake up, Lukey; she's trying to talk to you.'

"What did you say, Betty? I'm so sorry, I was admiring the view, and I didn't hear what you were saying."

"And what view was that?" I was still staring at her eyes when she asked that question, and I was struggling to say something that made sense without embarrassing me too much. Epic fail.

"Oh, um, well, this coffee is delicious, excellent in fact, and the omelet is to die for, uh-oh, not that the omelet will kill me."

"Luke, you are so cute when you get flustered."

I made my escape to the bathroom without tripping or saying something stupid and replaced and taped the drywall patch.

"I can come back this afternoon and put the tile in and do the grout tomorrow."

"Lukey, I need to go shopping at the farmers market, and if you would accompany me while I shop, you could carry my purchases. Then, I wouldn't have to drive there, and we could stroll the four blocks window shopping, talking, and admiring him the scenery."

She called me Lukey, and Marta called me that when she wanted something. Not letting any grass grow under my feet, I immediately stuttered, "I'd lu, luv, love to do that with you," and I started to backpedal on the words love and you until I realized, I shouldn't apologize for everything I said.

We returned to her condo just before 2 o'clock, and I was carrying four cloth shopping bags full of groceries, and all I remembered was watching Betty shop while strange thoughts filled my mind. Simple conversations in my mind, like wandering if she'd let me paint her nails or if she would allow me to brush her hair. These thoughts gave way to more graphic pictures in my head, like Betty's ass was smaller than Marta's, but her breasts were fuller and defied gravity better than my wife's boobs. And as I set the bags on the kitchen counter, I imagined what her lips would feel like on; STOP, I can't do this! I slammed my hands over my eyes as if that would stop my brain from thinking.