It’s Valentine’s Day, so they’re running marathons of romance movies on cable. An Affair To Remember played early in the morning, and I put off working to see the end of it while H.E. went into the other room.

Later, he heard a sound coming from my direction. He told me later he thought I was laughing, but he heard the sound again after half a minute, and it was a sob.

It was no run of the mill sob either. My face had gone into one of those expressions you see small children have when they’ve seriously hurt themselves—their face is all screwed up, they inhale all the oxygen around them, and stone silent, they get ready to let out the biggest wail you’ve ever heard since the last sonic boom.

Curious, he came in to see what was the matter, and that was when I broke and bawled like a baby with a big boo boo.

He put his arms around me and soothed me, and I had to pull away a little because he was blocking my view of the scene playing out on TV, when Cary Grant finally discovers why Deborah Kerr didn’t make their appointment on the Empire State building.

Yes, you guessed it. I was crying over the movie.

And I was crying hard.

Which is silly because I’d seen it before, and I think the movie is just about the cheesiest romance ever, something you would never see in today’s films because nobody seems to fall head over heels in love and ready to marry, having done nothing but kiss off-camera any more.

So H.E. chuckled and made soothing sounds, called me cute and sweet and his poor emotional midget. He assured me that it was OK, that the actors were already dead, and there, there now. His arms were warm around me, so I burrowed deeper into my safe cocoon, sobbing and hiccuping, telling him that yes, I knew it was just a movie and a stupid, sappy one at that, but I couldn’t help it. I said, “I don’t just suspend my disbelief; my disbelief gets expelled!”

He laughed softly and reminisced about a similar time until my sobs died down and my tears dried out. I was laughing with him over my silliness by movie’s end. Then he made me poached eggs for breakfast.

This is the beautiful thing couples do on Valentine’s Day morning, when they’re as demented as H.E. and me. They cry together. They laugh together. They eat poached eggs.

So here’s to hoping you too have an H.E. with shoulders on which to cry. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone.

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