Helen arrived for work early, still basking in the glow of Joe's gift of the cameo the previous night. She knew that there was no love lost between him and his mother, yet she didn't miss the significance of the gift: in Joe's mind she was like family to him.
She set about getting her counter set up for the breakfast crowd. When she found the seagull Joe had left on the inner counter the day before, she stopped to look at it again, wondering what Joe had been thinking when he bought it. They didn't give each other gifts every birthday, but when they did, they were simple gifts, small but meaningful things they thought the other would enjoy. Helen couldn't imagine what had made Joe want to buy this trinket that could be found in any gift shop on the island.
As Helen fiddled with the bird in her hand, one of its legs fell to the floor, and Helen knelt to pick it up. It was as she was standing up again that Helen saw it: the little bird in her hand, with the Sandpiper Air counter directly beyond it across the terminal. Helen's heart shifted up to her throat as it became obvious. She looked around for the piece of driftwood, placed the bird on it, and held up both together. Yes, there it was: the "seagull on a piece of driftwood" she had so maligned when arguing with Joe was a near replica of the Sandpiper logo on the front of Fay's counter. What had appeared to be a tchotchke tourist item was in fact something much more. Joe had given her a gift representing the thing most important to him in the world: his airline. Helen suspected it was entirely subconscious on his part, but she appreciated the symbolism nonetheless.
Helen was still standing there when Joe entered the terminal.
"Morning, Helen."
"Morning, Joe."
"Ah, you still have that piece of junk? Here, I'll put it in the trash where it belongs." He reached out a hand to take the items.
Helen pulled back her hands and said, "Oh, I'll take care of it."
"After all the trouble it caused, I never want to see that thing again. Maybe you should burn it." He continued on his way to his office, greeting Fay along the way.
"Not on your life, Joe Hackett," she said under her breath.
Helen had a hidden drawer in the kitchen where she kept a few special items she liked to keep near at hand. She opened that drawer now and riffled through the items. There was the original business license her parents had applied for when they opened the lunch counter as well as an engraved book of poetry from her grandmother. Inside the book was a strip of photos from one of those booths at a carnival. A teenage Joe and even younger Brian and Helen posed with smiles and with goofy faces, and in the last photo Joe kissed Helen's cheek while Brian mugged behind them and gave them both rabbit ears.
Under the photo strip was a bookmark with a picture of a violin on it that Joe had given Helen on her twelfth birthday. That was her first birthday after his mother had left, and the bookmark was the first present he had bought for Helen on his own, without his mother's help. Even as a child Helen hadn't had the heart to tell him it was a violin and not a cello, and she still used it to mark her favorite poem in the book that she sometimes read on her breaks during the work day.
She carefully placed the photos and the bookmark back in the book and rearranged all the items in the drawer to make room for the little bird. There wasn't enough room for the driftwood, so she looked around the kitchen and finally buried it behind a bag of potatoes.
Simple gifts were the best gifts after all.