Based on Hey Arnold! characters created by Craig Bartlett. Author claims no copyright.
Dear Arnold, Its been almost a year since we parted ways. I don't blame you at all for wanting to go off by yourself and see more of the world. You got the wanderlust from your dad. I know I wasn't always the easiest person to deal with, whether it was my act in elementary school, when we were off and on in high school or growing apart in college. You are not missing much here. Criminy. Working for Bob at his electronic store is the last job I wanted out of college, but not much else I can find with a degree in English from HSU. Maybe you have a fling going with some other girl in Paris. I'm not seeing anyone else. Maybe some guys at Big Bob's have flirted with me, but I can never put as much energy into someone other than you. I've never stopped loving you and I still believe we will be together again someday. Forever yours, Helga.
After she and the only man she ever loved had broken up, Helga G. Pataki would write unsent letters to him. Some of them were written after she had too much to drink. The letters were put in envelopes and stacked on top of each other in the bedroom closet of her apartment. No one but her would ever read them.
Helga had a habit of keeping things in her closets that reminded her of that football-headed boy then man she loved so much. Arnold Shortman. When she was younger she constructed a shrine to him made partly out of gum he chewed then discarded. At one point she even got her hands on the very blue hat he always wore and felt naked without. The hat rested temporarily atop the original shrine until it made its way back to Arnold when Helga's mother, who was unaware of its significance, threw the shrine in the dumpster.
The shrine went through a few iterations in Helga's youth. Watermelons and actual footballs were used as the idol head. Not only that, but more artifacts discarded by Arnold surrounded it, as she maintained a fanatical obsession.
Arnold discovering the shrine had been the genesis of their first breakup, when they were 14. As attracted to her as he may have been, he was startled at the lengths she had gone to stalk him. Later on in their adolescence they got back together. Teenage Arnold changed his mind about Helga after a while as he looked past the initial shock. They went to different high schools. He felt that no girl at South Hillwood High that may have been interested gave him the same level of affection or innately understood him the way she did.
Once her shrine was no longer a secret, Helga tore it down. Nearly two decades later, long after another breakup and another getting back together, she had laughed the shrine away as a thing of the past. Helga instead made shrines to their son and daughter. Baby pictures and class portraits. Pieces of arts and crafts made in preschool and kindergarten. Pictures of her and Arnold at the courthouse on their wedding day and in places around Europe on their honeymoon were thrown in there as well.
Amber Shortman displayed some of the same tomboyish traits as her mother. She was gruff in the same way as Helga and more interested in Reptar action figures than Cynthia dolls. But it was still a little early to tell what truly interested her at age four. Helga saw her having fun finger painting when she picked her up from preschool once. So she sensed an artistic side to Amber and enlisted her help on an idea she had.
Phil Shortman was a lot like his father. Kind, polite, thoughtful and into baseball. Helga remembered the time he made a series of paper cut-outs in the shape of Santa Claus that was hung above the dining room table at Christmas. It had been a school project. Perhaps her son could help her as well.
Arnold was off with Gerald on their weekly bike ride. It was a mid-June Saturday morning. From the storage cabinet Helga got some clay, beads, sequins and macaroni shells. Then she, Phil and Amber got to work. Some of the art materials were tossed around as Helga scolded her kids. But then she joined in tossing sequins around out of parental joy. All of this took place in the kitchen and far from the recently-vacuumed living room, where Mickey the dog was asleep on the couch. Helga was reminded of the time she and Arnold playfully splashed each other as kids while washing dishes.
Once she worked with the kids to clean it all up, the end result was a new football-headed idol. A ceramic reimagining of what she had kept in her closet. The sequins, shells and the like served as the eyes, nose and grin. It was topped with blonde tufts that more closely resembled Arnold's coif than the ones she had previously sculpted. A blue hat was shaped in ceramic form rather than taking a real one. Phil was just as attached to the one they gave him.
The next day was Father's Day. Helga and the kids presented Arnold with their sculpture. "Its you, daddy," Amber exclaimed. Arnold kissed all three of them and admired it. Eventually he put it in his office at Sunset Arms. Next to where the alarm clock shaped like his head lay when the office was his childhood bedroom. Clients would ask him what the deal was with it. He simply said that his wife and kids put it together.
Since he was a teenager and he had found out what Helga had done, Arnold had impulsively made sure he didn't throw gum away around where he had been in public. Even at baseball games. Even though he and Helga were together for good. He double checked the statue. There was none.