A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

a sun so hot I was worried about heat stroke. It was baby teeth under pillows, the math homework I always left to Adam to help with, and all those popsicles and playgrounds and pirouettes in Madison’s ballet class, which she took only because she wanted to wear the pink tutu.

Did Adam have his own collection of memories? Not for the first time, it hurt to know there wasn’t any other person I could reminisce with about the kids’ births, when Adam ate three packets of Saltine crackers during my long labor with Maddy because he didn’t want to leave my side and go to the cafeteria, how he’d snuck me ice chips when the nurses said no liquids, when Ian eased into the world with a smile on his face, the flowers that arrived from my sister in a blue vase shaped like baby booties.

Where had they gone, those years when I was so busy, I hadn’t realized they were the best of times? I once thought I would give anything now to go back to those days and have the kids, my best friends, by my side.

But I believed what Eddie had said that night while we were junk-picking, that we would all be together in the next life to do it over again. And I realized I wouldn’t take back my married days to Adam or Bryan. The years had been good ones, most of the time, but I was a different version of myself now. Still loving, hopefully funny, but strong in a way I hadn’t been before. Maybe there wasn’t a missing piece. Maybe I’d been whole and complete all along. OK, that might be overdoing it, but still. I had changed.

I was on my way to regaining my fitness, for god’s sake.

I scooped up Penny for bed and was just dozing off when Ian came in and turned on the hall light.

“How was the play?”

“It was good,” he said, stroking Penny’s belly. “It was a musical.”

“You don’t like musicals.”

“This one I did, because there wasn’t a lot of dancing.”

“So, when are you guys going back out?”

Ian stood up. “I don’t think we are meant to be anything more than friends. She’s great, but there wasn’t that spark. And that’s OK.”

“So, what’s your plan now?”

Ian grinned. “I’m just going to see what comes along and go with it. Try to stop looking so hard. There’s a girl out there somewhere looking for me—and who knows, she may just find me first.”

When he took the stairs two at a time to go up to his room, I could hear him humming.

58

I had high hopes in February for LaughingLarry, the maple syrup mogul. His profile picture showed a smiling guy in front of an enormous vat bubbling with sugary syrup. He was holding a huge wooden spoon as if ready to give it all a stir, and he had such muscular arms he probably could do it, too.

“So, you make maple syrup?” I asked Larry, who had carefully clipped salt-and-pepper hair and an unfortunate cologne choice. We were having chicken Caesar salad and iced tea in an Ashton bistro.

“Family business,” he said. “Oh, I have something for you,” he said and searched his blazer pocket and produced a glass bottle shaped like a maple leaf, filled with amber liquid. “Our best seller. We’re in specialty stores across the Northeast, expanding soon down the coast.”

“Thank you,” I said, tucking the bottle into my purse.

Larry had pulled up in front of the restaurant in a Mercedes, talked about his barn and horses, and I realized he’d made his fortune in syrup.

I pictured myself at Laughing Larry’s syrup production barn, lining up glass bottles, putting on the amber labels, then retiring up to the big house for a bottle of good wine and some grilled salmon, maybe prepared by a house chef.

“I like your earrings,” he said as we ate our salads. He looked far wearier and more worn-out than his online photo, but made up for this with sincerity.

“So, how long have you been on Fish?” I asked Larry.

“About three months this time. I keep quitting, then signing back up.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been ready to throw in the towel lots of times. Lots of desperate men on there.”

“And women,” Larry said, stirring sugar into his iced tea. “They should come with warning signs.”

“Yeah, ha-ha.”

“So you’re divorced?” Larry said, dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

“Yup.” I poked at my salad, shaking my head a little to make my feather earrings move in a way I hoped was seductive. “You?”

“I’m still married.”

I choked on a crouton. “Excuse me?”

To my horror, Larry’s eyes welled up with tears. “Well, my wife, she left me.”

“I’m so sorry. How long ago?

“Thirty weeks,” Larry said. “That’s not the worst of it.”

“No?”

Laughing Larry was a misnomer. He put down his fork and sat back in a way I knew meant he was going to tell me the whole story. I looked around for the waiter, hoping he’d arrive with the check.

Larry produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Left me for our son’s best friend. Just up and left.”

“How old is your son?”

“Twenty-four.” He began to sob.

“I’m so sorry,” I said weakly.

“I think they went to Long Island,” Larry said. “Some days I can’t even get out of bed; syrup production slowed down drastically these last six months. One of these days, I’m going down there to look for her.”

“I am really sorry,” I said, coming up blank with anything else to offer in the way of sympathy.

The waiter zoomed in with the check and Larry sat back up to pay with a gold Visa card.

On the sidewalk after lunch, he leaned in—probably for a peck on the cheek, but I wasn’t prepared and didn’t have time to turn my face, so his lips landed on mine.

“Oh,” I said awkwardly. “OK, well there, now. There you go.”

“Thanks for being a good listener,” Larry said, the crumpled handkerchief still sticking out of the