LITMIR.BIZ

       Two

       “Annieee!”

      Annie sighed with much frustration and growled under her breath. Now what? she wondered.

      The cry had come from Mickey, that much she could determine immediately. But the little guy had a six-year-old’s propensity for wanting just about everything, and right away at that, and his cry of terror at the sight of blood was virtually identical to his urgent plea for just one more cookie. Whatever the problem was, Mickey, at least, would consider it of global importance.

      Annie dropped her favorite pair of blue jeans on top of the meager wardrobe selections she was packing for the weekend and went in search of Mickey. She found him with his head caught between the rungs of the stairway banister and rolled her eyes hopelessly as she bent to help him free himself.

      “I told you not to do this, didn’t I?” she asked him calmly as she twisted his head carefully to the side.

      “Yes,” he whimpered, clearly frightened by his predicament but determined not to show it.

      “The last time this happened, what did I say?”

      Mickey sniffled. “I don’t remember.”

      Annie’s voice softened. “I said, ‘Mickey, if you put your head in the banister railing this way, it’s going to get stuck.’ Isn’t that what I said?”

      “I guess so.”

      “So why did you do it again?”

      He hesitated, biting his lip as Annie carefully extracted his head from the rungs. He remained silent as he stood rubbing his hands furiously over his forehead and through his pale blond hair. His blue eyes were resolute and adorably menacing.

      “Well?” Annie prodded.

      Mickey thrust his stomach forward, a gesture he probably thought she would find intimidating. Annie only smiled.

      “I’m waiting,” she said.

      Mickey relaxed and looked down at his feet. “I don’t know.”

      She nodded her understanding. “Okay, hotshot. Just try not to do it again, okay?”

      He nodded back. “Are you still going away this weekend?” he asked as he followed her to her room.

      “Yes.” Annie went back to her packing, resigned to the Spanish Inquisition that she knew would follow. Mickey asked a lot of questions. And she’d discovered long ago that she had no alternative but to answer every one of them if she ever hoped to maintain any kind of balance in her life.

      Mickey scrambled up onto her bed and began to remove things from her duffel bag, inspecting each item as if it were the most fascinating scientific specimen he’d ever had the good fortune to encounter. “Where are you going?” he asked.

      They’d been through this a million times already, so Annie had the routine down pat. She continued to pack as she obediently replied, “Cape May.”

      “That’s in New Jersey, isn’t it?”

      She nodded again. “Yes.”

      “And New Jersey is across the river, isn’t it?”

      “Yes.”

      He grinned, clearly pleased to be able to show her just how much he knew of the world. Then he plucked a pair of her socks out of the duffel, unrolled them and asked, “How long will you be gone?”

      “I’ll be back Sunday night.”

      “When will you be leaving?”

      “Saturday morning.”

      “That’s tomorrow, right?”

      “Right.”

      “Who are you going with?”

      “A friend.”

      “His name is Ike, right?”

      “Right.”

      “And he lives in Philadelphia, like we do, right?”

      “Right.”

      “Are you going to marry him?”

      Annie stopped packing and gaped at Mickey. Well, that was a question that hadn’t cropped up in their earlier interviews. Where on earth had he picked up an interest in marriage?

      “Why would you think I was going to marry him?” she asked cautiously.

      “Cause that’s what grown-ups do, isn’t it? Molly says when you grow up and become an adult you have to get married. It’s the law.”

      “Molly said that, did she?”

      Mickey nodded furiously. “And she’s older than me, so she knows what she’s talking about.”

      Annie bit her lip. “Um, Molly’s only seven, Mickey. She’s not that much older than you.”

      “But she said grown-ups—”

      “Not all grown-ups get married,” Annie interrupted him gently. “Only the ones who fall in love.”

      The little boy thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Are you going to fall in love with Ike?”

      She chuckled. “I can safely say no to that.”

      “Why not?”

      She ruffled his hair. “Because he’s not my type, kiddo.”

      “What’s your type?”

      Annie thought about her husband. She recalled Mark’s unruly black hair and bittersweet chocolate eyes, his tattered jeans and sweatshirts, and how much he loved coaching little league baseball. She remembered how he had always talked back to the network news and secretly devoured true-crime books. She smiled as she reminisced about his expertise in bandaging scraped knees so the BandAid wouldn’t pull, and about how he could bake absolutely perfect Toll-House cookies. And she realized she would never, not in a million years, meet another man like him.

      “I don’t have a type, Mickey,” she said wistfully, “Not anymore.”

      Mickey nodded his approval. “Good. Because when I grow up, I’m going to marry you.”

      She smiled and

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