I looked at the two women laughing in the window next door.
“Men will break your heart,” I said. “Some of them. Not all. Not this one.” I squeezed his hand again. “But the worst thing isn’t the man who breaks your heart. The worst thing is when you let him turn you into somebody who breaks other women’s hearts too.”
Irvin was quiet.
“And the best thing,” I said, “is when one woman decides to stop that. Right there. In her own backyard. With a pie.”
He lifted my hand and kissed it.
The lights in Vanessa’s kitchen stayed on until midnight. I know, because I couldn’t sleep. Hot flashes. Three in the morning, like always.
I got up and stood at the bathroom window in my old blue bathrobe and looked out at the dark street.
I didn’t look in the mirror. I didn’t count my gray hairs.
