After I send the email, I drive to The Child’s school, and she asks if we can go to the Old Drive-In and get burgers, so we do, and eat them, parked in the car, listening to Buddy Holly piped in overhead and sharing the extra french fries in the cupholder between us. I listen to her day at school, and how one of the boys thinks she’s awesome because she loves shoes and Lord of the Rings, and most girls like one or the other but not both and he was like Mind, Blown.
After she’s done with her news, I let her know that Mr. Faraway and I broke up, but I expect we’ll stay friends.
I will miss the flowers he brought, she says. It was so romantic.
It was, I say. I’ll miss them too.
She wants to know if I’ll ever get married again, and I tell her, No. This bothers her, but not me.
I’ll probably date again, I tell her. But I won’t get married.
Don’t go on Match again, she says.
I laugh, well, maybe just for entertainment, but not for real.
As we drive home, we pass a yard sale, and The Child insists, we have to stop, we have to see what they have. A lot, as it turns out: it’s an older couple, downsizing for a move into a retirement home. There are hair irons for the child and an extra colander for me and a fantastic 1960’s giant plastic lighted black cat that I simply have to have. There are piles of vintage cookbooks, and as The Child asks questions about slide viewers, I go through them all. There are several by an author I am familiar with, and though I have one of her cookbooks on my Wish List, that particular book isn’t here, so we settle up the bill and move on.
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