When I was 14, my mother fell in love with a man named George. He was short and stout, bald except for a trim ridge of gray around the back. He wore thick glasses with clear plastic frames and had a pursed mouth that could burst into a delighted O that altered his whole face when you made him laugh. My mother and I moved out of our apartment across town and into his house the weekend of their wedding. On the little pad of paper in the kitchen, George left my mother cryptic messages before he went to work at a bank in Boston, which I could make no sense of but made her chuckle when she found them. In his station wagon, at the table, on our walks with the dog around the block after dinner, they delighted each other. The marriage had its complications, but she loved him and he loved her, and

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