The Candy Smash by Jacqueline Davies Read Free Book Online Page B

and miss you and think of you every day. Hope you have a great Valentine's Day. See you soon! Love, Grandma."
    Evan looked at his mom, and they both started to laugh. It was hard not to, living with Grandma. Her brain worked in crazy ways these days. Sometimes she thought she was twenty years old. Sometimes she forgot she lived in the same house with the Treskis. Sometimes she didn't even remember who they were. And sometimes she was just fine.
    Evan went to the cupboard and got down everything he needed to make hot chocolate: a mug, a spoon, hot chocolate mix, and mini-marshmallows. As he scooped the mix into his cup, his thoughts returned to the gloom that hung over him on the bike ride home. And that made him think of other things, too, and so he asked his mother, "Did
you
get a valentine?"
    Mrs. Treski laughed. "Now, who would send me a valentine?"
    "I don't know," said Evan, stirring the hot water and chocolate mix in his cup. "Maybe ... Dad?"
    His mom took a sip of her tea and looked at him closely. "No. No valentine from Dad. Were you hoping I'd get one from him?"
    Evan shrugged, watching the billows of steam rising from his stirring spoon. "Well, you were married, right?"
    "Yep," said Mrs. Treski. "We were."
    "So..." Evan dropped a fistful of minimarshmallows into his cup. His mother opened her mouth as if she was going to say something about that, but then she closed it again. "How does that work?" asked Evan. "How can you be in love and then not in love anymore?"
    "You know, I'm not sure about that myself."
    "Maybe it was never love? Maybe you just made a mistake."
    "No, it was definitely love. Believe me. For both of us. But—it didn't last. Sometimes love doesn't."
    Evan shook his head. "All the poems make it sound like love is forever. It's bigger than anything and the most important thing in the world. But if it can just go like
that
...just disappear..." Evan threw his hand up as if he was tossing a piece of trash over his shoulder.
    Evan's mother paused. "It didn't just go, Evan. It put up a fight. A big, long fight. Do you remember? Were you old enough?"
    Evan nodded, then took a short, hot sip of his drink. "I remember the fighting."
    "That was love. That was love doing everything it could to hang in there. But in the end, it couldn't. So Dad and I decided to be apart. But I'll always love your father."
    "You say that! You always say that," said Evan. "But what does it mean if you're not married anymore?"
    "It means it's a different kind of love. There are all kinds in the world, you know."
    "Mrs. O. says that, too. She says you can love a song or a forest or a friend or a—you know—a person, a person you're 'in love' with." Evan buried his face in the hot steam rising from his cup so his mother wouldn't see his eyes.
    "Mrs. Overton is one smart cookie."
    Evan nodded, still keeping his face tilted down. Love was confusing.
    "Hey, Mom. I wrote a poem. About Grandma. Do you want to read it?"
    "Sure," she said. "Bring it on."
    He dug through his backpack until he found the folded-up piece of paper he'd stuck in the back pocket of his binder. He handed it to his mom, wondering why his heart was beating hard, so hard he thought it was going to knock itself right out of his chest.
    Mrs. Treski read the poem once. Then she put the paper down on the counter, smoothing over the page with her hand, and read it again. She looked up at Evan, and Evan stopped breathing. It was as if everything inside him stopped—his heart and his lungs and his brain—just stopped. In that instant, he would have given anything to have his poem back, safe and hidden in his binder, where no one would know that it even existed. It was just too hard, having it out there in the world for everyone to see.
    "That is the most remarkable poem I've ever read in my entire life, Evan," said his mother. Her voice was quiet, as if she'd just discovered a new planet or found a rare bird on her front lawn.
    Evan's heart suddenly