I love you.

I never really fell for the big lies, like “your grandmother broke her arm, darling, while cutting some of her beloved snapdragons.” I worshiped my grandmother and had been covering for her long before the grown people figured out just how much gin she drank. I am pretty sure I never believed anyone who told me they’d call me in the morning. The ones that will don’t have to say it — or they just don’t leave. And I definitely did not believe the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms or that the War would be easy and short. I remember sitting next to a prominent New York guy, a real estate mogul who imagines himself wiser than he is about a host of things, and he told me just before we went in that “the real secret is that this is going to be over in days.” And I thought to myself, he actually believes that. He did, but the only things I ever believed in were the normal childhood things like the existence of the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy — they left evidence after all. And then I found a real Tooth Fairy, Dr. Larry Rosenthal, my excellent Manhattan dentist, a former cocktail pianist (my favorite thing about him) who has given me something better than money, a mouth full of gorgeous pearly whites I definitely was not born with.