As Good as It Got Read Online Free PDF

onto her bed when she passed the doorway.
    “So, now. The Snickers.” She led him into the kitchen, shawl jingling, and reached into the cabinet—cheap wood stained to look like cherry—where she kept her stash of comfort. “Miniatures today. Peanut Snickers, Almond Snickers, and Snickers Cruncher. Two of each?”
    “How about three.”
    “Two to start.” She counted out six bon-bon-sized candy bars for each of them.
    “Got any news?” His voice barely sounded through caramel, nuts, and chocolate. “You know, important stuff?”
    “What do you think?”
    He shrugged, but when he looked up again, his eyes were bright and hopeful.
    “Well.” She couldn’t help smiling. “I did hear something.”
    He swallowed eagerly. “Yeah?”
    “I heard . . . that the Snickers orchards had a par- tic -ularly good growing season this year. Which was a relief after the disaster that nearly happened last year.”
    He giggled. “What disaster?”
    “You don’t know? Well . . . ” She opened her eyes wide, spread out her shawl, and let her mind reach out to the collective unconscious in search of plot possibilities, relieved As Good As It Got
    29
    not to have to think about her troubles for this short while.
    “It involved the evil witches and wizards of the Twilight Magic Candy Company, and their head wizard, named Bal-dezaar, who had a part- tic -ularly nasty and aggressive sweet tooth . . . ”
    For the next several minutes, she spun out the story, careful to add one of the drawn-out gory battles Ricky loved, but also swirling in descriptions of a sweeter nature. She ended, of course, on a moral high note, with the evil witches and wizards all but banished and the candy season saved.
    Another knock on the door, this one loud and insistent, accompanied by a shout. “Ricky, you in there?”
    “Dad .” Ricky hopped off the chair and ran to the front door.
    Martha turned the corner to see Jim Spangler, skinny like his son, barely out of his own childhood at twenty-four or
    -five at most, squatting down, arms open to receive the little body, which stopped a foot away.
    “You and Mom done fighting?” This from Ricky in a sulky superior tone.
    “Yeah.” His father touched his son’s shoulder, uncomfortably guilty. “Sorry, little man. Your mom and I get pissed sometimes.”
    “No kidding .”
    Martha moved forward. She wanted to tell this boy-father about spiritual centeredness, about deep breathing and positive karma, about learning to control angry impulses, about treating people you love with respect and compassion. But all he’d see would be a fat, middle-aged woman lecturing.
    Her words would bounce off him and scatter on the floor, sound waves from a tree falling alone in the forest.
    30 Isabel
    Sharpe
    “Ricky was upset.”
    Jim barely glanced at her. “Yeah. I know. You don’t have to come down here, Ricky. You can—”
    “Martha told me another really cool story, Dad. This one was about wizards and witches and candy trees and—”
    “That’s great. You want to go get ice cream with me?”
    “Sure! Yeah! Okay!” He gave his father a high five and followed him toward the stairs, turning to wave at Martha.
    She closed the door on his happy face disappearing down the building steps. Ricky wasn’t her problem to solve. He loved his parents, even if his dad was an immature horse’s butt and his mother was a self-absorbed brat. He’d grow up and be who he was going to be no matter what Martha did.
    What did she think, that thirty years down the road he’d be accepting a Nobel prize, saying he’d have been a failure without Martha Danvers’s Snickers stories?
    A few steps into her apartment, breathing too high and too rapid, which would only lead to pain and panic, she stopped and forced her inhale-exhale down low and slow. All day long, over and over, the same cycle. Ahead of her, stretching out as far as she dared let herself imagine, more of the same desperate emptiness. Unless Eldon woke up.
    The