Heartburn

by Nora Ephron

‘I know about you and Thelma Rice.’ Mark did not come home immediately. He came home two hours later because – are you ready for this? – THELMA RICE WAS ALSO AT THE SHRINK’S.

They were having a double session! At the family rate!!

I contemplated suicide. Every so often I contemplate suicide merely to remind myself of my complete lack of interest in it as a solution to anything at all.

‘That’s what a marriage is,’ said Sidney. ‘Pieces break off, and you glue them back on.’

‘I thought you said you wanted him back,’ said Ellis. ‘I do,’ I said, ‘but I want him back dead.’

He asked me to marry him so often – and I refused so often – that when he failed to ask me for a day or so, I started to worry.

It has a happy ending, but that’s because I insist on happy endings; I would insist on happy beginnings, too, but that’s not necessary because all beginnings are intrinsically happy, in my opinion.