the last book I ever read (A Horse Walks into a Bar: A Novel by David Grossman, excerpt eight)

from A Horse Walks into a Bar: A Novel by David Grossman:

It takes him three rotations around the stage to get his breath back, and during the lull I find myself wallowing in pain from a different place. If only I had a child from her, I think for the thousandth time. But this time it stabs me somewhere new, in an organ I never knew I had. If only I had a child who would remind me of her in some small way—in the curve of her cheek, in a single movement of her mouth. That’s all. I swear, I wouldn’t need anything more.