“Eliza–” I said, “so many of the books I’ve read to you said that love was the most important thing of all. Maybe I should tell you that I love you now.”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“I love you, Eliza,” I said.
She thought about it. “No,” she said at last, “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?” I said.
“It’s as though you were pointing a gun at my head,” she said. “It’s just a way of getting somebody to say something they probably don’t mean. What else can I say, or anybody say, but, ‘I love you, too’?”
