Though it may surprise many who assume they know me well, I am a romantic at heart; whether I was already that way before reading Little Women, or whether Ms. Alcott’s tome guided me to this trajectory I do not know.

What I do know is, I still remember the exact day I read Little Women for the first time. I was in seventh grade, just turned twelve.  I read the book sprawled on my orange and yellow and brown patchwork bedspread, or tilted back to a dangerous degree in the nubby yellow corduroy rocking chair, feet braced on the wobbly end table with reading lamp.

I read in Dad’s Lazy-Boy Recliner, after he had gone to bed, and sometimes on the top step of the basement steps, or the back porch if the concrete was warmed from the sun.  Often I read at night in bed, sometimes with a…