Don’t look at me like that, I see those pink cheeks when you talk about him,” she observed. “In my day, if I learned anything, it was to tell the ones you love how much love them. When I was your age, I fell in love with a beautiful woman. You know, fifties and all, I never told her, and she married a man that abused her terribly.” She paused, and Artemis could tell her eyes were dampening. “I went to her funeral two years after she moved away. In her things, there was a letter for me, telling me how much love she’d held in her heart and couldn’t speak. I was happy, my husband and my kids, but I always wonder, what woulda happened if I’d told her how much I loved her.” She smiled again. “Just don’t waste time, that’s what I’ll say. Call it old advice from an interfering old woman.

Beverly L. Anderson