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By Root 938 0

solving techniques in business schools, Aunt Elner had already been doing it for years and without any training. Of course she was no fool. When she saw there was no way to solve a problem she knew it. When Linda was having problems with her marriage, after months of tears, talking, arguments, marriage counseling, breakups and reconciliations, broken promises on his part, it was Aunt Elner who had finally given her the best advice, using only five little words: “Get rid of him, honey.” Linda must have been ready to hear it, because that’s exactly what she did, and considering her ex was now on his third marriage, it was the best advice she could have taken.

And when she had told her mother that she wanted to adopt a Chinese baby, Norma had tried to talk her out of it. “If you are not married, Linda, and suddenly show up with a Chinese baby, people will think you have had an affair with a Chinaman!” But thank heavens Aunt Elner had been on her side. “I’ve never even seen a Chinaman in person and I’m looking forward to it,” she had said. Suddenly a wave of combined guilt, remorse, and grief swept over her. Why hadn’t she found more time to go home and visit with Aunt Elner? Why hadn’t she let her daughter, Apple, get to know her better? Now it was too late.

She suddenly remembered their last conversation. Aunt Elner had been so excited about some article she had read in National Geographic about a breed of mice that leaped in the moonlight. Some photographer had evidently hidden in the bushes and caught a picture of them leaping, and Aunt Elner thought that was the cutest thing she had ever seen and had called Linda long distance and pulled her out of a meeting to tell her all about it. “Linda, did you know that desert mice leap in the moonlight? Imagine those little mice leaping around in the moonlight and having fun when nobody was looking, I guess they call themselves dancing, isn’t that something, you need to see this picture right away!” Linda had not been as patient as she should have been, and had lied to her on top of it, telling her she was running right out that minute and getting a copy of the Geographic. Then she lied when Aunt Elner called her back in a few hours wanting to know what she thought. “You were right, Aunt Elner, they are just adorable, the cutest things I’ve ever seen!”

Aunt Elner had been so pleased. “Well, I knew you’d want to see them, didn’t it just make your day?”

“It sure did, Aunt Elner,” she lied again. If she could only take it back.

Now Linda knew firsthand what she had always heard was true. There are always regrets when you lose a loved one. She would live the rest of her life with a thousand “Why didn’t I’s?” and “If only I had’s.” But now it was too late. Maybe after the funeral, when everything settled down, she and Apple would spend more time at home with Mother and Daddy. Life. You never know when a conversation may be the last one you will ever have. Linda vowed to never take life for granted. She had just learned the hard way—it can stop without warning.

Going Over to Elner’s

10:39 AM

Ruby and Tot walked across the lawn to Elner’s house, and Merle Wheeler, Verbena’s husband, a large man with a potbelly who always wore a white shirt and suspenders, was sitting in his yard across the street picking weeds. He called out, “Have you heard anything about Elner yet?”

Ruby nodded and called back, “We just got the report a little while ago, she didn’t make it.”

Merle, an expert on the running and maintenance of L&N toy train sets, but a little slow elsewhere, said, “To the hospital? What happened?”

“No,” said Ruby. “She didn’t make it period, Merle. She’s dead, stung to death by wasps. They said she was practically gone before she got there.”

Merle stopped picking weeds and sat in his green and white plastic lawn chair, also not believing what he had just heard. He and Verbena had lived directly across the street from Elner for the past thirty years. They had talked back and forth every day, he in his yard, Elner on her porch swing. After he had his heart attack and had