The Perfect Love Song by Patti Callahan Henry Page B

and a tin for each of you.”
    Mrs. Anderson looked up from her puzzle again. “What’s in that tin? Did you ask permission from the front desk? I’m allergic to pine nuts, you know. And Dottie over there is a diabetic. And Frances, well, she can’t eat anything that’s been anywhere near shrimp.”
    Kara smiled. “It’s shortbread. Just butter, sugar, and eggs.”
    Mrs. Anderson shook her head. “Now, how am I gonna watch my girlish figure if you’re bringing me these treats?”

    Kara placed the bag of tins on the table. “Well, you’ll have to take that up with Maeve Mahoney. It’s her recipe.”
    “Ohhh, you stole a family recipe?” Mrs. Anderson shook her finger at Kara.
    “Borrowed,” Kara said.
    The nursing attendant entered the room and paused the movie. “Hi, ladies. You need any help?”
    “I think we got it . . . but if you could just let me know if someone can’t have shortbread . . . ”
    Soon the room was decorated as if Mrs. Claus had visited, and Kara and Charlotte walked out of the nursing home feeling fuller and stronger and more joyful than before they’d walked through the doors. This is how giving is. I know logic tells us that giving means having less, but that’s not the way it is. Giving means having more. It’s just the way it is. As Kara and Charlotte know.

    T he concert in Knoxville was sold out. Jimmy’s nerves almost got the best of him, but he sang the song as if Charlotte were in the front row.
    On this night he opted to stay in the bus while the band and crew went out. Sometime in the middle of the
night he heard them come home, but his sleep was deep and silent.
    Until the dream.
    He walks out of a tour bus the size of a house, clouds low and dark. He pushes and yet can’t move forward. Finally, he breaks free and attempts to walk toward the concert hall, yet obstacles are placed in his way—a gap in the sidewalk, a policeman not allowing him past, a wild fan grabbing at him. He pushes hard against it all, his head down, his muscles aching, his heart thumping to get to the concert hall, to the stage. Nothing else matters—not the crowd or the police or the gash in the earth, a gash big enough to swallow any man alive.
    He awoke in a sweat, sitting bolt upright in bed. He felt he’d been sent a message, but not sure of what it was, he stretched back into his bed and closed his eyes.
    He ignored that nagging sense of something important—ahya, one should never ignore that nagging sense. But he did. Oh, he did.

    T here is this saying that time is relative. A very smart man said this, and it’s true—it’s all relative to what you want and when you want it. It seems to move slowly when you want something or someone, and it appears to fly at the speed of light when you’re exactly where you want to be, doing exactly what you want to do with exactly whom you want to do it. There are also those times when it seems to stand still, to stop completely, as if time itself is holding its breath to see what will happen next.
    Charlotte felt this way—that time was standing still. She looked at the calendar and counted the days until she’d see Jimmy, and yet the date never seemed to move closer. She kept track of his concerts and cities, but their conversations had dwindled from many times a day to almost every other day.
    Her client, Mrs. McClintock, stood at the top of her staircase and spoke down to Charlotte—literally and figuratively: “Young lady, you promised there would be freeze-dried pomegranates on this garland, that you would add a splash of red.” The woman fingered the top of the garland wrapped around the staircase and slowly descended the stairs, one deliberate step at a time, emphasizing each word with the click of her high heels.
    Charlotte released a long sigh, smiling through her gritted teeth. “I explained on the phone yesterday that the
supplier is out of pomegranates, so I used red berries instead. There is still a splash of red to accent the