Free Hello Love by Karen McQuestion

him as the local pharmacist. It was amazing how one person could touch so many lives.
    “You miss coming here?” Dan asked, guessing.
    “Oh no, I come here all the time. I miss Bruno, though. That never changes.” She dipped a chip into the salsa. “But we were lucky to have all the years we had. You and Christine were lucky too. It should have been longer, but at least you had true love. Some people never get that.” Her eyes were fixed on him, waiting for a response.
    This was not the conversation Dan wanted to have with Aunt Doreen, or anyone else for that matter. Even at home he and Lindsay avoided lengthy conversations about Christine, afraid they might make each other cry. It was easier to keep busy and hold in the pain. Maybe easier wasn’t the right word. It was never easy. Just a way of coping. “You’re right,” he said, and changed the subject, telling her the latest news of his parents, who had retired to Tucson several years earlier.
    “They’re the smart ones,” Doreen said. “Fleeing the frozen tundra and following the sun.”
    Over dinner they discussed movies, and the book she’d read recently for her book club. Then she asked, “How come I never see you at church anymore?”
    He hadn’t gone to church since the funeral. “I sit in back. You must not see me.”
    “Ha-ha,” she said. “You need to start coming. It might do your soul some good. If nothing else, you’ll get to see me.”
    “I’ll think about it,” he said, then gave her an update on his job at the brewery. Anything to change the subject.
    “Tell me,” she said over dessert (fried ice cream for him, flan for her), “have you thought about getting a new dog?”
    “No.” A knee-jerk response, said more vehemently than necessary. He didn’t mean to be rude; it just came out that way.
    “Well, that was quick.” She laughed. “You wouldn’t consider it at all? Not even for Lindsay’s sake?”
    He shook his head. “Never. There’s no replacing Anni. She was one of a kind. Christine said she was a person disguised as a dog.” He smiled at the memory. “And Lindsay will be going off to college soon, so it would be pointless to do it just for her.”
    “I see,” Doreen said, her lips pursed. “I only mentioned it because a dog can bring such joy. Bruno always said there was nothing like the unconditional love of a dog. We had many over the years and none of them replaced the other. They each had their own unique place in our family.”
    “I understand. I just don’t think it would be right for the dog or for Lindsay at this point.”
    “And what about you?”
    “What about me?”
    “Do you get out at all?”
    He grinned. “All the time. I’m here with you tonight, aren’t I?” Truthfully his social life had ground to a halt after Christine died. For the first few weeks after the funeral, he’d gotten a few pity dinner invitations, but after a while, even that dried up. The world seemed made for couples, and he was now the odd man out. “I’m fine, Doreen.”
    But she wasn’t going to be deterred. “Lindsay says you never go out. You work and come home and that’s it. You’re still a young man, Dan. You can’t be a shut-in.”
    “I’m forty and I’m hardly a shut-in.”
    “But Lindsay says—”
    Like most teenagers, Lindsay didn’t know the half of what he did to keep their lives running. “Yes, I know. She said I go to work and then I’m home. But I also go to the grocery store and get my hair cut and do yard work. Snow blow the driveway. And I watch the Packers games with Peter.” That had happened only once, but still, it counted. Peter was his brother, and Doreen’s nephew. The familial reference had to carry some weight. “You don’t need to worry about me, Doreen. I live a full life.”
    “So you don’t have any problem with socializing? Maybe going out to dinner once in a while, seeing a movie?”
    “Certainly not.” Then he added, “When I have the time.”
    “Well,