“You will come back to chat some more, won’t you?” Mildred called, her feeble voice swallowed up in the commotion of the airport crowd.

The woman walking away didn’t seem to hear her. She just kept her nose buried in the book she was reading as she joined the back of the line to the women’s restroom.

“Now, she was a nice young lady, wasn’t she, dear?”

“Yes indeed she was. Reminds me a lot of our Annie.”

“A shame she didn’t stay longer. Shall we follow her?”

Mildred looked to where the woman was standing. Several others had taken their place behind her so now only her red hair was visible.

“Oh, no. I don’t suppose we should, dear. Seems as though she doesn’t need us anymore.”

Mildred sighed.

Just like our Annie.

She scanned the concourse. There were a few people arguing, a few sleeping on the hard plastic seats, a couple kissing in a corner, and a woman changing her baby’s nappy right on the floor.

“Look at that,” she whispered. “How dreadful.” She couldn’t decide which was worse: the couple kissing or the mother changing her baby in public.

“Mind your business, dear.”

Mildred didn’t feel like minding her business. What she felt like doing was telling the couple in the corner if they weren’t careful they’d end up precisely in the shoes of the woman who was changing her baby’s nappy And they were far too young for that; they probably had even less sense between the pair of them than that young mother had on her own.

But as she thought about the time and effort it would take to stand up and walk across the concourse, she became distracted by a woman’s shrill voice, just a few feet from where she was sitting.

“Is everything alright, Calvinsweetheart?” the woman called after a man who, it seemed to Mildred, was in an awful hurry to visit the restroom.

Calvinsweetheart. What an odd name. Ah, but to each his own; that’s what Frank would say.

Mildred’s heart gave a little flip.

Frank? Where is Frank?

Her heart flipped again and started racing as she looked this way and that, searching for Frank. This is what happens when I take my eyes off him…

“Calvinsweetheart?” the woman called again, her voice so grating Mildred couldn’t help but look her way. She called once more, but her husband had already disappeared into the men’s room.

Ah, the men’s room, thought Mildred, relief flooding her as she patted her chest. Frank must have just gone to the men’s room.

The woman gave an exasperated sigh and plopped herself down, two seats away from Mildred. Mildred thought she looked like a nice lady: neatly styled hair, bright eyes, and a gorgeous tweed travel jacket that Mildred would have loved to own herself.

Must ask Frank to get me one of those for my birthday. Of course, it will need to be quite a few sizes smaller.

Mildred cleared her throat. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to have your Calvinsweetheart check on my Frank,” she said, reaching out a hand across the two seats that separated them. “Once he’s finished in there, of course.”

“Pardon me?” said the woman turning her head, but not pulling her eyes away from the men’s room door.

“You see,” said Mildred, “Frank has a heart condition and, well, I worry, although he always tells me to stop worrying, that nobody ever lived a day longer through worrying, in fact worrying, says Frank, can actually shorten one’s life by literally years and, well, at our age we can’t afford even one second, so Frank always makes sure that I stay on the positive side of things and mind my own business and–”

The woman turned and looked at Mildred in a way that made Mildred snap her mouth shut. She couldn’t remember ever being looked at like that before. She shivered and retracted her hand as quickly as her ninety-year-old muscles would let her.

The woman, holding a steady stare, pulled something out of her jacket pocket and popped it into her mouth. It crunched.

Probably the remains of the last poor creature to cross her path, thought Mildred with a shudder.