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still.
    She wasn’t a teenager anymore but her dating experience had not increased since high school. Howard pressed his lips against her forehead and asked, “May I see you again?”
    She felt her tummy flip and she placed her head on his chest.
    She said, “Yes.”
    She had talked to him every day since their second dinner date and they had gone out for the third date this evening. Alicia had crushes and felt attraction to boys and men ever since she was a teenager. She knew that she was attracted to Howard from the very first time she looked into his eyes.
    What she had not known was this feeling she could sense growing inside her heart and mind. There were things she wanted to tell Howard, things she wanted to share with him. He made her feel centered in a way she couldn’t explain and the way he never took himself seriously helped her relax. She was breathing easily for the first time since Sophie left home and Sunday morning when her mother called, Alicia answered the phone and for the first time in living memory she did not have that choking feeling.
    No, she explained patiently, she did not want to visit her parents that afternoon. This had been a ritual of theirs, where her mother called on Sunday and demanded that Alicia visit and Alicia dutifully marched over to their house and relived every miserable feeling from her childhood.
    Alicia and Howard had not made any plans to get together on Sunday. They agreed to see each other again but they had no set plans.
    Her mother said, “Be here around two.”
    “I’m sorry mother, but that doesn’t work for me today.”
    As expected, her mother began to wail and then demanded to know what could be more important than seeing her own mother, who had sacrificed everything for her. Then she said, “Oh I suppose you’re spending time with some of your fancy nurse friends. You probably think these people are more important than I am; your own mother.”
    Alicia interrupted her mother’s flow of words and said, “Mother. It’s not that I’m spending time with anyone. I just have other plans for this afternoon.”
    Her mother spewed invective, and slammed down the receiver. Alicia knew that daddy would be on the receiving end of her mother’s anger and she felt a certain amount of grief for her mother. But for the past week she had seen her mother through new lenses.
    She was an extremely unhappy woman and there was nothing Alicia could do to alleviate that unhappiness. All she could do was to try to step outside of her own self and embrace the world around her.
    She picked up her cell phone and punched in Howard’s phone number. It was the first time that she had ever called him.
    “Hey Howard,” Alicia said when he answered, “I was thinking, I’d like to take you out to dinner tonight. There’s a great little burger joint around the corner from where I live. We could walk there from my place; or drive…….your choice.”
    There was a long pause.
    “Hello, Howard?”
    At the other end of the phone line, Howard grinned. “Hey, who is this? It can’t be Alicia. She’s the woman who never makes decisions.”
    “So, is that a yes or a no,” Alicia laughed.
    “Oh it’s a definite yes,” Howard said.
    Heart beating wildly, Howard showed up at Alicia’s doorstep in his sports’ car. Before he turned off the engine, she came out looking as lovely as ever and slipped into the passenger’s seat beside him. There were so many thoughts racing through his mind.
    “Hey.” He said.
    “Hey back.” She smiled at him.
    He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The engine was running, but he didn’t move.
    “What’s the matter?” Concern laced her voice. “Have you changed your mind about going out?”
    “What? No!”
    “Okay. Good.”
    He realized then that this wasn’t easy for her and she was nervous. That gave him the confidence to say what he needed to say. He took a deep breath again for courage and let it out.
    “So we’ve been seeing each