As the train pulled into the station I doubted if I was about to do the right thing. It had been ten years since we had seen each other in the summer of 1949. We had kept in touch through cards and letters every few years, she’d tell me snippets about her life, while I held back much of mine. Partly through not knowing her reaction and fear she would be reject me, I kept my feelings and life a secret. Daisy was my first love, the first love that was just mine and mine alone inside my head and heart. I never told her I loved her more than a friend, although I was sure she knew but didn’t say.  I thought it was so obvious as much as I tried to hide it, getting  jealous at any boy that showed any interest or came calling. Finding fault in every one, she just thought I was jealous she had boyfriends and I didn’t. The day I left to go to art college in New York broke my heart. I thought I wouldn’t be able to live without seeing her smile, being near her, even just as a friend. Time went on, I found I loved college, made new friends even had a short relationship with an older woman but I never forgot Daisy. I had never thought about going back to the small town full of people with their small minds. There was nobody else there I cared about seeing again.

My mother had been a gentle lady with the biggest heart sadly that included giving my father one chance too many. After she died I had no reason to go back. Then yesterday the news arrived my father had died. I needed to return, not out of any great grief, I need closure. I didn’t want closure from Daisy. I wanted to open my heart to her to see if we had wasted all these years, if she could ever feel the way I feel about her for me. As I stepped off the train in the black of the night only a single lamp lighting the path through the train station back into my past. I wasn’t sure what to do, I didn’t want to go to my empty family house with so many bad memories. Drawn to Daisy’s home she had inherited from her grandmother. A tall rambling house little had changed since I was last on those steps saying goodbye. I knocked on the door my heart pounding. The door flung open and Daisy wearing a long dressing gown threw her arms around me