The man shrugged and tapped the meter. Bette rolled her eyes, and gave him the money, and the smallest tip possible. “Get your car cleaned, or you’re not going to have many more customers to give you a full fare – unless they’ve lost their sense of smell,” she said, as she ducked out of the cab and darted across the road to the sidewalk. She wasn’t that far from home. A walk would do her good. The cold was brisk, but she took a deep cleansing breath as she walked. It felt so good to stretch her legs and be in the fresh cool air, a welcome change from the stinking cab that’d had the heat blasting. As her walk began to drag on, Bette began to get tired and attempted to will her feet to stop hurting when it happened. She saw them.

The same woman, the same little girl. They were loitering in front of a quaint book shop where Bette had purchased books for Angie several times before. She was about ten yards away. The woman was blowing on her hands and the little girl drinking from a cup of something that Bette guessed was cocoa, while chirruping at her mother. Bette couldn’t hear the words but she could hear the child’s voice. Bette slowed her pace and considered her plan of action. She stepped cautiously up to them, out of the way of the flow of foot traffic and spoke. “Hi.”

Neither the woman nor the little girl seemed to notice her. Bette cleared her throat and tried again. “Hello.”

The woman looked her way with a scowl. “What do you want?”

“I… Haven’t I seen you around here before?”

The woman rolled her eyes and looked away.

Bette tried again, deciding to be more direct this time. “I saw you about two weeks ago. You were out here, uhm… What I meant to say is, I should have stopped and talked to you then, but I was in a hurry. You see, I have a little girl too, and I had left her alone to pick up dinner, and –”

The woman took her little girl’s hand and started to walk away while Bette was mid-stentence.