“You’re so intuitive, Bette,” the woman uttered, gaining the attention of the marketplace owner. 

“You’re here for that magazine again?”

“I just simply can’t help myself.”  The woman carried the magazine to the counter and placed it down, grabbing a few items from the fruit stand next to the cash register.  “Old habits die hard.”

“Nobody said they have to be old.”

“How long have I known you?”

“Too long,” the storekeeper admitted, “and before you date us both and remind me it’s been over twenty years, what you should know is that it is never too late to take my advice.”

“And what advice would that be?”  The woman dug in her small purse for money to pay for her purchases.  “Stay out of the sun because I have delicate skin?”

“I gave you the best sunscreen I’ve ever used!  My advice is that it is never too late to resolve the mistakes of the past.”

“Who said I made a mistake?”

“Your heart breaks every time you open a magazine or newspaper that has her picture in it.”

“Doesn’t mean it was a mistake,” the woman argued further.  “She has been very successful, both personally and, obviously, professionally.”

“Who’s to say that you don’t have a part in that?”

“I don’t, I gave up that right.”

“You had little choice,” the storekeeper reminded her.  “When you showed up at this little isolated spot of Earth you were in no condition to do what you should do now.”

“What’s that?”

“Fight.”

“For?”

“What your heart longs for.”  The storekeeper bagged the items and handed them to the older woman slowly with an empathetic smile.  “One day it will be too late, but it isn’t yet, you still have a chance.”

“I won’t screw up her life,” Maxine said with determination in her voice, “I left my daughter twenty years ago.  There is no reason to pick at old wounds.  Her life obviously went on.”

“And your life didn’t,” her friend reminded her.  “You’ve followed her through every year since and you’ll never know if you made the right choice, but you can define your relationship with her now if you try.”

Maxine sighed, grabbing her bags, and slowly leaving the store.  The sun was bright, the sound of the ocean relaxing and comforting her, and her walk to her secluded house a short one.  She looked out at the tide coming in, washing away some of the sand with each pass, and wondered why life couldn’t be that easy.

“If only I could wash away the sins of the past, I could have my daughter back.”

She bowed her head and watched as her feet brought her closer to her home, a home created to hide her from a world she once left behind.  A world that separated her from the daughter she deserted for her own reasons.

“I wonder if you could understand now that you have a child of your own,” Maxine mused as she unlocked her door and placed her groceries on the table.  She opened the Art World magazine once more, smiling at the picture of Bette.  “You’re all grown up and yet your eyes haven’t changed a bit.”

Maxine carefully ripped the picture out and tacked it up next to the other ones she had collected over the years.  There were a few that had Tina in them, none that had Angelica, but she had learned that Bette had a daughter when she Googled her a few years back.

“I never stopped loving you,” Maxine said quietly as she wiped a tear from her cheek.  “A mother’s love never dies and I hope you now understand that.”

Maxine quickly climbed the stairs to her studio, intent on finishing the watercolor painting of Bette and Tina that was created from a publicity photo from Provocations.  Her focus, once on the emptiness she felt inside, now channeled into creating an exact replica of her daughter and her partner.  It was in that moment that she decided, if nothing else, to consider her friend’s advice.