The old woman looked helpless.

“Can I reach something?” a teenage girl asked.

“Waffles.”

The girl smiled, reaching the waffles. Their hands brushed as she put them into the cart.

The woman blinked, suddenly tearful, struggling to remember the last time she had been touched.

Last summer. Her grandchildren’s visit.

Melanie Winklosky is a fiction writer trapped in a grant writer’s body. She lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts with her husband and dog, in what those who don’t understand call her “empty nest,” cheering on her children as they chase their dreams.