aarp-ok'ed

“I told somebody about you, today,” she said, and he felt a spark of what he used to feel, what he wanted to feel, because the news was unsolicited and because it spoke of much more than the simple statement. “She said you were AARP-approved,” she said of what her friend had said, and he started to get defensive, in his own mind, never with her, he felt, or at least hoped, because there it was again: age; difference; fate; reality. She was young, younger than a woman he’d imagined loving at this late date. But he did and there was no answer to that, but to let it go, to her her go. And he was still working on those.