"But if they're sat on hard enough," Ilaria rebutted, "they don't have a chance ever to try anything else which they might think is for their own good...."
Jay nodded. Very true. As Ilaria left the room Jay went to the window and looked out at the Louisville of 2054. For the millionth time in the seven days he'd been here, he wished he had a cigarette. They had been outlawed as detrimental to health long ago.
The fact that it had been seven days reminded him of something else left behind.
Julie.
"You're a fool," he finally told himself. No wonder Julie'd been on edge and acting what he termed 'odd' lately! She was scared. He'd been out of school three and a half years. He was twenty-five. He'd just bought a new Olds. He'd begun buying his clothes at The Store rather than a store. Hell, he should've been married long ago. His days here were full. There were meetings with scientists and historians and militarists and linguists and everyone else Kevin could think up. He talked and listened and discussed and lectured. But he thought of her every night. Every morning before he rose. At times like this, when he was alone for a few minutes.
Of course it was love! He'd always thought too many people threw the word around too much. He'd always been afraid to use it because he wasn't sure of its meaning. He's used it once. And he'd been kicked in the teeth by the girl. He hadn't used it since.
When was a guy ever sure?
Hogwash! Now he knew that each man forms his own definition. True, too many people used the word love indiscriminately. It's mistreated. Kicked around. Assumed and taken off. Dragged through messes and scandals and law courts and through the mud. But to a man like Jay Welch, to a man who has been afraid—yes, afraid—to use it, it must be there when he begins thinking in those terms.
Love. He'd had to come across one-hundred years to realize he'd found its meaning. To realize he'd known its meaning a long time. To realize that love is whatever you make it, what you, yourself, call it. You define it yourself. Then you apply it.
It had been there all the time. You don't include someone in everything you do and everything you think without it. You don't try to change her and yourself. To make her perfect. To make yourself perfect with—and for—her without it. This business about "accepting" little faults—as well as big ones—, he decided, is for the birds. It's human nature to translate other people in terms of yourself and try to change them in terms of yourself. To argue and be proud and hate like hell to have to make up. But you don't make a project of it with everyone. Not unless....