This is a song prompt. I got the idea from a few people on FaceBook that I'm "friends" with (who are also fellow authors on this site). Granted, they write drabbles with their song prompts, but it was hard enough to keep a story to 100 words (at least, for me, it is), let alone with a story like this. Maybe I'm just weird d: Anyway. Enjoy.

I love you this much,

And I'm waiting on you

To make up your mind

Do you love me, too?

However long it takes;

I'm never giving up.

No matter what,

I love you this much.

"I Love You This Much", Jimmy Wayne

The woman strode past the bedroom door, not bothering to look into the room and see the little girl already lying in bed. But the little girl had noticed the woman. She had been waiting for her mother to walk past, waiting for the chance to call out for her to read a bedtime story, though bedtime was over three hours ago. Though she knew Mother wouldn't have done so. So she remained quiet, with only her imagination to make her mother more of a human, more maternal. She could already hear Mother's voice speaking into the phone, already making plans for more meetings, though she hadn't been home for but half an hour. As Mother made her way past the door again, the little girl got out of her bed and pulled her door ajar. The woman turned around, startled at having been interrupted on the phone, and watched as her daughter stepped into the hall. She padded in her bare feet down the carpeted hallway, wrapped her arms around her mother's legs, and stared up into the shocked brown eyes.

"I love you, Mommy, this much."

::::

She stared at the casket as it was lowered into the ground and took in a shuddering breath. Though she and her mother had never been close, the woman's death had felt like a direct punch to her heart; she would never know why that particular memory had chosen to re-emerge at her mother's funeral, but it was the final crack in her wall that caused her to break down. When Aaron caught her eye from two people down, she smiled softly with trembling lips and brushed away the tears. She decided in that moment, to stop dwelling on the bad memories but instead, focus on the times that her mother had actually spent time with her. Those were the recollections that Emily Prentiss would cherish most.