Her hair was very short (which looked great on her) and she'd put on a little weight (which did things to me that I did not want to admit), but there was no way I could miss the way she held herself. Or her smile as she waved me over to her. I pulled up and hopped out of the car, eager to get her bags loaded before the ever-present airport cops started to yell at me. She surprised me, though, by hugging me first. For a moment, I lost all control of myself and stood there stunned. Then she let me go and smiled up at me. I remembered how to move and threw her bags in the trunk while she got in out of the cold. Soon we were pulling away, into the night and the nebulous conversation on the way home.
For about a minute we were silent. I wasn't trying to be mean or cold to Mary. Despite my ment
