The week after Nadia's visit was different.
Not dramatically. Nothing announced itself. Nobody sat down and said something has shifted between us and this is what it means and this is what we are going to do about it. It was not that kind of different.
It was the quiet kind.
The kind you notice in small things before you notice it in the large ones.
Monday morning he came into the kitchen and poured his coffee and stood at the window beside me instead of at his usual end of the counter. Not touching. Just beside me. Looking at the same piece of garden I was looking at. Like being near each other had stopped requiring a reason.
Tuesday evening he asked what I was reading and when I told him he asked a question that meant he had actually heard the answer and was interested in it. Not pe
