He strode on ahead, tall and dark and imposing as always. She followed in his wake, quickening her steps and tightening her clutch on the little girl’s hand, gazing around at the hustle and bustle of the airport wide-eyed. Even as she stood next to him, sheltered by his watchful protective eye, she felt suddenly alone and overwhelmed…little more than a girl-child being exposed to the world for the first time.

Was she really the mother of her own little girl? Yes – the heart of the warm little body drowsily holding onto her beat to the same rhythm as her own heart. She could still remember, could still feel, the hot pinprick in her belly unfurling into strangely delicious warmth, growing larger under her hands and his.

She looked up at him through her lashes, wondering – who was he, this man, her husband? She loved him, yes, but she did not know him. He held her through homesick tears, letting her hiccups echo in his silence; stilled the bone-rattling shiver of shockingly unfamiliar cold with the warm of his own solid mass; allowed her curious fingers to creep under his shirt, exploring and discovering. Moments of muffled velvet silence; they were THEIRS, and she held onto them jealously.

And still she did not know him, this curt businessman who nodded briefly to the other men in suits and waited impatiently and spoke abruptly, commandingly, was obeyed instantly. He seemed years older, and she felt the desperate keenness of being alone, the blinding lights and steel of the airport hurting her eyes, nauseous from her own naiveté. She was still only a girl and he was a man, her husband; she loved him but did not know him.

The author of this piece wishes to remain anonymous.