Chapter 2 — Between the Passing Crowds

Eleanor rose onto her toes, trying to see over a broad suitcase rolling past.

The navy jacket had vanished, swallowed by travelers crossing in both directions.

She leaned left, then right, lifting the sign as if its bright letters might somehow call her father through the crowd.

“Did you see him?” she asked.

Her mother kept two fingers beneath the cardboard.

“I saw someone.”

“It was Dad.”

Eleanor’s certainty made the words breathless.

“I saw his suitcase.”

Across the terminal, the dark-haired man had stopped beside the black rolling suitcase.

Its telescopic handle remained caught in his right hand, angled behind him as people streamed around it.

He should have continued toward the open floor.

Instead, he turned toward the blonde woman walking close beside him.

She wore a dark rust-brown blazer and matching top, their warm color standing out beneath the cold fluorescent lights.

Her short bob curved neatly against her jaw.

One gold hoop flashed when she tilted her face toward him.

Whatever she saw in his expression slowed her steps.

The suitcase rolled another inch before its wheels settled into a groove in the terrazzo floor.

He reached for her with his free hand.

The gesture was quick, but not uncertain.

His palm found her waist, and she stepped into him as though the space had been waiting to close.

Her hand slid over the lapel of his navy jacket.

For a moment they remained there, intimate amid the rush, protected by the indifference of strangers.

Then he kissed her.

It was not a farewell peck or a careless brush of lips that could be mistaken from a distance.

He drew her against him, and she answered without hesitation, one hand gripping his jacket while the other rose toward his shoulder.

The black suitcase stood forgotten at his side.

A line of travelers passed between them and Eleanor, carrying hard-shell luggage and shoulder bags.

Their bodies formed a moving wall that hid the embrace from the waiting child.

A second stream crossed behind the first, obscuring even the man’s dark hair.

Eleanor lowered herself from her toes, still smiling.

“He’s coming.”

Her mother glanced down at her.

The small gold pendant at her throat caught the overhead light when she moved.

“Keep watching.”

Eleanor nodded and adjusted her hands along the bottom corners of the poster.

One edge had begun to bend beneath her fingers, so she flattened it carefully against her yellow T-shirt.

The colored words remained straight.

The large blue heart below DAD was still visible.

Beyond the moving crowd, her father tightened his arm around the blonde woman.

The noise of the terminal seemed to grant them privacy it did not truly provide: suitcase wheels rattling over floor seams, footsteps striking polished stone, distant voices gathering and dissolving beneath the high ceiling.

No one stopped.

No one asked why a man arriving with his luggage held this woman as if the rest of the terminal had disappeared.

Her delicate gold chain shifted against her collar as she raised her chin.

The kiss deepened.

His fingers pressed into the back of her blazer, and hers curled at the nape of his neck.

Their closeness had none of the caution of strangers and none of the awkwardness of a first touch.

Whatever remained concealed between them, their bodies carried the ease of a secret already practiced.

Only yards away, Eleanor rehearsed her welcome under her breath.

“Surprise,” she whispered, testing how it would sound when he finally reached them.

Then she tried again, softer.

“Welcome home, Dad.”

Her mother’s fingertips stayed beneath the sign.

She scanned the openings between passing shoulders, searching for the navy jacket Eleanor had spotted.

Each gap closed before she could settle on a face.

A traveler paused directly in front of them to adjust a bag, blocking most of the terminal.

Eleanor shifted impatiently.

Her long reddish-brown hair slipped forward over her denim jacket, and she tossed it back without releasing the poster.

“Maybe he went the other way,” her mother said.

“No.

He knows where to look.”

The answer made her mother smile, though faintly.

She turned again toward the crowd.

The dark-haired man remained unaware of the handmade letters facing him from across the floor.

He released the suitcase handle long enough to place both hands on the blonde woman.

The handle stayed upright beside them.

She pressed closer, her rust-brown sleeve dark against his jacket, and the two of them disappeared once more behind a passing cluster.

Eleanor caught another flash of navy between two people and jerked the sign higher.

“There!”

But what she saw was only his shoulder.

Before his face emerged, a rolling suitcase crossed her view, followed by a family moving together in a tight group.

She laughed at the frustration of it, too happy to be discouraged.

Her mother steadied the sign as it wobbled.

“Careful.”

“I want him to see it first.”

“He will.”

Across the terminal, the kiss finally loosened.

The blonde woman’s hand remained hooked at the back of his neck, reluctant to let the moment end.

He kept his forehead close to hers for one suspended breath, his left hand still firm against her waist.

Then the flow of travelers thinned.

A clean corridor began to open between the couple and the check-in counters.

Eleanor stood at one end with the welcome sign lifted to her chest.

Her mother stood beside her in the camel-colored coat, searching the newly exposed floor.

The man drew back from the blonde woman.

His hand dropped from her waist.

He reached for the black suitcase and began to turn his head toward the waiting terminal.