Missed

Ever since Gigi conceived their first child, there have been countless restless twilight hours when Joe would sit up in bed and observe her as she sleeps. Even thirteen — or was it fourteen, now — years after they first met, he still feels somewhat out of place at her side. In the very beginning, it was the quietness of her timid voice and the maladroit rigidity of her mannerisms; now, it is the loudness of her formidable presence and the inexplicable grace with which she faces every new chapter of their life. To think that the bespectacled preteen girl with the ponytail would become the woman who gently cradled his head in her lap as he wept with joy at the sight of those marvelous lines on the pregnancy test. What a long way they came since middle school, when they were still children oblivious to love. And what a long way they came since the end of high school, when they were finally forced to grow up and confront their feelings, in no small part because of a dear companion.