1 Mother 2 Another

Yesterday morning as Maddie and I walked
up to the school grounds, she spied a friend of hers coming up at
the same time. “Nathan!” she shouted joyfully and ran
towards him, throwing her arms around him in a fervent embrace.


To be fair, this is how all of Maddie’s girlfriends greet
each other: even though they’ve just seen each friend the day
before, they’ll scream a name, race towards the girl, and hug
her tightly for quite some time. If there’s still a distance
to walk after the meet-up, the two girls will hold hands for the
rest of the way.


You could see that Nathan was not quite down with the public
display of affection, and he smiled and said, “Ok, ok,
OK!” as she hugged him. But he did not break out of it. And
then as they walked the rest of the way together, Maddie firmly
holding his hand through the crosswalk, you could see
Nathan’s neck turn bright red, twin spots of flame lighting
up on his cheeks.


When they got across the street Nathan, still holding on, said
haltingly, “Maddie, why so huggy today?”


Which was as close as he came to complaining.


“No reason!” Maddie responded blissfully. And then
walked him the rest of the way to the door.