having graduated, apparently, from the silent treatment and passive aggression that characterized the tension of their earliest days to something more mature, or possibly just something that requires less energy, brisk, functional communication, smiles as necessary to save face. She’s been waiting for some kind of a return to form, any cooling off at all, but at the end of each day she’s surprised anew to realize that Mark seems as upset with her as he had been a week ago. She cannot quite assess whether the needle on her own scale has drifted down at all.
