Whenever Mariana spoke, Arjen looked at her with the sincere adoration of a man made foolish by love. For her part, Mariana treated him with the diffidence and annoyance of an only child or a pampered Pekingese. The photo I took of them is somewhere, who knows where, but I remember it looked like this: two leaning into each other like houses slouched with time, and, like it or not, in love, after everything and always.
