He read over her shoulder.
Not literally — that would have driven her to violence — but he read everything she recommended with a seriousness she found quietly staggering. He kept a list on his phone of books she mentioned, shows she referred to, things she said had changed the way she thought.
He’d been doing it since the beginning. She’d found out by accident when she mentioned a novel she loved and he’d said, offhandedly, *I read that last month.* She’d said she didn’t know he liked that author. He’d said he hadn’t, before.
“Why?” she’d asked.
He’d looked slightly embarrassed. “You talk about books like they’re people. I wanted to know who you were talking about.”
That was the moment she’d understood what she was dealing with.
Ada was thinking about this while watching him read across the room — not one of her recommendations, one of his own, the thick history book he disappeared into for twenty minutes at a time. He was completely absorbed, one foot up on the coffee table, occasionally making a sound that meant he’d found something interesting.
She loved him in this moment the way you love a painting in a particular light — with the feeling that you’re seeing something true.
She’d been right to trust him with her reading list. He’d been right to ask.
We let people in, she thought, one recommendation at a time. And sometimes they enter that world and never entirely leave.
She went back to her own book.
Across the room, he made the sound again.
“Read that bit out,” she said.
He did.
✦ Today’s Reflection
What book, song, film, or piece of art do you wish your partner truly understood, and have you helped them get there?
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Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 
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