I am holding two people who do not want to be separated, though I am not the thing separating them.
I hold the woman's bag on her shoulder, twelve pounds of it, straps digging in. I hold the paper cup of coffee cooling in her hand, the small tan lake of it level and obedient inside. I hold the boarding pass, half an ounce, more than she can bear. I hold the man's arms around her, and I hold her arms around him, and I hold the floor steady under both of them so they can stand and do this.
Then she says she is carrying so much right now. I checked. Twelve pounds in the bag, six ounces of coffee, one paper card. That is all I could find on her. And yet look: her knees are bending. Her shoulders are folding down toward the tile as if I had suddenly asked more of her, which I did not.
I asked the same as always. Something is pulling on her that I cannot get a reading on, something that does not register on me at all, and still it bows her lower than the bag ever could.
I do not understand it. But I hold her through it anyway.
She walks down the ramp. I hold her every step, and I hold him where he stands, watching the place she was. Neither of them is falling. They only feel it.
I have held this man since the delivery room. I held him the first time he was set down in this world and I will hold him the last. I do not know what took her from him just now.
Whatever it is, I am still here. I have him.
I never once let go.