They were family. And judging by their facial features, possibly, mother and daughter. Daughter looked to be about 18, but I can’t be certain she wasn’t slightly younger or a few years older. When they’d initially boarded and gotten settled in the subway car, the daughter (because the more I observed, the more she felt like her daughter) pulled out some headphones, put the connecting end into the phone, placed one end of the receiver into her ear, and gave the other to her mother. The daughter seemed quietly eager to share while the mother, seemingly more restrained, quietly obliged.
Hearing the daughter’s laugh, a few stops into the ride, I glanced up to see the mother now smiling. Slightly turned in towards each other, both had been listening through the headphones while looking at something on the phone screen. Perhaps sensing my gaze, the mother looked at me— her smile still lingering from the shared experience with her daughter. Giving her a smile of my own, I turned my attention back to my phone.
The next time I looked up was after the girl kissed her mother’s cheek. Glimpsing the tail end of that visual, I saw her stand, say goodbye and then hurry out through the train doors.
On the heels of her exit, I found myself thinking of my mother and how much I love her.