Long blonde ponytailed twentysomething balanced on her wedges and tugged her jacket over her leggings and looked as angry as she was in the excessively hot airplane. She waited for her ride at the airport arrivals curb. The minutes grew long and she kept shifting back and forth, leaning to gaze past the cars fetching passengers. She backed into the police officer who hustled up and down the sidewalk, waving his arms to move cars along.

A white sedan pulled up with two children in the back seat. The kids were bouncing, singing a song. Their faces lit up to high beams when they spotted their mother, a dark haired and stout woman standing just beyond the blonde. Their car paused in front of the furious one who couldn’t help but hear the children and their joyous screams. The father called for the children to stop as they disobediently leapt from the vehicle to clutch their mother. The mother lifted her small daughter up for a kiss, the child wearing a pink stocking cap with a fuzzy ball on top. With a furrowed glance at the family, not letting them crack her impatience, the ponytail whipped her head away. As the family loaded their mother, continuing their happy reunion, the woman’s eyes narrowed. She looked as far away as possible, as tough as possible. She locked her eyes down the road to make it clear that she had not been abandoned, that she was also anticipating something.

-Istanbul, Turkey.