Of Wolves and Spies

Chapter 5

He hadn't changed a bit.

He was still taller than her by several inches, with broad shoulders that had somehow managed to get bigger, and a narrow waist. His hair still made her slightly jealous as his dark brown hair, a little longer than standard military regulations would have allowed, had a slight wave that most women would kill to have and, unlike her unruly slight curls, had no hint of frizz. And looking into his eyes that still reminded her of a steamy cup of hot chocolate made Lizzy feel as though she had finally come home.

Being isolated from her family for almost a decade had been difficult. As much as she loves her daughter, she could not help missing her family. How her brother had always been there for her, no matter what. When they were younger and her mind wouldn't let her sleep, and she just needed to shut her mind up for a little while, he found a way to take her to a new place where they could simply hide away from the world. Somewhere peaceful, with no people, no traffic, no noise, just pure, unchanging earth and nature. Or he would help her by starting a series of pranks or challenges, something to help her mind focus on one thing instead of constantly calculating and reasoning a dozen different things at the same time which sometimes nearly drove her insane.

Her dad had been wonderful at knowing what to do, too.

He understood her, because he was like her. He too found it difficult to stop the constant calculation and evaluations and assessments. Not just things, but people, too. It was rather disturbing to be able to look at someone and to be able to 'read' someone and just know things about them simply from looking at their body language and facial expressions and how they interact with people. It was like a combination of telepathy and mentalism without the hypnosis.

It helped to know that someone knew from personal experience what it felt like to be a genius. Movies and books romanticised the notion of a genius, but there is nothing romantic about knowing completely random facts like the angle between the hands on a clock at certain times of the day or the engineering mathematics that went into constructing Big Ben – both the tower and the clock and how they were able to get the timings and gears so precise - about being able to calculate complex calculus equations in your head, to eight decimal places, in about thirty seconds. He knew what it meant to be at university at the age of fourteen – how hard it was to be surrounded by people five or six year older than you, to be in an environment where you can't be taken seriously because while everyone else is old enough to get a drink at the local pub, you are still bursting out into pimples.

Most of all she missed her mom. Her wonderfully warm, weird-in-her-own way, mom. Her mom wasn't like her in being an intellectual genius, but she was brilliant in her own way. How she just knew things, the way that she looked at and understood the world and the universe, and the people around her. How she always knew when she was needed, and how. How she understood that sometimes a long hug in silence was the best sort of medicine that she could provide, or how to distract her father when she and Cade decided to gang up on him and would reward them with extra cookies for their ingenuity – success or failure. How her garden was always beautiful, flowers always bloomed for her mother, no matter the time of year. She had always said that there was nothing like getting your hands into good soil to while away the time or to help you think out a problem.

What she loved most growing up was watching her parents fall in love with each other all over again, every single day. Almost like, whenever they discovered something new about each other, they fell in love all over again. Her favourite moments in life, moments that trumped trapping her brother in the bathroom for three hours, had been when she had gone downstairs and saw her parents slow dancing in the kitchen while dinner was only half made on the sides. Or when they fought, which was rare, they always resolved the issue before the night was over, even if it meant staying up until midnight because they refused to ever let a problem fester.