Awareness snapped through him like firecrackers. She was standing in front of the mailbox he had often glanced at on his way to his own. She was the right size as he recalled from her leading him through the corridors of their apartment building. And her voice, like velvet in the gloaming. "Ms. St. Giles," he said. His throat had turned into a column of pebbles he struggled to talk through.
For a moment, all he could do was stare. She was here. This was what she looked like - and he hadn't imagined a more perfect form for that voice. But it was her face that surprised him the most. Now that he studied it, he realized he'd seen it before -- but in one of those head-splitting visions. Suddenly, he wanted to ask her if she owned a blue, floor-length dress or a butterfly hair pin encrusted with what looked like sapphires.
He did not ask these things.
When he realized he'd been staring for longer than two seconds, he cleared his throat twice.
"I am well," he said at last. "And yourself, madam? You look..."
Perfect.
Perfect, but there was a pinching around the corners of her eyes. He frowned.