Chin. Hair. Speak.

She reached for her chin before she spoke. Every time.

We were having tea. She'd come to collect a piece of furniture — someone I'd met only once before.

She'd go quiet. Hand to chin. Then fingers through hair. Then words — her daughter's wedding, a concert she'd once organised, a house she wants to sell. Nothing connected. Everything delivered by the same gesture.

Chin. Hair. Speak.

Three times I watched it happen. The hand already knew. The words were the last step.

I've read about this — the body thinking before the mind catches up. But reading about it and watching it move across someone's face in your own living room are entirely different things.

At some point she left. I sat with my tea.

I have no idea what my hands were doing.