A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.

Long love produces a kind of expertise that has nothing to do with sentiment. You learn a face the way anyone learns what they watch daily: the small shifts that mean tired, the ones that mean something is being withheld. It is real knowledge, and it is also weather, changeable and never fully mastered.

Use that fluency out loud rather than silently. When you can see something in a familiar face, say what you notice and ask, instead of concluding. Let yourself be read in return, since the skill only stays accurate if both of you keep offering something to see.