A. and I picked up my mother from the airport this afternoon. She has returned from Australia a week earlier than will my dad, who is still there in Melbourne because the two of them decided together, when they were planning this trip, that it would be nice for him to stay a little longer by himself, because he doesn’t have the opportunity to visit Australia as often as she does and might enjoy some time on his own, visiting friends and colleagues from, say, his university days or from medical school who will be known more to him alone than they would be to both him and my mother together.