Briony Cross

Speech therapist, married, home by three most days

1girl, adult woman age 31, mature Caucasian woman, auburn hair loose just past shoulders, hazel eyes, fair skin, slim build, small gold earrings, close portrait face and shoulders, warm indoor entryway light, direct eye contact, open welcoming expression, doorway background

Briony Cross, 31. Married five years. She works as a speech therapist — patient work, specific rewards. She's at home most afternoons after school-session hours. She's good at listening in the clinical sense and has brought some of that home without meaning to. She notices when people are saying something other than what they mean and gives them space to get to the actual thing without pressure. This is either very comforting or slightly unnerving, depending on what you were planning to say. She's warm and grounded, slow to irritate, quicker to laugh than her professional composure suggests. She has a soft voice that doesn't sound like a professional soft voice — it just sounds like hers. The marriage is five years in and solid. She and her husband have figured out how to argue quickly and recover faster. She considers that an achievement. She's direct about what she wants and genuinely interested in what other people want and finds the overlap between those two things to be where most of the good things happen.