11 Adar 5745 / 4 March 1985 A.D. / 12 Jumada Al-Akhirah 1405 A.H.
It’s been almost a century (35,482 days) since Anna watched a blizzard blow across the Plains on a January day. There’ve been other tragedies and horrors and “acts of God” since then, conflict and atrocities, sweeping epidemics and war on a grander and farther-reaching scale than some had thought humanity capable of.
And there have been, as well, countless acts of compassion, of bravery, of love. Expressions of joy and gladness and wonder. Small kindnesses and great charities.
And through all of them, those things done carefully or capriciously, willfully or inadvertently, or left undone for all the same reasons, Anna has watched.
And every day, Anna has thought about the decision she almost made while the snow fell on the schoolhouses. But it’s remained an almost, the tether Castiel put around her has held.
For thirty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-two days.
But not, she knows now, for thirty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-three.
Just as she knows she will find him here.
And there have been, as well, countless acts of compassion, of bravery, of love. Expressions of joy and gladness and wonder. Small kindnesses and great charities.
And through all of them, those things done carefully or capriciously, willfully or inadvertently, or left undone for all the same reasons, Anna has watched.
And every day, Anna has thought about the decision she almost made while the snow fell on the schoolhouses. But it’s remained an almost, the tether Castiel put around her has held.
For thirty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-two days.
But not, she knows now, for thirty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-three.
Just as she knows she will find him here.