Chapter 10
FINAL YEAR
The final year arrives, bringing with it a mix of apprehension and anticipation as the couple prepares for reunion and the reckoning of their vows
The calendar page for the coming month felt heavier than all the preceding ones combined. Twan traced the outline of the number, a stark black ‘1’ marking the start of the final year. Twelve more cycles of the moon would pass, and then Mandie would walk out of the imposing steel gates of A.D.O.C. Four years. It seemed an eternity when she first left, a gulf so wide he feared no bridge could ever span it. Now, standing at the precipice of reunion, the gulf still stretched, but the end was visible.
He leaned back against the kitchen counter, the granite cold beneath his palms, a stark contrast to the internal fever that had simmered beneath his skin for three years and eleven months. The silence in the house was different now. It wasn't the crushing, desolate silence of early separation, thick with the scent of phantom perfume and unwashed laundry. This silence was charged, brittle with expectation, almost vibrating with the near-presence of her return.
That morning, the letter had been short, a bright spot burned onto the pale blue stationary he’d grown so accustomed to reading.
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