Gabriel came to him when the garden had settled into a quieter shape, the kind that followed disturbance and did not rush to fill the space it left behind.
The air had steadied. The light had found its balance again between what came from above and what had always lived below.
Voices had fallen away into their own corners of thought. What remained was presence.
She did not approach in any manner that suggested intention. There was no arc, no careful closing of distance.
She simply arrived beside him as though the place had always been reserved for her, and the garden accepted the correction without question.
She lowered herself into the grass with the same ease she brought to everything she did, folding into the moment without effort, her hands resting loosely in her lap.
For a time she did not look at him.
Her gaze moved instead across the garden -- over the trees, over the slow breathing of leaves that held both light and memory in their veins.
