From the One at the Window

My dearest …,

I have been at this window a long time and I have not once been bored. People imagine this job is mostly rescuing. It is not. It is mostly watching, which is quieter and, I think, more useful. And the person I watch is .

I know it has been a hard stretch, . I want to say something careful about that, because people will tell you it will be fine, and you may have noticed that they do not actually know. I am not going to promise you that nothing bad will happen. I am going to promise you something smaller and much more reliable: you will not be on your own in it.

Every difficult night you have had, I was here for. Not fixing it — I do not always get to fix things — but here, at the sill, the whole way through. You were not alone on any of them, even the ones where it very much felt like you were. Especially those.

And I saw . Nobody else did. That is the sort of thing I am for.

I am not going anywhere,
and I never was —

Your Guardian Angel

At the Window, All Night

P.S. — You do not have to be brave for my benefit. I have seen you frightened and it has never once changed my opinion of you.