“I always loved watching him, too.”
Callan’s voice came from behind me.
I hadn’t heard him walk up.
I didn’t turn right away, didn’t need to. His presence hadbecome something I recognized before I saw it—the weight of him in a room.
“He’s older than everyone on this planet,” I said softly.
Callan stepped up beside me and looked down into the tank, his forearms settling on the railing next to mine, close enough that our elbows nearly touched.
“Older than most buildings, honestly.”
Frank circled the center of the tank again, rising slowly toward the light near the surface.
“There’s something about him,” I said.
Callan glanced at me. “What do you mean?”
I watched the turtle for a long moment, trying to find the right words for something I’d carried quietly for years.
“He’s been alive for over a hundred years.”
Callan nodded. “Roughly.”
“He lived through two world wars,” I continued, my voice dropping. “The Great Depression. The Cold War. Pandemics. Everything humans have done to themselves and each other for a century.”
Frank broke the surface and took a slow breath. The faint sound echoed through the water and up through the glass, reaching us on the walkway like a whisper from somewhere very far away.
“Everyone who walked the earth when he hatched is gone now,” I said. “Every single one of them.”
Callan leaned into the railing beside me. “And he’s still here.”
“Yeah.”
A small smile pulled at my mouth. I couldn’t help it.
“He just keeps swimming.”
Frank dipped back beneath the surface, turning in aslow, graceful arc, his scarred shell catching the light as he descended.
“I guess I always loved that about him,” I admitted. “Even before all this, before any of it mattered the way it matters now.”
Callan watched the turtle glide through the blue for a quiet moment.
“Symbolism?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
I shrugged, the smile still there.
“Or maybe I just like stubborn survivors.”
Callan chuckled—low and warm, the sound settled into the space between us.
“Well, then,” he said, “you’re going to love the rest of us.”
That earned a real laugh.