The narrative opens with reflections on immortal time, contrasting mortal measures with the elastic experience of someone who lives forever. Happiness makes years vanish, while sadness and fear stretch minutes into eternities. For Charlotte, the decade becomes a prison of waiting and dread.

Charlotte spends the 1960s on edge, bracing at every knock, every neighbor’s mention of her name, and every glimpse of someone who resembles Sabine. Nightmares keep Sabine vivid in her mind, and each awakening sends her to the phone.

Charlotte repeatedly calls Ezra, asking if there is any sign of Sabine. The calls are marked by the changing backdrop of popular music—The Beatles, The Byrds, The Supremes—which becomes Charlotte’s way of measuring passing years.

Ezra’s answer never changes: there is no sign, no word, still nothing. Each patient refusal wears down Charlotte’s vigilance, chipping away at the constant fear that has defined her exile.

As time dulls the edges of memory and fear, Sabine becomes a ghost who haunts only Charlotte. The lack of any concrete trace leads Charlotte to question whether the pursuit has ended.

By the end of the decade, worn by loneliness yet buoyed by the ongoing absence of danger, Charlotte allows herself to hope that Sabine has lost interest, that she has run far enough, and that she might finally be free.