Chap­ter XVII unfolds on a serene, yet ordi­nary, day in New York City on Sep­tem­ber 4, 2014, where Hen­ry and Addie remain in the soft, warm cocoon of their shared bed. Sur­round­ed by the qui­et rhythm of each other’s breath­ing, they linger in a peace­ful inti­ma­cy, hold­ing onto the fleet­ing moments with whis­pered names and qui­et smiles. As the world out­side tran­si­tions from morn­ing to after­noon, they both resist the inevitable pull of time, con­tent to stay wrapped in the com­fort of their space, savor­ing the warmth of each other’s pres­ence. Addie, as always, fills the silence with stories—stories of places she’s been and things she’s seen that Hen­ry will nev­er ful­ly expe­ri­ence, from fairy pools on the Isle of Skye to swim­ming in waters so clear they seem unre­al. Each tale is not just a mem­o­ry, but a win­dow into a life that Hen­ry will only be able to imag­ine, a col­lec­tion of adven­tures, each moment a piece of a larg­er, untold sto­ry. These mem­o­ries, rich with a kind of mag­ic, are the very essence of a life lived beyond the ordi­nary, and Hen­ry knows that these sto­ries will for­ev­er be beyond his reach, as they slip through his fin­gers like grains of sand.

Despite the seren­i­ty of their moment togeth­er, Hen­ry finds him­self con­sumed by an under­ly­ing fear of what he knows is coming—an aware­ness that their time togeth­er is fleet­ing, no mat­ter how much he wish­es oth­er­wise. The qui­et of the room seems to mock him, as the tick­ing of time echoes in the back of his mind, grow­ing loud­er with each pass­ing sec­ond. In the sim­plic­i­ty of get­ting out of bed, a task so mun­dane, Hen­ry feels a sharp pang of res­ig­na­tion. To rise, to face the world, seems like an act of sur­ren­der to the inevitable pas­sage of time, one that can­not be halt­ed or slowed. Yet even as he tries to resist, the real­i­ty of life’s con­stant for­ward motion press­es in on him. Despite the beau­ti­ful, almost time­less moments they share, his phys­i­cal hunger for sus­te­nance brings him back to the ordi­nary, remind­ing him that even amidst pro­found con­nec­tions, life’s basic needs persist—an unre­lent­ing part of the human expe­ri­ence that nei­ther he nor Addie can escape.

Addie, how­ev­er, seems to embody a sense of calm in the face of time’s pas­sage. With gen­tle hands, she pre­pares their meal, weav­ing more sto­ries into the fab­ric of their day, each one a thread that binds them togeth­er in ways both tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble. Her sto­ries are not only about her past but also about the way she has learned to live in the present, accept­ing each moment for what it is, rather than wish­ing for some­thing else. As she moves through the task of cook­ing, she gives him a final, sub­tle gift—the chance to live through her sto­ries and share in the essence of her life. This ges­ture, sim­ple yet pro­found, is Addie’s way of mak­ing sure that even when the moment is over, Hen­ry will car­ry these parts of her with him. Step­ping out­side togeth­er, the world feels heav­ier now, more press­ing, as though the very air they breathe is full of unspo­ken truths. The qui­et sim­plic­i­ty of the day, once so peace­ful, is now charged with a sense of urgency, a real­iza­tion that the clock is always tick­ing, and no mat­ter how hard they try, they will nev­er be able to tru­ly stop it. Time remains a force that can­not be held back, leav­ing them with a bit­ter­sweet sense of “not enough.”

But Addie, in her wis­dom, offers Hen­ry a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on the pas­sage of time, one shaped by her three cen­turies of life expe­ri­ence. To her, liv­ing for three hun­dred years is not fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from liv­ing a sin­gle day. It is not about how much time one has, but how ful­ly one embraces each sec­ond, how deeply one lives in the moment. Addie’s per­spec­tive is not just a les­son; it’s a way of being—a call to live ful­ly, to let go of the fear of the future, and to cher­ish the present while it lasts. In this way, she encour­ages Hen­ry to stop view­ing their time togeth­er as some­thing to be mea­sured, but rather as some­thing to be felt, some­thing to be expe­ri­enced with­out reser­va­tion. This way of liv­ing, in the moment and with­out the heavy bur­den of future expec­ta­tions, defines the essence of their day togeth­er. For Addie, life is a con­tin­u­ous accu­mu­la­tion of “nows,” each moment a small part of the larg­er tapes­try of her exis­tence. And in these moments, they are not bound by time, but by the beau­ty and rich­ness that comes from liv­ing ful­ly with­in it.

In this chap­ter, the nar­ra­tive weaves through the theme of time—not as an exter­nal force to be feared, but as some­thing to be embraced. Through Addie’s wis­dom and Henry’s strug­gle, the sto­ry high­lights that the most mean­ing­ful parts of life are not defined by how long we have, but by how deeply we expe­ri­ence the moments that are giv­en to us. The day, though seem­ing­ly ordi­nary, is imbued with a pro­found sense of under­stand­ing, a real­iza­tion that time, whether long or short, is ulti­mate­ly mea­sured by the depth of the con­nec­tions we make and the rich­ness of the expe­ri­ences we cher­ish. The cycle of time, with its relent­less for­ward march, becomes a back­drop for the most impor­tant lesson—live now, live ful­ly, and do not let the moments slip by unno­ticed. It is not about hold­ing onto time, but rather about embrac­ing it in all its fleet­ing, beau­ti­ful com­plex­i­ty. In the end, Henry’s real­iza­tion is clear: the real gift of time is not the quan­ti­ty of it, but the qual­i­ty of the moments that fill it.