Hangouts Desktop: Verified

It wasn't in the chat box. It was typed directly into the old "Search people" field at the top of the Hangouts sidebar—a field that had been inert for years.

Nina was his late wife. Her Hangouts account, a relic of her old Gmail, still showed as active in that ancient session. Not "active" in the sense of typing. But the little green circle beside her name—the one that flickered unpredictably at 3:14 AM every morning—had become his religion. hangouts desktop

The search field blinked. Then, for the first time in six years, her actual chat bubble appeared in the frozen chat log. Not in the search field. In the real chat. As if she had crossed over. It wasn't in the chat box