June 1942
As he had so often, he watched the swans gliding out of the air to the surface or rising up and racing away, the trails they made in the water quickly disappearing as the ripples spread.
The doctor felt greyer than the clouds reflected in the lake, as he considered the telegram he'd received. Missing. Things had never been easy between them, and now … now what? Now, he gave up the hope of repairing the misunderstandings and differences that had started, when? Even before they had lost Genevieve. He shook his head sadly; she had tried to show him how much the boy needed him, and indeed how much he would need his son.
He had walked through fog for the first two or three years, but gradually he'd begun to reconnect with the community around him. By that point, his son had begun to fit in to the schools he had so fiercely resisted at first.
Though he had been pleased with the boy's progress in schooling and choices of career and university, had he told him? Expressed gratitude or pride for his son's hard work to win scholarships and earn his own pocket money during lean years?
He'd tried to warn the young man of the challenges he had faced with his mother to find their place in society. Struggling to overcome cultural and language barriers in their community and smoothing ruffled feathers had been harder on him than Genevieve or their son. But had he even tried to offer a place of safety as the battlegrounds approached his son's young family? He knew Nell and Agnes still heard from his son occasionally; would the boy have listened to them?
Watching a solitary swan struggle through the air, he thought he'd felt lonely before, but this was worse. Oh, God, what had he done? Was there any penance for this? For missing so many opportunities?
September, 3 years later
Deflated, he sank into the chair in the shade of the pear tree. Well, God had provided a miracle, after all. A trembling hand caressed the spot on the trunk he'd worn smooth over the years as he whispered, "Oh, Genevieve … dear Gen …"
The letter, only a short note, said that he'd survived Japanese captivity, but the tone was too wrong. After what had already filtered to the press regarding the Japanese treatment of prisoners, the doctor quickly began to doubt this news was any more merciful than his original assumption that his son had died in the massacre of Alexandra Military Hospital. All he recalled of his son's stubborn, youthful bluster gone, only distilled shame and grief remained, and still no intention to return home.