She thought about Joachim sometimes now, too, but he was part of the distant past. In the loneliness, and the pain, and the terror, and loss of the war, he had been her only friend, except for Emanuelle. But the memories of him were slowly fading.

Sarah turned twenty-nine years of age while William was still in the hospital. The war in Japan had ended days before, and the whole world was rejoicing. William went home to Whitfield the day the Japanese officially surrendered on the battleship Missouri, on the eve of Phillip’s sixth birthday. It was the first time William saw his son since he was only a few months old, and the meeting was emotional for him, and a little strange for Phillip. Phillip stood and stared at him for a long time before finally approaching him, and putting his arms around his father, at his mother’s urging. Even in his wheelchair William was such a big man that Phillip was in awe of him. And more than ever, his father regretted the years he’d lost in getting to know him.

The time they spent at Whitfield was good for all of them. William learned to get around more easily in his wheelchair, and Sarah got a much-needed rest for the first time in a long time. Phillip adored being there, and it gave him the time he needed to get to know his father.

He talked to him about Lizzie once, and it was obvious that talking about her at all was painful to him.

“She was very beautiful,” he said softly, looking into the distance. “And when she got sick, Mommy couldn’t get any medicine for her, so she died.” There was the merest hint of reproach in his voice, which William noticed, but didn’t understand. Was it possible that he blamed her for the child’s death? But that seemed so unlikely that he didn’t dare broach the subject to him. Surely he knew that his mother would have done everything she could for her… or did he know that? William wondered.

Phillip talked about Joachim sometimes too. He didn’t say much, but it was easy to sense that the child had liked him. And whatever his nationality, William was grateful for the man’s kindness to his children. Sarah never spoke of him, but when William asked her, she said. He was a kind man and a decent person. They celebrated William’s mother’s ninetieth birthday that year. She was remarkable, and especially now, with William back, she was better than ever.

They were all better than they had been. But there was no denying, they had suffered enormous losses … of time … of hope … of people they loved … sweet Lizzie lost to all of them. William gone for so long and almost lost forever…. Joachim come and gone from their lives…. The losses and the sorrows had taken their toll, and they were recovering now. But at times, Sarah wondered if the hardest hit of all had been Phillip. He had lost a father he’d never known for the first six years of his life, and now he had to get to know him and build a relationship with him, which wasn’t easy for him. He had lost a friend in Joachim when he left … and a sister he would never forget, and still mourned for.

“You miss her, don’t you?” she asked him softly when they were walking in the woods, and he nodded, lifting his eyes to hers painfully as he always did when they talked about his sister. “I do, too, sweetheart.” She held tightly to his hand as they walked on, and Phillip looked away from her and said nothing. But his eyes said something William had already understood, and Sarah hadn’t. He blamed his mother for his sister’s death. It was her fault Lizzie had died for lack of medicine … just as it was her fault Joachim had gone. … He wasn’t quite sure what she’d done to make these calamities fall into his life, but he knew she’d done something … or at least she hadn’t stopped them. But he was happy at Whitfield anyway. He rode, he walked in the woods, he enjoyed his grandmother, and little by little, he began to know William.






Chapter 17





HEY didn’t go back to France until the spring, and by then William was in full control of their lives again. He seemed to have made his peace with losing the use of his legs by then, and he was back to his normal weight. Only the white hair he suddenly had made him look different. He was only forty-two, but his experience in the prisoner-of-war camp had aged him by years. Even Sarah looked more serious than she had been before the war. They had all paid a high price for what had happened, including Phillip. He was a serious little boy and he was very unhappy when they left Whitfield. He said he wanted to stay there, with his grandmother and his pony, but, of course, his parents overruled him.