1939 had barely begun.
London was enduring one of its coldest afternoons. A low ceiling of cloud pressed down on the city,
flattening the light against the windows. Standing before the suitcase open on his bed, Oliver folded the last
shirt with meticulous care, smoothing every crease with the palm of his hand.
He looked around the room, searching for something he might have forgotten.
That’s it. Everything’s here.
He went into the bathroom, shaved, and took a bath. It would be more than a day before he enjoyed that
kind of comfort again. He took out his Imperial Airways ticket and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.
Last came the small framed photograph of his mother.
Holding it, he sat down on the edge of the bed. The smile captured in that picture had always been his
anchor whenever life revealed its harsher side.
Sixteen years have passed, yet it doesn’t feel like that long. I can still smell the sharp scent of camphor
mixed with lavender.
The image of his mother, Mary, lying in bed emerged with startling clarity. Every breath demanded an
effort she could no longer sustain. Her shoulders jerked upward with each attempt, and her flared nostrils
searched desperately for air the room, for some reason, refused to provide.
Father never left her bedside. Even now, I cannot understand how he managed to stay awake for so long.
Thomas had returned from the Great War three years earlier. Naively, he had believed the horrors he had
witnessed would be the last of his life.
Then the memory struck Oliver with the force of a torpedo.
Mary, her hands outstretched, holding Oliver with one hand and Thomas with the other.
She knew. I don’t know how it was possible, but she knew.
Her fever-hot fingers wrapped around his. The pallor of her face. The dark bluish outline of her lips.
And her final words, whispered so softly that only an eight-year-old boy could have heard them.
“Oliver, never leave your father. He needs you.”
Then silence.
The room dim in the gathering shadows. The warmth draining from the hand still resting in his own.
A tear slipped down his cheek. His head turned slightly, and his eyes drifted to the window, then the
dresser, and finally the door.
Forgive me, Mother, but I can’t stay here anymore. I tried…
He rose abruptly. If he remained seated, he would lose his resolve.
In the sitting room, Thomas was waiting for him on the sofa.
At the sight of his son—suitcase in hand, overcoat half-buttoned—he stood. Slowly he crossed the room,
raised his hands, and fastened Oliver’s coat all the way to the top button without saying a word.
At the door, he extended his hand.
The grip was firm: a soldier trying to adapt to a world without war.
“Oliver, take care of yourself. You have a mission—I know that. But you matter more than it does, more
than any mission ever could. I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”
“I’ll take care of myself, Father. I know how difficult this is for you, but it’s a summons I can’t refuse.”
Oliver lowered his eyes and felt warmth rise to his face, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks.
They said their goodbyes.
He strode toward the street and looked up at London’s darkened sky. Ahead of him lay a road he would
travel for the last time, and every step along it reminded him of a loss too deep to overcome.
Paris is only a diplomatic assignment.
At least, that was what he tried to believe.
He stopped at the gate and turned around.
His father was still standing in the doorway, shoulders curved forward as though protecting something
fragile within himself. For the first time, he seemed smaller than Oliver had always imagined. His head was
bowed slightly, but his eyes never left his son—as if he wanted to preserve every last second of him in
memory.
Oliver drew a deep breath. Cold air flooded his lungs.

He was running away.
He could fool anyone but himself.
As he walked toward the station, his pace quickened with every step, as though he were late for something
he could not name.
He was running from grief.
Running from memory.
Running from himself.
And it was that flight—on the far side of the Channel, along the banks of the Seine—that would shape his
future.