Page 144 of Strangers in Time

“I see. I am so sorry, but that explains a lot.”

“It does?”

“That sort of mental trauma is like shell shock in a way. It does things to your mind. Terrible things. You can never seem to dig your way out of the hole the horrible event has placed you in. Your trust in humankind is also shattered. You see the world solely through the prism of that one awful experience. It becomes your obsession and impacts all aspects of your life. It is as though you can never see the good in people ever again.”

“Poor Mother,” said Molly. Her cheeks flushed, and tears rose to her eyes.

“I wonder why your father didn’t tell us about it.”

“I… I think he felt guilty for allowing it to happen.”

“I see. Unfortunately, that is a common enough reaction. If I had known that, we would have offeredhimcounseling as well. It sounds like he needed it.”

“I wish he had.”

Foyle slumped back against the wall and closed his eyes. “Do you know what I wish, Miss Wakefield?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Doctor.”

He opened his eyes. “I hope that one day we come up with… another way to help people with illnesses such as your mother and my father.”

“I share in that wish.”

They both went back to work.

ANEND-OF-LIFEADMISSION

WHILEMOLLY HAD BEENperforming her nursing duties inside, Oliver and Charlie had been working outside helping to maintain the grounds. Oliver had been told that Dr. Stephens had been abruptly called away to London on important business the morning after they arrived, and would not be back for several days.

He and Charlie also pushed convalescing patients around the paths in wheelchairs and, with the help of one of the groundskeepers, caught some fish from the Channel for dinner.

Charlie viewed that body of water in the daylight the first morning that he and Oliver stood by the shore. Seagulls swirled overhead, looking like bright bits of confetti risen to distant heights.

“As I said before, not that far across the water is France,” said Oliver, pointing that way.

“Knew it was somewheres round here,” replied Charlie, still looking amazed by this as he gazed out to sea.

“The region in France directly across from here is called, ironically, Brittany. It comes from the Latin,Britannia, which means ‘Land of the Britons,’ and, indeed, it shares a deep history with people from Britain, who settled there. I traveled through France while I was at Oxford, you see. A flutter abroad before the working worldbeckoned. Quite beautiful, and the food and the wine? Well, let me just say that it was something one does not normally experience onthisside of the Channel.”

They glimpsed the long, blunt snouts of artillery guns pointed to the sky up and down the coastline. And uniformed Home Guard and regular British Army personnel brandishing binoculars continually watched over the waters and skies. Far out in the Channel British ships lurked, and at far higher altitudes than the seagulls, darted RAF planes.

As they worked away one afternoon on their fourth day here, Dr. Stephens came outside smoking a pipe, and he waved at Oliver, who was collecting some firewood in a wheelbarrow.

Stephens walked over to him and said, “I apologize for not having spoken to you about your wife before now. I didn’t want to do so when you first arrived, and the last few days things have been terribly busy. I just got back from London, in fact. Our local MP thought it best if I traveled there and argued my case directly to the government. You see, we desperately need more resources, and as we care for a number of soldiers here I was trying to procure some public funds, and also some additional nursing assistance.”

“Were you successful?”

“Unfortunately, no. There is apparently nothing to spare. People or pounds. So we’ll just have to make do.” Stephens motioned to a path that wound around the grounds. “Shall we take a stroll?”

Stephens took a puff on his pipe as they walked and said, “Imogen came to the Institute one day.”

“So she specifically came here? Why?”

“She had heard of us, she said. There aren’t many institutions that do what we do, Mr. Oliver. And our reputation is broad enough to have reached London. Indeed, I think that’s how Molly’s mother ended up here. Anyway, your wife said that a friend had spoken to her about us.”

“I see.”

“Imogen was troubled. She had, I think, a case of severe depression and she also suffered from undue anxiety. I met with her in myoffice. I gave her some aspirin to take, along with some meditative breathing exercises, and told her to take a holiday if she could while she was here. The sea air, that sort of thing, take her mind off things. I mean, she certainly wasn’t a candidate for Dr. Foyle’s procedures or anything. Completely in charge of her mental faculties. She just seemed… lost.”

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