Chapter 10

That was what he told himself, and he did believe it to be true.

He took another deep breath of the lilacs, and with the fresh wave of scent a memory came to him, slowly, unexpectedly, of his mother’s garden. That had been when he was quite small. She had three lilac bushes down at the bottom of the garden, and when they were in flower he would go and just stand in the space between them as often and for as long as he could, and just breathe.

There was pain associated with that memory, for pain was associated with everything to do with his mother. His father too. He had not turned six years old when they had been wrenched out of his life.

He remembered the sunny afternoon as if he could see it before him. He had been sitting on the porch of Aunt Jenny’s house. She was babysitting him for the week his parents had taken, driving to a conference his father was attending but making a bit of a vacation out of it as well.