The Stations and the Cross
His first thought is not of the money or the cards he will have to cancel but of the photograph, pristine under plastic laminate. Another son, lost.
Waterloo—David is laid in the tomb.
Tomorrow he will return to London; he will begin another cycle through the stations of his particular cross. But tomorrow will be different. He will still scan the murmuring crowds for Giles, he will still chill with expectation at the turn of a head or the slant of a shoulder, but he will feel that he sees more clearly, as if for five years he has been staring through an imperfect prism of tears, which have now been squinted away.
He reaches out and grabs hold of a half-slung backpack. The man who turns to him isn't his son, but he is, at last, the right age.