Strangers in Time

by David Baldacci

Eighteen thousand souls had died violently in the eight months of the Blitz alone, and one in six Londoners had been left homeless at one time or another. Sometimes there seemed to be more fallen buildings than ones left standing. A person could easily become desensitized to such profound loss. Yet while the war years had tried their best to rob him of it, Charlie was still resolutely in possession of a heart.

You never really knew what you were capable of, Molly believed, until the moment came to be capable of it.

How a single madman could do so much damage to the world, Oliver thought. God was indeed testing them all.

“Dreams are never in context, are they? That’s the point of dreams, of reaching for something so impossible, so impractical, often something so undeserved, that the act of wishing for it defines more about us than the actual dream does.”

To dream is often to deceive oneself. We may dream so often about another sort of life that we forget to live the one that we already possess.”

We must make the best of what we have. To seek out something different merely because it is perceived better by standards laid out by people we may not even know? I would say that is the height of self-deceit.”

He let out a sigh. “Seems like everybody’s sort of dead, Miss. Only some just don’t know it yet.”

In response, she gripped his hand and guided it to his chest. “You will always have her inside you, no matter where you go. That’s how powerful love is. She carried you inside her for nearly a year. That bond is unbreakable. Wherever you go, she will be there with you. It’s… it’s like a law—no, a covenant, that’s the word. It’s forever.”

Further into the story, he read about families divided and lost. Hope gone, day-to-day survival with a dwindling amount of resources available. Anger and dissatisfaction grew, particularly among those who had never felt the government, even in peacetime, could do anything worthwhile. If the state could not help when its citizens most needed it, what use was it? That was a straightforward and thus powerful argument, and was thematic throughout the unfinished novel. Imogen had taken on that issue deeply and sensitively, and ultimately pushed back against the notion that anarchy or dictatorship was better than a government made up of the will of the people. They had both heard the talk at the shops, pubs, church, and in myriad other places where one listened and learned about what was on people’s minds. There were more than a few here who grudgingly admired the brutal efficiency of the German war machine, the superficial advantage of having one strongman dictate everything for all, in lieu of the unwieldy ebb and flow of compromise required in a democracy.

But for Oliver, as even a casual observer of history could say with complete confidence, such one-man governing structures never ended well for anyone, not even the strongman. Humans make poor gods. We’re just not up to it.

Pain was a universal connection; everyone felt it at some point in their lives, physically, mentally, and/or emotionally. No one, rich or poor, young or old, was exempt from its claws.

Books filled with truth, turned to ash, and turning minds the same in their absence.

And still the damn bombs fell and clusters of waterproof fire ignited the landscape, and all the darkness and evil of hell was forcefully and cruelly visited upon the earth.

It wasn’t so much the decisions you made, it was simply who you stumbled into while you were trying to work out important matters.

She knew there was a price to be paid with important relationships like that. They were wonderful, but they also had the capacity to exact a punishing price when one in the relationship was gone. Grief, sadness, anger at a loss, and terrible, unrelenting hurt were the costs to be paid for loving and being loved. It felt completely worth the bargain right up until the very moment payment was demanded.

We all need someone at certain times in our lives. It makes the inevitable pain lessened and the periods of happiness exalted.