Hamburg, 1st January 1936

  Albert wasn’t the same after Eva had died.

  The first snows of January had begun to fall from a listless sky, its pale blueness

  lacking clouds, lacking emotion. For Scheer, the past two years had settled in a

  sense of normalcy. Albert and his wife were, now that Scheer looked at it—

  wonderfully accommodating for a boy still trapped in the past of his mother’s death.

  For the first time that he could remember, he had felt regret— regret for the nothing

  he had done, and the everything that he could have. The both of them sat on the

  weathered bench, faces as blank at the sky above their heads.

  “I can’t take care of you forever.” Snow picked at Albert’s cap as they both mulled

  over the situation. It was strange how loss made a space that allowed people to

  come together. It was a bittersweet realisation, that Albert, now a man of few words,

  didn’t know how to mark apart from ruffling his adoptive son’s hair. “I can’t and I

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  shouldn’t keep taking care of you. It’s not what’s best.”

  “I know, father.”

  “Father.” Albert smiled bitterly, tears springing to his eyes as the people of Hamburg

  milled about the Elbe, it’s surface glistening in the pale sunlight. “Did you know? Eva

  couldn’t conceive no matter how much she wanted to. She would be imprisoned if

  she could not have children— considered disabled— so we hid the fact from the

  authorities.”.

  Albert knew that Scheer cared, even if he didn’t say anything. Even if he didn’t know

  himself.

  “Father. If only…Eva—"

  Scheer’s breath came out in ragged clouds. “I would’ve if I had known. I would’ve

  said—.”

  Albert forced a fake smile, his face twisted by the pain of grief that Scheer had

  thought he had left behind a long time ago. “You know, my father was an ace in the

  Great War. He never supported me joining the infantry. He told me that the air was

  somewhere where you could be truly free, where you could let go of all of life’s

  worries.”

  The pale sky betrayed the sense of time, and before Scheer could know it, the

  streetlamps of Hamburg turned on, flickering on in an idle line down the side of the

  river. Albert looked at the water, snow clumping on his cap as another tear seeped

  out of his weary eyes.

  “I can’t take care of you forever.”