Summary

In Chapter 4, the time setting changes to the spring of 1939. Billy Stirling was doted upon by his mother, Alice, but his father, Henry, was jealous of the attention she gave him. Their son, Edward, had died in infancy of consumption. Henry had never even gotten to hold the baby because he had been overseas fighting in the Great War.

One day shortly after Edward had died, Alice heard two women gossiping about a baby at the orphanage. When she visited the orphanage and saw Billy in his highchair, he held up his arms to her to be picked up, forming an instant bond between the two. Billy’s father died in the war and his mother committed suicide by jumping from a bridge. Billy had been with her when she jumped but sustained nothing but a cut over his left eye that resulted...