You know, I always thought that the moment when Gene accused Alex of coldness (supposedly towards her daughter) was truly the most hurtful thing he ever did to her, and I'm sure he knew it too. This redresses things a bit, and I particularly like the concluding hand squeeze.

And you've hit on something in making Alex and Gene two of a kind.

This is beautiful! So bittersweet and emotional. Excellently written Philippa

A nice little "vignette" Philippa. Always interesting to see the real person via their internal thoughts - very different to the macho, public persona that Gene puts on, though fully understandable dealing with the scum he has to deal with on a daily basis. And, yep - "loneliness" is a common denominator with so many characters, and is something that can be exploited particularly well in prose fiction due to the ability to get inside the characters' heads. Good job. And I look forward to reading more of your fiction! :-) x

Gene, Alex, Sam - all very lonely people, for different reasons. Lovely.

This is such a lovely story. I, too, see that Alex and Gene have that loneliness in common - and I believe that Alex's loneliness was there even before she landed in 1982. Really good, heartfelt story.

Aw, poor Gene!

This was very well done, and I loved how you mentioned Sam as well.