A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows section 11 takes us to the 1940s, and to Dolly. A couple of years have passed since Jerry went through the stones.
Of course, nobody knows what has happened to Jerry. Captain Frank Randall believes that he is dead, along with everyone else. However, it is worth noting that he was always deemed MIA and not KIA, which would have always given Dolly hope.
Breaking down A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows section 11
A couple of years have passed since Jerry went missing, and Dolly — who is known by most people as Marjorie, as we know — is living with her mother and son. She’s trying to get through life without her husband, who has been deemed missing in action at this point.
She’s just got home from work when there is a knock at the door. Dolly answers it to find Frank Randall there in his uniform, and he’s come to share that Jerry was given a posthumous award for his bravery. Like so many other people, she is angry at the situation. She’s angry that he’s been given this award for bravery. Isn’t that something all the men going off to war are?
Dolly’s mom comes out to the hallway to find out what’s going on, and she’s shocked at how Dolly is reacting. It’s clear that Dolly’s mom is a woman of the time, and showing this grief to a stranger is not the done thing. She even goes on to tell Dolly that she needs a man, accepting that her son-in-law is dead.
I do often wonder in this chapter if this is what made Frank initially believe Claire’s story. Maybe he had realized that something like this had happened before. Once he accepted Claire’s words as true, did he go back through any documents about Jerry and look for any sign of him in the past, or was it only ever about Claire and Jamie for him?
Could this section be used in a TV series adaptation?
We would definitely need to see how Dolly is holding up without her husband, so this section of A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows is needed. However, I would like to see a montage of Dolly’s life without Jerry. We’d need to see her learning that Jerry isn’t coming back, and there would need to be a little bit about what led up to Jerry being considered dead. I’d also love to see Dolly trying to cope with Roger on her own and making the decision to live with her mom.
Something else I would love to see is how Frank reacts to Dolly’s outburst. This would not have been the first time he had a grieving spouse angry and upset, so I’m sure he would be able to handle it all with grace, but I’d like to see it.
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