Kapitel 72: Chapter 72: Sacrifice

The next day, Bob was on the noon flight to Singapore. When he called Jackie yesterday, he could sense her disappointment over the phone. He knew he had been rather abrupt. But what he wanted to tell her could only be said when he met her, not over the phone.

He sighed as he looked out the aircraft window. Thoughts of his grandfather and his lover, Renee, flashed through his mind.

*How difficult it must have been for him when he couldn’t return to her... Did he have a choice, or was it the family’s decision that he should marry someone of their choosing?*

Bob never knew his grandmother who died years before he was born, and his grandfather never spoke much about her. But he dutifully maintained a tablet in her honor on the ancestral altar, where he offered his respects daily. He wondered if he truly loved her as much as Renee.

*Did Grandpa have to make the same choice I’m making now? Giving up the one he loved for the sake of the family? Is this what I have to do…?*