was cocky and impulsive. I had the chance tae strap on a parachute, tis what they are called?”
I nodded.
He finished, “Instead I jumped without one.”
“Oh, my love, you are feeling it.”
“I am, tis why I canna listen tae ye cry. Our bairn need ye and I hae taken ye away from them.”
I reached for his hand, entwining our fingers between us, our hands resting on the tent floor of a very wrong century. “I don’t know what to say.”
He shook his head. “I warned ye when we spoke of getting married, that tae love me was a death sentence.”
I gave him a sad smile. “You sir, are being very dismal. You did say that, but I married you anyway, and in our vows we promised to love each other till death do us part. Everyone has that in their vows. If you manage to stay married that is the final outcome, the death of one or the other. Now that I think about it the whole thing is pretty fucking dark, but also there’s nothing special about you. I told you I would love you until death do us part and there’s nothing about that that I regret.”
“Ye are missin’ yer bairn.”
“Yeah, I am. She’s in one century, I’m in the other. These things aren’t making me special either. History is fucking full of mothers who have empty arms and bairn who are orphaned. My heart is broken. But guess what? I’m alive, she’s alive. We’re just in an impossible situation. There is grieving to be done. Grief has highs and grief has lows. But I promise you, my grief about Isla isn’t blaming you.”
We sat very still and just sat thinking.
“Ye daena blame me for strandin’ ye here?”
I stared off into space for a moment, thinking about it. Then I said, “My silence was me checking. I checked all the corners of my heart, room by room. There is no blame hiding anywhere there, not tucked in drawers, not under the floorboards. None. Do you know what is there?”
“Nae.”
“A bed, right in the middle.” My voice cracked. “And Isla is sweetly sleeping in the center and you and I are there beside her and Archie is climbing across us saying, ‘Wake up Da!’ And you and I have our fingers entwined and we are smiling at each other and that smile is always our promise— do you know what the promise is?”
“I want ye tae remind me.”
“That we will always do our best to come home.” I smiled at him. “Were you trying to bring me home?”
“Aye.”
“Yeah, I know. I don’t blame you my love, not at all. And Isla is alive, Archie is safe. And if we have to keep waiting, then we will keep waiting, and if we never get to go home, well then...” I shook my head. “We’ll keep hoping.”
“If we can stay alive until the date when the vessels arrived we could take one then.”
“That’s six years...” I watched his face, sad and desolate, and changed my tack. “But you’re right, that’s something — the vessels will come. If no one has come for us we can get one, we can travel to the day after we left and though it will have been years, Isla wouldn’t even know we had been gone.” I added, “Yeah, probably.”
I looked down on him. “I’m really sorry.”
“I am sorry as well, mo reul-iuil. For all of it.”
“I know, my love.” I folded forward and curled under his arm. “You can’t solve this with action, you are in the ‘waiting place.’ It sucks, but it’s true. I accept your apology, by the way, that might have been the biggest fight we ever had.”
“Twas bigger when ye came with me tae the past the first time.”
I pulled my head up with my eyes wide. “Remember when I told you I was going to live in the forest and you said you were going to live in a tent? This is just like that.”
“Perhaps, except ye hae decided tae live in the tent alongside me and there inna enough chocolate.”
“You sure you don’t have anymore chocolate?”
“Nae, ye ate it in the first three days.”
“I hate myself sometimes. More fish?”
“I think we should move toward Edinburgh.”
“Is that a place in this time period?”
“Aye, and Sir Colin said there is a Queen. If I remember m’history twould be Mary Stuart, though she is at this time verra young. We hae enough gold tae take a room. The transmitter will work there as