“I really don’t mean for this to seem bad. It’s not about you, I love you so much. You are my everything. You’re the reason I’m here, but it’s just so melancholy that I used to have so many reasons to come, now only one. An awesome one, a great hunky love of my life one, but one all the same.”
I pulled the tartan around my shoulders. “Even my relationship with Lizbeth has shifted. Like we don’t have anything in common anymore.”
“Aye, I hae felt it shift, as ye say. It has for me as well. The men hae come tae think of me as part of the clan, but without Magnus here, I am just another man.”
“I hope this doesn’t sound bad either, but I’m glad you feel the difference too. I’m so glad I have you to talk to. I miss Katie so much. I just want you to know, if I’m being sad, it’s not because of you. You make me happy. I’m so grateful for you and I’m glad we share this.”
“Except we canna really share it because ye hae tae go again.”
“Yeah, but I have to, I can’t just ignore it. I have to do something even when there is nothing to do.”
“Ye promise tae come home?”
“Always.”
Sixty-eight - Hayley
It had been months and now it was high summer. I took Ben and Archie out for a walk on the beach. Archie was crouched with his little hand reaching for shells and I was crouched beside him, shifting my fingers through the shells, trying to be the kind of person who could see shark teeth like Katie. But I wasn’t, never had been. I didn’t have the patience, apparently. I only found them by accident.
And without realizing I would, I said, “Katie loves looking for shells.”
He looked up into my eyes and broke my heart a little.
“She does, she loves looking for shells, and she loves you. She loves you a ton, all the tons, so much, and I’m sorry she’s not here right—” He stood up and wrapped his little arms around my neck. And me and Katie’s little boy we cried there in each other’s arms for a long long time. “I’m really sorry little guy. She’s trying to come home. Your Da is trying to come home. I promise.”
When we went back to the house, he made me carry him, and then all night, through dinner, until bedtime, he sat on my lap.
That night Quentin turned off the tv and said, “You leaving tomorrow?”
“I am... I’ll be back next weekend.”
“How are you going to explain that to Archie? Because he’s been unable to leave your arms all night.”
“I don’t know, I—”
“You know Beaty and Emma have been doing the hard work taking care of him for months now, helping him through his grief. Beaty said Archie told her that his Da was coming home, that you told him his Da was coming home...”
I opened and closed my mouth. “He is... I...”
“I was a teen when I lost my mama and that shit was so hard. You just told that little boy that he—”
“I gave him hope! I...”
“Do you have hope?”
I shook my head with a huff. “Not really.”
“Are they coming home?”
“I don’t know.”
“So why tell a little boy that? Why do that — so he can have his heart broken every single day? He’s little, we can tell him the truth and help him through it and then...”
“I know... You’re right... It’s just so hard, I needed to cry and he...”
“He’s a baby, Hayley. He lost his Da and Kay-be. Imagine it. Now tomorrow you’re going to take off, and Beaty and Emma are going to have to help him get through it again.”
“I won’t, I’ll stay. I’ll step up as Auntie Hayley. I’ll be better. You’re right.”
I looked down at my hands thinking about the difficulties of living in two different centuries at once. “I can go back to Fraoch at the same time, I just — it’s really hard. I’m going back and forth. So much jumping. Everything hurts and it feels kind of wiggy, deep inside, like I’m not anywhere.”
“Yeah, I get it, I know. We just needed to talk to you about it. It’s all well and good when you didn’t talk to the kids, but guess what, you’re involved with them now. You’re right, it’s complicated.”
“Stupid kids always complicate everything.”
I stayed until Archie’s birthday. And, as we dreaded, Katie and Mags didn’t make it