Zach, Emma, and I threw an exceptionally large, excessively lavish kid’s party, because of the guilt and remorse we all felt. The trauma of not knowing. It was getting to be too long. Soon decisions would need to be made. We didn’t talk to each other about it and we couldn’t talk to Archie about it because we couldn’t tell him they were gone. Or where. There was no way he would understand. And we were past hoping they were coming back.
Katie’s parents were there, and we all focused on the children. Her parents were good at what they needed to do — ignore unpleasantness, focus on what made the family look good, and they agreed that the party was big enough to make them look good. I was Auntie Hayley and I was awesome, but I also spent a lot of time in my room taking deep breaths. Then I returned home.
Fraoch was right there as always.
As soon as I had my strength, he bundled me up and got me to the castle because it was butt-cold outside, but as soon as I had my arse settled in a chair, I confessed. “I stayed for longer.”
“How long?”
“Almost two months. And I have to go back as soon as I can.”
“Ye stayed, Hayley?”
“I did. I couldn’t leave. Archie needed help and he was crying... And every time I thought about leaving I couldn’t.”
Fraoch’s brow furrowed.
I said, “I’m sorry. I talked to Archie and told him that Katie was coming home soon and... I just about broke his heart. Then he couldn’t let me out of his sight. He’s just going through a thing — separation anxiety, they called it, and I promised him, and now I need to go back. I have to. He’s really an awful little tyrant, but so adorable and it’s totally understandable.”
He nodded, his expression was thoughtful. He was so quiet it made me nervous and so I kept talking. “The thing was, the other grownups, they had to have meetings to decide how to deal with me, because of my relationship with the kids. So I had to stay. The kids needed continuity. Plus I wasn’t feeling very good and I thought that staying would make it hurt less, and work needed me. All of it. And now I need to go back. I need to prove I’m reliable so I’m going to have to jump even more and I kind of feel like throwing up.” I dropped my head on the table and lay there until my proper cup of coffee was brought to me.
Sixty-nine - Hayley
And that’s what I did. I boomeranged back and forth, except both places were home and it sucked. I was never happy in Florida, never healthy in Scotland. Fraoch said, “I fear ye are goin’ tae get ill, verra ill, tis too much tae put yer body through.”
“What am I going to do, not come home to you? Not be there when Archie needs his Aunt Hayley? When Katie could come home any day and I should be there to say, ‘what the hell took you so long?’”
Would I just stay here, and let Archie believe I was gone like his parents? That I deserted him? I had been the child of alcoholic, divorced, totally self-absorbed parents, the kind that couldn’t be counted on when I needed them. I was not like that. I was not.
“Besides, it’s been so long now, each day gets closer. If Katie is alive she could come home any day. Mags will come through the door, carrying her, because he’s romantic like that.”
“I am romantic.”
“You are, so romantic, and now that your ribs are totally healed I’m going to spend a whole day letting you carrying me from room to room and it’ll be so romantic. I will reward you with sex in every room.”
“Except the men’s sleepin’ quarters.”
“Except for there, everywhere else, except the garderobe or the kitchen, or the stores or the — you know what, after you carry me room from room, you can carry me to our bedroom and we’ll lie there together on our perfect mattress and have proper alone sex.”
“Och, I think if I hae been carryin’ ye from room tae room all day it might needs be some improper sex as well.”
I grinned. It felt so good to grin.
“It’s a deal. But now you mention it, improper sex sounds good right about now, and who needs all that lifting beforehand? That might weaken you.