Echo of Glory, page 19
Her eyes grew hard, as if the admission had touched a core point of weakness.
“Are you saying this was about the family?” Meg asked quietly. “That’s why you didn’t want John MacLaren? Because five hundred years ago some MacGregors killed a few MacLarens?”
“I’m saying John MacLaren was an angry man who liked to punish people. So, yes, all right. He hurt me. He hit me once, because that’s the kind of man he was, and if hadn’t left, he would have kept hitting me between apologies. A man who hits once doesn’t stop. I would have become weak if I stayed. I’d have become one of those women who justifies and excuses and finds a way to separate the ugly part of a man from the part she finds attractive. The part she needs. I got out because I needed to get out. Does it make you any happier knowing that?”
Her body had started to shake, and she suddenly looked small and frail and old, as if the wind that was steadily gaining force had blown through her and left her too dry to even shed the tears that should have gone along with her words, with the tightness in her voice. Meg stepped in and drew her close, felt her body trembling.
“Oh, Mom. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you pity me. I decided to change my fate before it trapped me, that’s all,” Ailsa said against her shoulder. “Don’t.”
“I won’t,” Meg lied, her heart breaking.
“And you can’t tell anyone else—no one. Not Anna, not your father. Certainly not Elspeth. Promise me.”
It was a promise Meg had no intention of making, because it changed everything.
Some things.
Not that two wrongs made a right.
With her own parents and her sister and her family roots in the glen, Ailsa would have found it impossible to avoid going home for holidays and weekends no matter where she moved for work—anywhere except America. And every time she returned to Balwhither, she would have seen John MacLaren, been drawn to him. Even if she’d gone to the police, that had been a different era. Just as airplanes had been prohibitively expensive and telephone calls between continents had been a luxury, the understanding of violence against women had barely been a blip on the radar.
Meg thought about Ruben, about her own stupidity in seeing him. About how much she blamed herself, and how she’d walked away rather than fighting for her job because she had doubted her own role in what had happened.
No, two wrongs never made things right. But Meg was the last person who could judge her mother.
“Problem?” Niall’s voice startled her as he spoke from near her shoulder. “You look upset.”
She hadn’t heard him approach.
Ailsa stepped back. “We’re perfectly fine,” she said, sounding calm and brisk and businesslike. Then, with an impatient tsk of her tongue, she wiped the skin beneath Meg’s eyes with the pads of her thumbs, brushing aside tears Meg hadn’t known were there. “Well, I don’t know about you,” she added, “but I’m going to call it an early night. I’ve a bit of a migraine coming on, so I’ll ask Fergal if I can have a bowl of soup in my room.”
Meg wanted to shake her, because it was the same thing her mother had done all her life—pushed everyone away the moment they got genuinely close, the moment they could see a crack in Ailsa’s carefully constructed facade. It had to be so lonely for her beneath that armored shell.
“Are you sure, Mom?” she asked.
“For heaven’s sake, Margaret. Do you think I want to keep talking about this? Go. Do whatever you were going to do. You will anyway.”
She turned without waiting for Meg to reply, and Meg couldn’t decide whether to go after her or stay.
“Are you certain you’re all right?” Niall asked, studying Meg.
“No, but that wasn’t about me.”
“Go take care of your mother. Don’t worry about us. I think dinner’s off anyway. The engine on Kieran’s car is stone cold, so if he left the island at all today, he’s been back for a while. And I know he didn’t go to either the house or the dig site. I’ll need to ask Pete in the control room if he’s seen him.”
Meg took a deep breath and tried to get her mind refocused from one problem to the other. “And if he hasn’t? He could have simply gone to work somewhere else on the island, couldn’t he? After his behavior yesterday, he might not have wanted to face the volunteers.”
“He’s not the take-solace-in-nature sort,” Niall said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? I’ll go have a word with Pete.”
Looking from Adam’s pinched expression to the tension in Niall’s jaw to her mother’s retreating figure just climbing the path up to the bed-and-breakfast, Meg was even more torn about what to do. But she couldn’t help her mother—she knew that from experience. The more she tried, the more Ailsa would push her away. She could do something for Adam, though. And maybe for Niall.
“In that case, why don’t Adam and I get the fish and chips while you’re off doing that?” she suggested.
The gratitude in the look Niall sent her told her how worried he was. She wasn’t sure why, but evidently, there was more to the story than she knew.
There was a line at the caravan, and by the time they had waited through it and stood at the counter while Eamon cooked their food, Niall was back. A shake of his head was all the answer he needed to give, and Adam went pale as a ghost and quiet.
“Maybe he did just decide to go take a look at some potential sites on his own,” Meg said.
Adam shook his head. “He wouldn’t. He—”
Niall waited for him to finish whatever he’d meant to say, but Adam stared down at the ground. “He what, Adam?” Niall finally asked. “If you know something, now’s the time to tell us.”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t quite seem like nothing.”
“But it is! It’s stupid.”
“What is?”
“Forget it, will you? Just never mind.”
Niall raised his eyes to Meg’s as Eamon handed them their meals, and he was so clearly divided between desperation and exasperation that Meg imagined him and Adam snapping at each other again, not communicating, all the way back to the island and however long it took to figure things out. They’d made progress—she was sure they had—and she hated to think of that falling away again. She knew, too, how it felt not to be able to communicate, to feel like you were battering at a wall you couldn’t break through.
“If you’ll let me run by the Bay Point and grab some clothes, I’ll come back to the island with you. I can give you a hand looking for him—if you don’t mind letting me sleep on your couch afterward.”
“Or maybe you could keep Adam here?” Niall asked. “I hate to ask, but—”
“No!” Adam cried. “If you’re going to look for Kieran, I’m coming with you.”
“We’ve no idea what we’re dealing with, mate. More than likely, there’s nothing to it at all, and he’s back at the house already or soon will be. He knows better than to stay out with a storm like this approaching.”
If he’d meant to reassure anyone, he failed, and he knew it. But it helped Meg reach a decision. “Grab my dinner for me, would you?” she said to Adam. “I’ll see you in a couple minutes.”
She started back across the parking lot toward the Bay Point and Niall hurried after her and stopped her when they’d gotten out of Adam’s earshot. “Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?” he asked. “I don’t want to keep dragging you into our sordid mess.”
He rubbed his temple as if his head ached and his jaw was set. Studying him, Meg couldn’t help asking, “How worried are you, Niall? On a scale of one to ten.”
Niall rocked back on his heels. “I’d be less concerned if I didn’t have the sense that Adam was withholding something important. The worst of it is, if it turns out there is a real reason for worry, we may not be able to reach anyone who could help us until morning. So if you really wouldn’t mind coming back over to give me a hand with Adam, I’d be grateful.”
There had been so many moments of late where Meg had wanted to offer physical comfort to someone, to pull someone into her arms and just hold them. Although words were her stock in trade, they so often didn’t seem to be enough. Still, the power of human touch, so desperately needed, could too easily be devalued or mistaken. Standing in a parking lot, in view of Adam and everyone in the world, wasn’t the right moment anyway.
As if he’d felt some of what she felt, Niall reached out and caught her hand. Just that. Lacing his fingers through hers, he lifted her hand to his lips then held it there a moment, wordlessly, before letting go.
Sometimes, Meg thought, a gesture was worth a thousand words.
Revisions
“The curves of your lips rewrite history.”
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray

Ailsa cameron felt like a fool talking through the door when Meg knocked. But she couldn’t bear having her daughter look at her. Pity was the cruelest of emotions. In its name, the recipient was stripped of all respect and human dignity and expected to be grateful for being shown kindness. Hatred, anger, jealousy—those were at least honest feelings when you met them face to face, and they were bearable.
Ailsa leaned back against the door. “Go away, Margaret. I told you I don’t want to talk. You can’t browbeat me into it.”
“Please let me in, Mom.”
“No. I’m going to bed with a book to forget how rude you’ve been.”
There was a pause outside, and Ailsa held her breath, hoping that, for once, Meg would accept words at face value and leave well enough alone. Leave her alone.
“I came to tell you that I’ll stay if you want me,” Meg said after a moment, “but if you don’t, if you really don’t, then I’m going back across with Niall. Kieran’s taken off somewhere, and Niall may need help with Adam. With the storm coming in, that means I won’t be able to get back until tomorrow. Will you mind?”
Ailsa shouldn’t have minded. She tried to tell herself she didn’t. That was the thing about choices, though: sometimes Ailsa felt as if she’d spent her entire life second-guessing every one she had ever made.
“Do whatever you like,” she said, “but just remember I told you not to get involved.”
“That’s great, Mom. An I-told-you-so before the fact.” Meg sighed. “Look, I’m asking what you need . What can I do for you?”
“I don’t need anything. Did I say I did? Go do whatever you’re going to do, and don’t give me another thought,” Ailsa said, looking at the wide stretch of blue carpet in the empty room and the neatly made double bed.
“You could come with us. Give us a hand.” Meg’s voice was hesitant.
“Why would I do that?” Ailsa’s fingernails curled into her palms. “I’ve already told you I’m getting a headache and want an early night.”
There was another brief silence. “Can I get you some water? A glass of wine? Something to eat?”
Ailsa tipped her head against the flat plane of the door and closed her eyes. “A bit less back and forth would be welcome.”
Meg was silent so long this time that Ailsa began to wonder if she had left. But eventually Meg said, “Fine. Good. Good night, Mom. I hope you feel better.”
Ailsa opened her eyes, and the etched glass globe of the overhead fixture fractured into damp rays of yellow light. “I love you,” she whispered. Then she made herself repeat it louder: “Good night, Margaret. I love you.”
But Meg had already gone, and Ailsa stood at the door for a long time, hating the silence and the filter in her brain that somehow always made it impossible to say what needed to be said.
Maybe she should have paid more attention in church when she was younger, she decided. Or maybe someone should have mentioned that the conscience lived in the silences of a life, filling them with memories and regrets until one became desperate to drown them out.
Without silence, Ailsa could always pretend that things were fine. Good, even. Then without warning, in the silence when she was alone, her choices all swept in to haunt her, and she became afraid that she would always be alone, that the silence would grow louder and louder and louder every empty day.
Briefly, she considered opening the door and running after Meg, saying she’d go with her. But if she couldn’t bear pity from strangers, the thought of having to see it in her own daughter’s eyes was more than she could bear.
Pushing herself away from the door, she strode to the closet and threw it open. She’d over-packed as usual, but that, too, was good. She found what she was looking for: the royal blue dress with a gathered waist and a deep V-neck—the one that showed off all her best features and hid what needed to be hidden. She laid it down on the bed and went into the bathroom to start her shower.
If Meg didn’t want her company, there were other people who did. She’d go have a good time with the other volunteers. Dinner and some wine and a bit of music. She’d soon feel better.
She’d feel great, and she’d forget.
Illumination
“The light of lights looks always
on the motive, not the deed.”
W.B. Y EATS

Kieran still wasn’t at the house, or the cottage lab in the village, or the dig site, or Kilmichael. Having fanned out to search, Meg, Niall, Adam, and the dig staff eventually gathered back in Niall’s kitchen. Adam curled himself into his usual chair by the window, and Meg, concerned about how quiet he’d gotten, sat down beside him.
Outside, the rain at the front edge of the storm was already coming down, driven almost sideways by the shearing wind. It was a warm rain, though, not unpleasant, and they’d all brought the scent of it in on their clothes as Gemma, obviously in need of something to do with her hands, bustled around making tea. James and Liam opted for whiskey instead, and while Liam took slow sips, James knocked his back in a single gulp and poured himself another shot from the bottle Niall had set down on the table.
“All right. Let’s approach this with a bit of logic. When was the last time anyone saw him?” Standing beside the door, Niall leaned back against the wall.
Gemma and Liam exchanged a glance, then Liam shrugged and left Gemma to answer. “This morning.” She turned with the kettle in her hand and poured hot water into the chipped ceramic pot she’d already prepared with bags of Twinings tea. “Liam and I left about eight o’clock for the dig site. James was just ahead of us on the road.”
“Did Kieran say anything in particular?”
“I wasn’t in the mood to be friendly, to be honest,” Gemma said.
“So you didn’t have any meaningful conversation?” Niall asked.
“Well, we didn’t talk to him as such,” Liam said. “He was still in the shower when we left the house. Maybe I should have shouted out we were leaving.”
“Why?” Gemma spun toward him, red curls and temper swirling around her face. “No point feeling guilty just because he’s gone off sulking somewhere.”
“Talking to him, or trying to anyway, would have been the civil thing.”
“Revisionist,” Gemma snorted.
Niall turned to James. “What about you?”
“Me?” James had settled himself in the chair by the window and sat hunched over his half-empty glass like a hen brooding over a secret egg. He threw Niall a look through narrowed eyes and quickly looked away again. “Kieran woke me up with all his stomping around, and I saw I’d overslept so I legged it into the bath while he was getting his coffee—I’d have had to wait twenty minutes otherwise, and he’d have used up all the hot water as usual. But he never said a word when he came back upstairs. I was making the bed, and he went in to get his shower. Then I grabbed a protein bar and left.”
“So you didn’t see how he was dressed?” Niall asked. “None of you? Could you tell what clothes might be missing if we had a peek through his things?”
“He’d skin us alive if we tried,” Liam said.
“Not that it would help. He lives like a pig and expects everyone to clean up after him.” James frowned down into the amber whiskey, his cheeks flushed and his eyes as clouded as the storm beyond the window. His voice had a ragged edge, and Meg decided that her mother’s assessment of James must have been wrong after all. There were iceberg levels to him below the surface, the deep reserves of emotion that made people fascinating and unpredictable. “It’ll be what Gemma says anyway,” he continued more evenly. “He’ll have gone off to sulk somewhere hoping we’ll get worried. His way of punishing us for the fact that he embarrassed himself.”
“You didn’t talk all that through last night?” Meg asked.
“With Kieran? You’re joking?” Gemma snorted. “His highness never bothered coming down. Just stomped around upstairs, drunk and ranting.”
Meg turned to James. “What about you? You must have said something to each other.”
“Not really.” James gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “He tried to bite my head off when I went up, so I took a walk until I was tired. And of course he didn’t apologize.”
“Well, he wouldn’t,” Gemma said. “Never does.”
“Do you even hear yourselves? The lot of you?” Adam jumped up and his chair fell back against the wall. “None of you ever gave him half a chance.”
Niall shook his head in warning. “Adam—”
“No, hold on.” Meg caught Adam’s arm before he could stomp out of the kitchen. “Adam, what did you mean by that?”
Adam’s face went red, and he glared down at the gray tiles on the kitchen floor. “No one ever listened to him. He tried to tell you things—he kept trying to tell you—and no one listened.”
His voice had gone hollow and quiet, and even before he’d finished speaking Gemma and James had started grumbling again, but over Adam’s head, Niall’s eyes met Meg’s. She saw the understanding hit him, sink in, and leave him shaken. But the kitchen full of people wasn’t the place for words, and Niall seemed to know that, too. He peeled himself off the wall, ruffled Adam’s hair, and then pulled him into a one-armed embrace, a fierce one, and dropped a kiss into Adam’s hair.
