“Not happening.”
“Aye, thought not. Worth a shot, though.”
Silence returns, broken only by the lap of water against the hull. Through the glass, I watch the last stragglers vanish into the village, heading home or to visit family or to explore the island’s walking trails. Twice a day, five days a week, I bring folk here. And every time I sit in this spot, staring at the island I grew up on. The island I can’t set foot on. Too many ghosts in those streets.
I drag in a breath, shove the thought away. And of course my mind goes straight to something just as unwelcome: the gap in those bloody curtains last night. A flash of skin. Blair’s?—
Christ. Not again.
I scrub a hand over my face, but it doesn’t help. I need to get a grip.
The front door clicks shut behind me, and Gus is there in an instant, his whole backside wagging with the force of his tail. I crouch to give him a proper scratch behind the ears.
“Hi, Gus. Good to see you, lad.”
“Da!” Finn appears at a run, nearly bowling me over with the force of his hug. “You’re home!”
“Aye, I’m home.” I ruffle his hair, and for a second my shoulders drop, the day’s weight easing.
Then Finn says, “Da, Blair started writing a story!” And the tension returns because of course we’re not alone.
“It’s a proper one, like the books we read, but she’s making it up herself.” Finn tugs my hand. “C’mon!”
He leads me through to the living room, where Blair’s straightening cushions. She glances up with a smile that’s maybe just a touch too bright, and the awkwardness rushes back in.
“Hi! How was your day?”
“Fine. Much the same as always.”
“Oh. Well, we had the best day, didn’t we, Finn?”
He nods eagerly, practically vibrating with excitement. “Blair’s story is calledThe Otter and the Boy. I drew a picture of the otter. Want to see, Da?”
“Course I do.”
So he drags me to the coffee table, where there’s a crayon drawing—a stick figure boy standing beside a brown blob. Not sure I’d have been able to identify it as an otter if he hadn’t told me, but it’s Finn’s, and that makes it perfect.
“This is great, Finn.”
“Tell Da about the story,” Finn says to Blair.
Blair laughs, and the sound does something warm and unwelcome in my chest. “It’s about a boy who finds a young otter caught in a fishing net on the beach. The otter’s weak and can’t hunt properly, so the boy has to help him—bring him food, keep him safe. But here’s the thing: the otter only comes out for the boy. When his dad comes down to the shore, the otter hides. So the dad doesn’t even know if the otter’s real or if his son’s making it all up.”
Finn nods seriously. “The boy has to take care of the otter all by himself.”
“Sounds like a good story,” I say, and I mean it.
She’s brilliant with him. Patient and creative and exactly what he needs. So why can’t I just leave it at that, instead of replaying last night on a loop? It was only a moment—a few seconds at most—and yet I’ve spent every bloody hour since thinking about it.
I should join in, ask more about the story, keep the conversation going. Instead I feel hot under the collar for no good reason. Idiot.
“Back in a sec. Need some water.”
I escape to the kitchen, but before I can fill a glass, my gaze catches on a laundry basket by the back door. Blair’s washing, neatly folded, ready to be carried back to the granny flat.
I shouldn’t look.
I look anyway.
