“What do you propose? You’ve hired security for me — thank you by the way.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You want to live in the back-shack or something?”
He looked everywhere but at me, then nodded. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” He joked, “I mean, I’ll have to air it out after Torin was living there, but yeah, I’ll set up down there. Until we know that you’re safe.”
I nodded. “Okay, yeah, I agree, I would feel a lot safer. Thank you.”
He nodded sadly and looked down at his feet. His face screwed up and his nose reddened and then he grimaced, beginning to cry. I hadn’t known him to cry before, it was shocking and I faltered for a moment.
“Aw, Cooper, I’m sorry.”
He struggled to recollect himself. “I know, I didn’t mean to, it’s just been alotof crap ass failures this week.”
“Not really failures, maybe just setbacks. You’re notsurprisedby my ending us, right? Notreally.”
“I’m not surprised, no. Doesn’t mean I accept it.”
He grabbed a kitchen towel from the drawer and wiped his face brusquely. He tossed it down. “I’m going to move into the back-shack, need anything to eat? Hungry?” He was back to not looking at me.
“No thanks, but I am tired, I probably need to lie down.”
I satin the living room, dozing on and off, with Dude curled up by my feet, listening to Cooper traipse up and down the stairs tothe bedroom. The sounds of moving made me feel melancholy and a little depressed. Maybe I wasn’t entirely sure if I was making the right decision. I had upended my life,why… just because I had time traveled?
Because a man named Torin had been charming?
It had been two days and already the memory of being in the past was growing hazy. I wondered if it was even true. Had I been in the sixteenth century? In Scotland, truly?
The food, the inn, the tastes and smells, the flickering glow of the candle flames, and peat burning in a hearth, it all seemed like a dream. Like the dream I had been having of the little girl in the house, being taken away. It was not a distinct memory. When memories were carved into our minds in familiar places around known faces, they are crisp and fresh, but these were hazy, as if the backgrounds were out of focus.
It was easy to dismiss it as crazy.
I could, if I were strict with myself, force myself to believe it was fake. Maybe it had been a fever dream?
I had been really sick.
If I talked to a therapist they would likely tell me, ‘yes, my imagination, my fever, had concocted a fake reality,’ and that would be far more believable than that I had time traveled.
Time travel didn’t exist. But the alternative, that I had beenthatsick,thatdelusional, well, that would make mereallyunhinged.
But…
Dude got up and began poking and prodding his paws on my legs, trying to get comfortable.
I said, “Dude, are you still trying to sleep off our adventure?”
He trilled.
“It was a lot, right? But it was true, right? We were in the past, on horseback, you were there, I was there.”
He meowed, then circled and plopped down to go back to sleep.
I put my head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. All these ephemeral dreamlike memories were interspersed with Torin. My memory of him was firm, clear, and solid as the granite mountains that we had crossed by horse.
The edge of his mouth, close to mine, his breath warm on my cheek, as he pledged his oath; his lashes down as he prayed at my bedside; his big strong hands holding the reins, his arms resting on my thighs; his strong muscular legs alongside mine as we rode through Scotland. He was close, real, his breathing in my ear, his heartbeat timed to mine as he held me through the night.
I missed him so much.
