Twenty-Four
KENDRA SATwhile Trick poured himself a shot of whisky. He dropped onto the other chair and threw back a gulp. Setting the glass on the table between them, he lifted the letter.
Kendra watched him worry the seal with his long fingers. “Open it,” she suggested.
“Not just yet.” He turned it over and stared at his name written on the back.
“What is it?” Wondering why he seemed so pensive, she hitched herself forward and frowned at the parchment. “Do you know who it’s from?”
He looked up at her, his face set in unfamiliar lines. Not teasing, not angry, not thoughtful, not seductive—not any emotion she’d seen there before. Not even evasive—another all-too-common mood she was learning to distinguish.
“It’s from my mother,” he said softly. “After all these years, I still recognize her hand.” He blinked, then suddenly thrust the letter at Kendra. “Here. You read it.”
She nearly dropped it, but caught it in time. “No,” she protested. “It’s addressed to you.”
“I’ll listen. Then I willnae hear her voice, but yours.”
Her heart ached at the pain in his tone, at the telltale Scottish word that had slipped into his careful English speech.
“Read it, please.” He slumped down in the chair and took a long sip of spirits, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
She smoothed the parchment against her skirt and slipped a fingernail under the seal. When it lifted off with a little snapping sound, Trick winced.
“Go ahead,” he said huskily.
The paper crackled as she opened it and held it to catch the light from the window. “Her writing is beautiful,” she said.
He said nothing.
She took a deep breath. “‘My dear Patrick Iain,’” she read. “‘My heart is heavy with sorrow for all the years we’ve been apart. Now I am dying, and it is my fondest wish to gaze upon your beloved face once more. Though I know you’re a man grown, my bonnie lad you’ll always be. Come to me, Patrick, come make an old woman smile as she greets the next world. With all the love in my heart, Mam.’”
Silence. Kendra took one long breath, two…three.
Trick opened his eyes and sipped slowly from his glass.
“Can I go with you?” she asked.
“Where?” He shifted to face her. “You don’t think I’ll go to her, do you?”
“You must!”
“She cannot ignore me for eighteen years and then expect me to jump to her command.”
“She’s dying, Trick.”
He shrugged.
“You must make your peace. It’s your only chance.”
“I don’t care to give her the satisfaction.”
“It’s your own satisfaction at stake here. If you fail to go now, you’ll always wonder. Always. Go to her and find your answers, before it’s too late. Close your heart if you must, but go. Say good-bye.”
He drained the glass and rolled it between his palms. “You think yourself wise for your years.”
“I didn’t get to say good-bye.” The letter crackled as she folded it and set it on the table. “In my dreams, awake and sleeping, I’ve accused my parents of leaving me and I’ve told them I loved them. I’ve been angry at them, and sad. But face-to-face, I never got to say anything.”
He took a deep breath, and the crystal stilled between his hands.
