I sat on the edge of his bed, watching him. The anger radiated off him in waves—grief turned outward because he didn’t know what else to do with it. “Brody says you told him to bugger off.”
“Brody’s annoying.” He threw a pair of jeans into the suitcase with enough force that it bounced out again. “He wants to schedule everything.”
“He’s trying to help. In his way.”
Alec finally looked at me, his eyes blazing with an anger that was really fear, really pain, really a nine-year-old boy who’d lost his mother and didn’t understand why the world kept taking things from him. “I don’t want his help. I don’t want to go to stupid California. I don’t want any of this!”
“Alec—”
“Why are you doing this to us?” His voice rose, raw with emotion he couldn’t contain. “Why are you making me leave Mum’s grave? Leave my friends? Miss the end of term? It’s not fair!”
The accusation landed hard, as it was meant to. Of course he’d frame it that way—that I was making him leave Shannon behind. As if that wasn’t exactly what I was terrified of too.
“This move is about work,” I said, falling back on the explanation I’d been giving everyone—the board, Mrs. Kowalski, myself in the mirror each morning. “MIRI is expanding to the West Coast. It’s a significant opportunity, not just for the company but for all of us. The schools in San Jose are some of the best in California. You’ll have opportunities there you wouldn’t have here.”
“I don’t care about opportunities,” Alec said, his voice cracking in that way that happens when boys are trying not to cry. “I care about Mum. Her headstone is here. Her memory is here. You’re trying to make us forget her!”
“That’s not true.” I reached for him, but he jerked away like I’d struck him. “Alec, I would never?—”
“You never talk about her anymore!” The words burst out of him like they’d been building pressure for months. “It’s like she never existed. Like you’re just... forgetting her. Moving on.”
He was wrong. That wasn’t what I was doing. Moving on. Forgetting Shannon.
Was it?
“Your mother will always be a part of this family,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady, authoritative—the voice of a father who knows what he’s doing, not a man who’s barelyholding himself together. “Moving to California doesn’t change that.”
“Then why?” Alec’s eyes narrowed with suspicion beyond his years. “Why California? Why now?” His gaze sharpened, too perceptive for comfort.
“I told you,” I said, perhaps too quickly. “It’s for work. For your futures. Think of it as an adventure.”
“It’s not an adventure. It’s running away.” He turned back to his packing, shoulders rigid with accusation. “You just want to forget about Mum. Well, I won’t. I’ll never forget her.”
“Alec—”
“Just leave me alone.”
I stood, recognizing a mission impossible when I saw it. Some battles couldn’t be won with words, only with time and consistent presence. “All right, son,” I said. “We’re leaving on Saturday. I know you’re not happy about it, but I need you to be ready, aye?”
He didn’t respond. I left his room, closing the door quietly behind me, and leaned against the wall in the hallway, eyes closed.
Am I making a terrible mistake?
The truth was complicated, as truth usually was.
I pushed off from the wall and headed downstairs. Still tons to get done before Saturday. The movers needed directions. The twins were probably destroying their room instead of packing it. Eoin would try to “help” in ways that would inevitably create more work. And Maggie—God, Maggie was still so young, noteven two yet. She’d never remember Scotland, and would grow up thinking of California as home.
Only if we stayed for more than a year, of course.
But the thought gave me pause at the foot of the grand staircase.
Home. What did that even mean anymore?
Home had been this castle, yes, but more than that, home had been Shannon. Her laugh bouncing off these stone walls. Her hand in mine as we walked the grounds. Her body next to mine in our bed, her breath on my shoulder in the dark.
Without her, this place was just... a building. Beautiful, historic, full of McCrae legacy stretching back to the 1500s. But hollow at its core.
Maybe that was why leaving didn’t feel as wrong as it should. Maybe part of me recognized that I’d already lost home when I lost her.
