Georgina was waiting for Eachann when he came in. She was sitting in a chair in the shadowed corner of the room. She watched him for a moment.
He paced the room like a caged animal, then stopped and stared at the fire. After a minute he sat down in a chair and leaned his head back. He had his hand on his forehead. He was rubbing his temples.
He didn’t look happy. He looked agitated. And what she was going to say to him was going to make things worse. It had been this way almost every day. They couldn’t be around each other without one of them getting angry.
“Eachann.” She stood up.
He looked up from his chair, startled.
“I need to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“Your children are completely undisciplined and rowdy. Their behavior is beginning to turn mean. You have to do something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. You’re their father.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know anything about children.”
“You can’t control them by running away or shoving them off on someone else.”
“They scare the hell out of me, George.”
She knew how hard that was for him to admit. He was a proud man.
“What was your father like?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember. I don’t know how to be a father. I can’t be something I don’t know how to be.”
“Why not? Did you always know how to be a brother to Calum? Were you born knowing how to raise horses? You can raise horses but you can’t raise your own children?”
“I know I let them run wild. But I don’t know how else to show I care for them.”
“Did you know how to be husband?”
“No,” he said almost too quietly. “Maybe I was afraid to be a father to them. I just didn’t have anything to give anyone after their mother died.” He took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling. “I know that’s selfish, but it’s true.”
“You need to get to know your children. If you paid any attention to them at all they wouldn’t be doing all this.”
He sat there with his head back, staring at the ceiling as if he were searching for something he’d lost. “Sibeal was so good with them. I never had to do anything. She did everything. She had wanted to do it all. Even when they weren’t babies anymore.” He looked at her then. “They were more hers than mine.”
“But she’s not here for them anymore. All they have is you. I know you care about them. I can see it in your face when you look at them. I saw the haunted look in your eyes when you pulled us from the water that first night. You care. But if you love them, you have to become part of their lives. You have to learn to discipline them. You need to find some way to show these children that you love them.”
He sat there for the longest time, thinking and not speaking. He shook his head, then looked at her. “Sometimes, George, when Kirsty looks up at me like I’m some god, I want to run as fast as I can. I’m no god. I’m a man and not even a good father.”
“You can’t be anything to them if you don’t get to know them. She’s just a scared little girl. She lost her mother. You don’t pay any attention to her unless she does something wrong and lately not even then. You need to spend time with your son and your daughter. You need to learn who they are.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he gave a cynical laugh. “I think I know who they are. Little heathens who would paint my face blue and put lobsters in my bed.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
